100 Days of SCA Service

I began the 100 Days of SCA Service challenge with low expectation of actually being able to complete it. After all, I don't do heraldic consultations every day. There's only so much commenting to be done in OSCAR. Archery season is over for the year, so I'm not marshaling. How would I come up with something to do every single day?

Making largesse became the glaringly obvious answer. Hats, medallion cords, pouches, balls for the toy chest, wire-wrapped rings. Quick and easy projects--just one a day has left me with quite a stash to donate to barony/kingdom in the coming months.

Day 100 is next Tuesday. I can't believe I've made it!

Catch Up Post

As you may already know, my old laptop crashed last August. With it went all my research and documentation, and in many cases, my photos of projects in progress. As a result, nothing I worked on for a good eight months got documented here. This post is a quick-and-dirty attempt to correct that. The Evil Eye Quest has already received its own post, of course, but here is a smattering of what else I have been up to.

Dad's Christmas Gift

My love of heraldry began long before I discovered the SCA. We had a stained glass window in our house when I was a kid that was the Dillon coat of arms. Are we actually *that* Dillon family? I don't really know. But I have a fondness for the coat of arms nonetheless, and I know it is meaningful to my father. Therefore, for Christmas, I decided to make Dad a blackjack with the arms tooled and painted on.

Before and after vinegaroon.

This project also gave me the opportunity to try out vinegaroon, which I had taken a class on at Pennsic, to make the leather black instead of brown. A jug of vinegar, a bunch of steel wool, and two months later, a test piece of leather revealed that it did, in fact, make a delightful black shade.

I knew before I even started that that lion was going to put my artistic abilities to the test. As I did with the dragon on Fina's mug, I decided to only paint Dad's lion rather than tooling it. Somehow, foolishly, I thought that free-handing the lion would be a better idea than trying to trace it onto the mug.

It was SO bad that I posted a photo of the resulting critter on Facebook, asking my friends to guess what type of animal it was:

Unsurprisingly, nobody guessed it was a lion.

After that debacle, I resigned myself to tracing it. It was rough, but at least it was recognizable.

Finished painting, before wax.

When I was done painting the device, I actually hesitated about applying the wax to the outside (even though I knew I had to). It had such a nice finish already--I didn't want to risk losing some of its very appealing sheen. Despite its pleasant appearance, though, I could feel that the vinegaroon process had already made the leather more brittle. I feared that leaving the exterior unprotected would lead to dry, cracked leather over time. And, of course, I had to seal up the seams to be able to pour the sealant inside.

Dad's got Envirotex Lite sealing the inside of his mug so he can drink his beloved hot tea from it.

After wax.

The wax made the black a little bit darker, which was not entirely unexpected. It pushed the leather from the chocolatey black above to pretty much a true black. It created a nice, sharp contrast with the white of the coat of arms.

I used red cotton crochet thread to stitch Dad's mug--another first, and another experiment. It seemed like a strong, sturdy choice, and I knew that the waxing process would soak and protect the thread as well. I like the pop of color around the seams, complementing the red crescents and lion in the coat of arms.


Dad seemed very pleased with his present!

Nobelese Largesse Swap #13: Tokens, Talismans and Tools

For Swap #13, I decided right away to go with the "Tokens" part of the title. I made 50 wire-wrap rings for Natasha to hand out as she sees fit. I chose an orange sea-glass bead for the rings because she had recently made for herself a beautiful orange and green gown.

After I finished the rings, though, it occurred to me that once she gave them all away, she would have nothing left for herself from this swap. So I decided to make her a little coin purse to match her new gown, and in which she could carry the rings at events.

Gift received by Natasha!

Supplies included in kit.

This project was an absolute first for me. I don't sew. I've never made a purse. It's way out of period for where I normally work. Fortunately, Billy & Charlie's had JUST started offering kits to go with their new line of purse frames, and one of the options was a beautiful orange and green brocade. I snatched that up right quick and got to work! The kit came with a very detailed, step-by-step guide on how to create the purse. The whole thing from start to finish took me between two and three hours to complete.

I started by cutting the brown lining and the brocade to match the pattern they included (not pictured). With wrong sides out, I stitched the two pieces of fabric together, leaving a small gap at one side to turn later the purse rightside-out. I used saddle stitch, mostly because it's the one stitch I know from my leatherwork. After I turned the purse rightside-out, I had to YouTube a how-to video for closing the gap.

