I've Got My Eyes On You

The Employee Activity Committee (EAC) at work decided to host a pumpkin decorating contest this year, so of course I had to give it a go! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays as an October baby.

My idea started out as a pysansky pumpkin, so I laid out the pattern for the top and the bottom. When I colored it in with black, it kept looking more and more like the hair line of a classic Frankenstein cartoon. I decided to run with that, but had already laid the ground work for the many framed art pieces, which shortly turned into a variety of different colored and styled eyes including: the Eye of Sauron, a bloodshot gold eye, a Targaryan eye, a zombie eye, a pupula duplex eye, a gold Twilight vampire eye, and Godzilla's lizard eye, complete with mushroom cloud accent in the pupil.

Overall, super satisfied with the project! (And thanks to illumination for the painting skills.)

Bloodshot. Sauron.

Twilight. Pupula Duplex.

Ice zombie, House Targaryan.

White walker, Gozilla.

Pennsic War 44 Class I Took

1. Anglo-Saxon Context: Franks Carolingia Merovingia - Very interesting series.
2. Anglo-Saxon Context: Scandinavia "Vikings" - Ibid.
3. Anglo-Saxon Context: The Normans - Ibid. I actually got up at 9 AM for all three of these!
4. Are You Wearing a Tablecloth? Greek Clothing - From what I remember, I liked it.
5. Baba Yaga, the Arch Villainess of Russian Folklore - Exceptionally fun and educational class. The mythos behind the Rus folklore makes me really wish I could read it!
6. Beautiful Neckline Finishing- Tricks and hints on how to finish necklines. (Start sewing!)
7. Fit Your Neck Hole: Keyhole Neck - Had to jet in this class. Teacher was good though!
8. German Saxon Gown - Mistress Cerridwen hath inspired me to make a monstrosity. Someday!
9. Ghirlandaio Girl: Intro to 1480's Florentine Dress - Well attended and excellent handouts.
10. Let's Be Frank: Improving your Caroligian Persona - Good class, male teacher, Frankish clothes. Simplicity and complexity all at the same time! Makes me wish I/we were earlier period.
11. Mozzarella, 30-Minute Process - Class was packed, but a good primer for cheese making.
12. Norse and Rus Women's Head Coverings - What can I say? Rannvaeig is a great teacher.
13. Norse Underdress Drafting: Basic Pieced Style - Good class. Super attended. 
14. Pilgrim's Bag - Excellent research materials, still need to make the bag!
15. Plagues of Europe: Really, There Was More Than One - Good history class.
16. Scandalously Practical: Italian Drawers - No what I expected, but useful.
17. Temple Rings and Tortoise Shell Brooches - See above. Rannvaeig is awesome.
18. The Orient Express: Did Byzantines wear Persian? - I really liked this class and the teacher was passionate about her subject matter.
19. Thorsberg Trousers: Pants that Last - Excellent class with a definite OOOOOH moment with the cut of the fabric actually mattering for stretch.
20. Zilbaldone da Canal: The Book of 14th Century Traders - Excellent history class.

There were a few more that I put on my list, but missed narrowly or only caught the tail end of as I spent a fair amount of time volunteering at A&S Point or teaching my own four classes. I can't wait to see what classes will be taught next year!

Pennsic 44 Classes

It seems like just yesterday I was posting about Pennsic 43, alas it's nearly Pennsic 44! Here is the docket of classes scheduled primarily during Peace Week, including a slight modification (and addition to) my Italian Dance for ECD, now English, Feet!

• 7/28 @ 10:00 AM - Italian Dance for English Feet: Anello, Fedelta
• 7/30 @ 12:00 PM - Italian Dance for English Feet: Contrapasso en Due
• 7/31 @ 10:00 AM - Italian Dance for English Feet: La Castellana
• 7/30 @ 4:00 PM - Whose Partner Am I Anyway?

Camp Decorations

I took on the task of creating new decorations for the summer encampment or Pennsic home of Furies Keep. I initially had the idea to create banners for each person's heraldry, but that idea was quickly dropped under a pressing deadline (NOWM in June) and it morphed into something more easily mass produced and gave the suggestion of the person's heraldry.

Ginevra

Gianna

For instance, my heraldry is Per fess indented flory at the points sable and argent so I took the field division, roughly half and half horizontally, and the colors, black and white), and created the representation of arms.

Ginevra's heraldry is Azure, a tower argent surmounted by a fess gules fimbriated charged with three fleurs-de-lys Or and represented the primary color area, or field, as blue with red and gold accents.

Here's a picture of them hanging in our main dining hall.

Camp heraldic banners in action!

Order of the Silver Oak - June 2015

The Order of the Silver Oak is an award given by the crown to those who have shown proficiency in the sciences or research. The recipients are known by their badge blazoned: Purpure, an oak tree blasted eradicated argent, fructed Or. This award is equal to the awards: Order of the Willow.

