Well, with another event about to take place, it's high time I wrote about Celtic Revolt last month in An Tir.  This is an excellent event, and as always, I had a great time.  We drove to Wealdsmere (Spokane, WA area) on Friday the 26th and got to site in late afternoon with time to set up camp and relax before it got dark.  Our household had a great spot, and it was fun to get everyone together again on the second anniversary of the Cavalry's formation.  The event was an army-style competition, with teams competing for points in a variety of activities.  I really enjoy this setup, because it always seems to get people participating in ways they normally wouldn't.

The event itself was packed with fun activities.  Saturday was hot and sunny, and Duchess Clare and I spent a good chunk of time keeping the lists for rapier, heavy, and youth combat, which mostly kept us in the shade and entertained us.  We also wound up supervising a pack of extremely enthusiastic children who volunteered as water-bearers but spent a lot of time squirting each other, eating the pickles and oranges, and generally being unattended kids.  After the fighting was done, we all took part in the dancing held on the dusty fighting field (pro tip: if you offer war points for dancing, especially double war points, EVERYONE will show up.  There must have been at least 50 of us!).  A great photographer came to the event to take photos (Adventure Bound Media, check them out!), and you can see one below with me, my husband, Master Gomez, and a bunch of our friends getting ready to dance.

The evening was full of socializing and a welcome break from the heat.  I admit to turning in fairly early each night of this event.  Once it gets dark and chilly and people are drunk (and you can't be one of them) I tend to get bored.  I'd rather be in bed with a flashlight and a book, or just catching up on sleep since I'm terrible at sleeping in, especially camping, especially at an event full of unattended feral children (look, don't get me wrong, I like kids.  What I don't like is parents who aren't responsible about their kids.  The SCA is clear.  Under 12 years old, they need to be within sight and sound of a parent AT ALL TIMES.  This isn't daycare).  I am still trying to forget finding a tick in our bed that night, but it was the only one I saw all weekend, and neither of us got bitten, thank goodness.

Sunday was cooler, and I enjoyed helping run the populace choice Arts & Sciences competition and watching the war scenarios and various melees.  There was also a fair bit of napping and crafty time, as usual, and then a nice household dinner to round out the day.  Our group also enjoyed attending the medieval pub trivia competition that evening, along with Viking prom and medieval celebrity dress-up contest.  My excellent husband, who stepped down as Wealdsmere's bardic champion at court that evening and was enjoying his freedom, wound up being named their new Baronial Arts & Sciences champion, which was no surprise to me.  His Norse mead and Oseburg backpack recreation were very well received.  He sweetly bestowed his prizes on me, a new ceramic cup (I have lost my favorite somewhere this event season and have been using an old one with a chip in it all summer) and a lovely necklace.  What a guy. 

Our household team also tied for winning the war competition overall, and split the booty with the Ship's Crew folks who were the other main contenders.  There was a lot of good loot in there, but I just took candy for my share. ;)

We packed up and hit the road home by 11 Monday morning, and came home, as usual after events, sunburnt, dirty, exhausted, and full of stories.

Gomez, moi, and my husband (all facing camera) ready to dance.  Photo: Adventure Bound Media

Waiting for dinner!  Photo: Nicole Scofield

About a month ago our Barony held a banner-making day to help members display their heraldry at the upcoming Artemisia Twenty Year event.  I made a banner several years ago, but have since changed my arms a bit, learned a bit more about banners in period, and picked a motto I like, which is a customary addition to devices in these parts once one becomes an armiger.  The motto is a French saying (appropriate for my Norman persona, eh?), bien faire et laisser dire, which means "do good works and let them talk."  Good, eh?  I think it's a good fit for my personality.  I'd rather roll my sleeves up and get to work on what interests me, and leave the gossip/drama/idle chatter to others.

Mistress Gilliana and Master Braden from our local group have a pretty good system ironed out for silk banners.  We use the 20x72 inch silk scarves from Dharma Trading Co., along with their gutta and acid dyes.  Participants sign up ahead of time and pay for the scarf to use and chip in on dye that we all share.  They own probably eight frames (built from 1x1s, corner brackets, and small nails), and the other supplies needed.  There's a lot of good info and discussion on the process on the Stayner de Silk Facebook group for interested folks.  

I cheated a bit by printing out large black and white images of the bear, garlic flowers, and crenellation from my device, along with a typed out version of my motto in a period-looking font, then traced them onto the banner in pencil ahead of the actual painting session.  The silk is then stretched on a frame and gutta is used as a resist to trace outlines and prevent dye from bleeding.  The gutta is left to dry, and afterwards the dyes are painted on.  We always do these sessions on nice dry sunny days so the gutta and dye will dry well, but that creates an issue when filling in large areas.  If the dye's leading edge is allowed to dry, it creates a line in the finished colored section that's impossible to fix.  This is annoying, and inevitable, even when working in teams.

I've since learned it's possible to avoid this by wetting the scarf (after gutta has dried) with a mix of rubbing alcohol and water, the same solvent used to dilute the dyes.  You can even carry a spray bottle with this mix in it to keep the scarf wet while working.  Oh well.  Live and learn.