With that done, it was time to attach the purse frame. I tried hard to center the brocade motif in the frame, but it still came out a little bit crooked. I used a whipstitch to fasten the frame to the material.

After the frame was secure, I cut the holes and threaded the ribbon through the fabric before stitching the sides of the purse closed. I used brown thread, both to attach the frame and to stitch the sides of the purse closed. I again used whipstitch for the sides -- I think for future projects I will research and practice a better option, but it did get the job done.

The last step was to attach the two tiny tassels to the corners of the purse. And voila! It was done! It was a lot smaller than I anticipated, even knowing that I had ordered the small kit option. But I thought it was just too adorable, and I was also really proud of it!

Tiny purse!

It holds about a dozen of the rings at one time, without gaping open. I hope Natasha gets lots of use and enjoyment from it!

Assorted Largesse Projects

My friend Anna Leigh from Aethelmearc put out a call over the winter for artisans to contribute to the thank-you gift bags for the teachers at Gulf Wars. I volunteered to make some Viking Wire Weave chains, some wire-wrap rings, and also some Anglo-Saxon rings like this one in the British Museum.

I built up my stockpile of token rings as well, in anticipation of the approaching event season. Most of these will be left at A&S displays and given to performers at Keeper of the Central Flame, Wars of the Roses, and East Kingdom 50 Year. I'm still in the planning stages of tokens I can make for archers who do something spiffy--stay tuned for those!

There is one more top-secret largesse project that has been in the works for months, too, but I cannot reveal it yet--I'll link back to it here once it has been delivered!

An Experiment: Wire-Wrapped Rings

In my never-ending quest to come up with largesse ideas for my 50 States of the SCA quest, I came across wire-wrapped rings. I didn't think it was a skill I'd be particularly adept at, but I since I have a stockpile of beads and wire, I figured I'd give it a whirl.

A friend referred me to this tutorial when I asked where she had learned to make these rings. It sounded simple enough, so I retrieved the supplies I would need and set to work. For the mandrel around which I bent the wire band, I used a thick highlighter marker.

My first few attempts weren't stellar, but I had read that it takes a few tries to get the hang of it. For the first ring, I used a lampwork bead I had received as a token at Atlantia's KASF event several years ago. It came out ... well, not ring-shaped. Unhappy with it, I snipped the wire and recovered the bead.

For my second attempt, I used 26-gauge wire instead of 20-gauge (because I have a TON of 26-gauge wire on hand). This was not a good decision--the wire was simply too thin. A ring made of it wouldn't stand up to much wear and tear at all without bending and probably breaking.

On my third attempt, I began to get the hang of it. I again used a lampwork bead and returned to the 20-gauge wire. You can see in the photo that, while the wrapping is a bit uneven, it definitely is recognizable as a ring! The lampwork bead is obviously too large, however. Ideally, your bead should be only 1 cm - 1.5 cm in width and only .5 cm or so thick.

From then on, I was hooked. In two days, I have made more than thirty rings. They work up really quickly--most of them take less than ten minutes from start until finish!

Here are the steps I follow when I create my rings:

Photo tutorial is from Dollar Store Crafts.

The tutorial says to work with a twelve-inch length of wire. I have found that to be far too long -- most of my rings are made with eight inches or so of 20-gauge enameled copper wire. The wire I work with is dead soft. You can work with wire up to half-hard for this type of project, but I prefer the flexibility.

To create your ring, feed the bead halfway along the wire, so that it is in the center. Holding it against your mandrel, wrap each side of the wire all the way around until it reaches back to the the bead *on the side it started on*. That's right, pass under the bead and keep going until you get to the far side. This is how you create an actual, round ring (instead of the shape I wound up with in my first attempt)!

From here, your creativity takes over. Wrap the bead in any way you think looks lovely. Be sure to end your wrap with the loose ends of wire at each side of the bead, and leave yourself enough length to wrap the ends around the band at least twice. This finishes off your ring. Voila! It's complete.

I have discovered that it is best to allow the wire to guide you in its design around the bead, rather than trying to force it where you think it should go. Also be aware that your wire will become stiffer and more brittle the more you work it--this is called "work hardening."

This one is my favorite of the rings I have made thus far. It's made of a green seashell bead and 20-gauge gold-enameled copper wire. Sadly, I don't think I could intentionally duplicate it if I tried. That's the downside of letting the wire guide you.

And these nine round out my "Top Ten" favorites of the rings I have made so far!