• Direct Link: Die Hausbucher, Landauer I
• Title: Amb. 279.2 ° Folio 69 verso (Landauer I), Wood Manufacturing
• Origin: Nuremberg Twelve Brothers

The Order of the Silver Oak was created on pergamenata with Windsor-Newton gouache and Speedball calligraphy ink using a C3 nib. The text reads as follows:

German: Lasset alle Anwesenden wissen, dass sowohl Arabella, königliche Schutzherrin der Wissenschaft und der künste, als auch Ragnvaldr, König des Reiches der Mitte, die Fertigkeiten und das Engagement von Meinhard Hammerschmidt für die Wiederbelebung der Gilde der Holzarbeiter in den Cleftlands und die Eröffnung seiner Holzwerkstatt anerkennen. Ebenfalls gewürdigit wird, dass er andere zu dieser Kunst ermutigt und seine jahrelange Erfahrung mit ihnen teilt. Von nun an soll er als Mitglied unseres Ordens der Silbernen Eiche angesehen werden. Wir erweisen ihm die Ehre das purpurfarbene Abzeichen der Strahlenden Eiche in reinem weiß mit goldenen Eicheln rechtmäßig und ohne Einschränkung durch andere zu tragen. Dies wurde durch uns beschlossen am sechsten Tage des Juni während der Nordeichen-Kreigszüge in unserer Grafschaft der Falkensteingrube. 

English: Let all present know that Arabella, Royal Patroness of the Sciences and Ragnvaldr, King of the Middle Kingdom wish to acknowledge the skills and dedication of Meinhard Hammerschmidt for rekindling the Guild of Woodworkers in the Cleftlands and for opening his woodshop to encourage and share his years of artistic experience with others. Henceforth, he shall be known as a Companion of our Order of the Silver Oak. We bestow upon him the right to bear the badge: Purpure, an oak tree blasted eradicated argent, fructed Or without let or hindrance from any person. Done by our hands this 6th day of June at Northern Oaken War Maneuvers in our Shire of Falcon's Quarry.

When I received this award assignment, I was particularly happy about it since Meinhard is bessere Hälfte. ;) I reached out to a co-worker in the Vienna office and asked him to translate the scroll text since Meinhard's persona is German. After a few back and forth emails and a consult with the co-workers daughter who spoke a little better English, we came up with a good approximate translation of the somewhat archaic flowery scroll text. How does one work on a scroll with a S.O. in the home? You knock the scroll out while they're at work when you work from home for a day, of course. ;)

Finished work.

Inspiration piece.

Throwing Shade

In all its glory...

Ginevra and I organize an annual bocce tournament at Northern Oaken War Maneuvers. In the past, we used a 10'x10' standard pop-up day shade that I lovingly painted with white nebuly (for Cleftlands) in the living room of my apartment. It served well for a number of years, but the paint used has begun to flake off and it was generally unappealing as a home base for something as auspicious as the Baroness' Bocce Tournament!

Fast forward to Red Dragon 2013 which hosted a day camp competition. I took a few pictures from the day of the setups that appealed the most and noticed that almost every picture was of (now) Mistress Genoveva von Lübeck setup and the simplicity of the canvas day shade and how great it looked.

Skip forward again and you land sometime in May of 2015. I've been working on the banner project for camp beautification at Pennsic and simply couldn't them all finished before NOWM where they were going to decorate the main pavilion. Whew! With that weight off my shoulder, I thought I could jam through another project on the back burner - a replacement day shade.

I had been speaking with Master Lorenzo Petrucci about his simple five pole day shade made out of a canvas tarp. Seemed simple enough, right? Five poles, some ropes, canvas and grommets. Easy! Except... I think even then I realized it probably wasn't what I want, especially knowing that there can be The Weather (TM) at NOWM, i.e. RAIN. I wish, nearly a year later, that I could remember the exact sequence of how it all came about, I just know it was all last minute.

Very. Last. Minute. (May 26, 2015 to be exact as I just confirmed my fabric order date!)

Mistress Genoveva posted Tutorial: Simple Canvas Dayshade for Events (with or without wings) on her blog at Honor Before Victory in June 2014. I had it on the radar for ages and the fire was lit.

• I order an industrial Singer sewing machine from Amazon. 
• I order 10 yards of 10.10 OZ (60") Sunforger® Tent Canvas - FIRE RETARDANT. 
• I call Panther to order a metal ridge sleeve and stakes.
• I call Panther back because I would like to order some dags so the day shade matches my tent.
• I call Panther AGAIN because I would like to order some of the colored braid.

Game on.

While I wait for the materials to arrive, Meinhard and I quickly build the infrastructure - four poles and the ridge pole. We created the four ropes out of 3/8" synthetic rope.  I think we applied stain and polyurethane stained them at NOWM. 

The final bits of material arrived by Tuesday, June 5 and that's when the chaos really began. I already have Wednesday through Friday off since that is the traditionally the start of event setup for the event, so I get right to work once the materials arrive.

I ordered 60" wide fabric so I wouldn't have to make as many flat felled seams, which in theory sounded amazing. In retrospect, I think I was unprepared for the bulk that would need to be rolled up and fit under the neck of the sewing machine. I attached the dag material from Panther on with a flat fell then used the black braid edging around the perimeter of the entire day shade. I measured out the locations for the reinforced fabric grommet patches and attached them. A final panicked call to Oliver Stillman for use of his behemoth grommet setter finished the project.

And then I go to NOWM on Thursday morning. (So this chaos all transpires in a 36 hour period.)

Why no in process pictures, you ask? Because I just didn't think about it with the time crunch! I ran in to a lot of sewing machine problems and the sheer weight of that much fabric pulling off the table. I could actually function and get some seams sewn when I called in help from Meinhard to simply support the weight so it would stop pulling on the needle.

TLDR> I made a day shade and it is awesome. :)

The new day shade at the almost-finished bocce list of Northern Oaken War Maneuvers.