Anway, the scarves are then rolled in paper to prevent bleeding, steamed to set the dye, and rinsed.  Here's a few images of my banner before steaming.  Can't wait to get it up in the air and fluttering!  You'll notice I didn't bother with the more traditional/historic practice of including kingdom/baronial/household affiliations and award insignia.  I did this on my last banner, but I wanted one that was just all about Ursula!

Note: the white strips at this end will actually be cut out, leaving three tails at the end to flutter in the breeze.  You can really see the lines in the dye I was writing about above.  They aren't a big deal, but they do annoy my perfectionist nature, as do the little drips/bleeds that always seem to happen.

Another month, another blog post!  At least I'm settling into a bit of a routine, but it's a far cry from my weekly posts last year.  In any case, it's been a few weeks since our Barony's annual spring event, and I have lots to share.

First, I'll say that we were not chosen to be the next Baron and Baroness.   Though it's never fun to lose, it's a relief to know I won't have to find out what it's like to be a first-time mom and a landed Baroness at the same time.  Our friends who won will do a great job.  Since I wasn't going to have to step up, I decided to renew my warrant as Baronial Chronicler for another two years.  It's a fun and relatively painless job that I'm good at, so why not?

The site was a park in nearby Mountain Home, ID, and in true Mountain Home fashion the wind blew all day long.  I had fun helping out with the heavy fighting championship.  The combatants held a large mug full of water in their off hands, and gained points both for winning the bout and for having the most water in their cup at the end.  I was head refiller of cups, which was great entertainment. 

I also competed in our Baronial Arts and Sciences championship.  My three entries were a loaf of my ale barm bread  with spent grains (with more info and updated documentation), a tablet woven belt based on the Snartemo II find, and a demonstration of period spinning techniques based on my research and practice shared on this blog.  Rather than rehash details of the projects themselves, I'll just share my documentation (see below).  If you look through it, use it, have questions or feedback, etc. please drop me a comment or email and let me know!

The Baroness held a competition for her personal champion, asking people to create and model a belt, garters, or a codpiece for the competition, so I was able to enter my belt for that as well.  The fashion show was pretty hilarious to behold, and nobody was surprised when Lady (soon to be Baroness) Merin won with a gleaming brass-plated brayette (think late-period groin protection worn on the outside) with a beautiful epousse weasel from her device on it.  

The competition for A&S champion was stiff.  There were three of us, and my friends Lord Ambrose and Lady Britta had some wonderful entries.  I really didn't feel like my work was going to win, but amazingly, it did, and I was named Arn Hold A&S Champion for the coming year.  I look forward to enabling other people's projects and sharing my work with the group!  Note to self: get a picture of the lovely scroll to share here.

My husband and I were also honored to be awarded with a relatively unknown baronial award, the Order of the Unicorn Meadow, created in memorial to a former populace member.  The award is given for research and skill in a particular aspect of the Arts and Sciences.  It was a real honor to receive this recognition, and to learn more about Lady Teckla of Unicorn Meadow herself.  The scrolls, created by our friend Lady Britta, were so beautiful and thoughtfully made that I have to share them here.  Recognize us?  She captured me perfectly, right down to the infamous teal and orange bliaut I love to wear. The picture of my husband, Lord Aonghus, is based on one he's always liked from the Silos Beatus Codex, and she even managed to incorporate parts of our devices and symbols of our arts.  

All in all a lovely blustery day, despite the abrupt tear-down in the storm that struck right as we were in closing court.

My belt, since there's no image of it in my documentation.

+6Well!  This one has been brewing since December when I finished this hat.  Our household has an annual winter solstice gift exchange/party and this year I drew our beloved leader, Master Killian.  His persona is late period, and he presented me with an opportunity to make something I'd had on my list of things to try for a while, a knitted and fulled flat cap.

I've been making berets and Scottish bonnets for a number of years, mostly for reenactors in the Jacobite/French & Indian War/Revolutionary War circles, so I had some experience with making fulled caps, which turned out to be a good thing because the only online pattern I found that looked viable turned out to seem needlessly complicated to me.  Not having had the chance to examine an actual period cap myself, I decided to use my Scottish bonnet pattern as a staring point.  In the future I'd love to do a bit more research about if these caps were knitted top-down or bottom-up, how they were cast on and bound off, etc.  Some of those variables are impossible to sort out, so we just have to do what we can.  Others are probably only discernible from examining physical objects.

In any case, I based the shape and look of the cap on this one from the British Museum, though I did not copy the 11 stitches per inch gauge of the original, opting for a worsted weight yarn that's probably closer to 6-8 stitches per inch when fulled.  This makes for a warmer and more waterproof cap, which can come in handy in our neck of the woods.

Because I designed the pattern myself, I decided to offer it for sale through my Etsy and Ravelry shops to the general public, but I've given it to several SCA folk who are interested in historical knitting, and would be happy to share with any blog reader who's interested in giving it a try, in the spirit of free and open exchange of info.  If you'd like a copy, use the contact me link above, or email me at ursula@destrattone.com and I'll send it to you free of charge.  I'd love to see photos and hear your feedback!

For now, though, here is a picture of the finished item, and a few photos of Master Killian himself modeling it.  Thank you to my husband, Lord Aonghus, for the photos, and to Master Killian for excellent modeling skills.