More in Mistress katherine’s industrious output, these Award Cords, presented for the categories String Theory, Give What You Get, and Fly The Colours (and Out of Your Comfort Zone)
She says:
Half-a-dozen award cords in baronial colours. This could also count in Out of Your Comfort Zone as I used this to learn how to do four-ply braiding which I’d never done before. Strings are definitely not my thing, but I’ll keep practising the four-ply as I liked the result.
This painted chair back is Lady Margaretta’s entry for Embellish It.
She has taken an existing blue fabric chair, and embellished it with black and white paint by painting her device on it (this means it also qualifies for Show Us Your Arms)
Here are before and after shots:
This fingerloop braid was made by Mistress Amalie, and qualifies for the categories The Neck Best Thing and String Theory, as well as Give What You Get, as it is intended as an award cord.
As she has written an informative post for the excellent Lochac Fibre Guild website, it also qualifies for Those Who Can, Also Teach.
This cord comes from the Harley 2330 Manuscript, and is called A Grene Dorge. Further details on the pattern and instructions are available from her post on the Lochac Fibre Guild website here
This is another joint entry from Lady Melissa and Lord Nathanael. It is intended for the categories Back To Basics, Counting On Sheep, String Theory and Cover Me!
Lady Melissa writes:
It is a woolen naalbound jumper, constructed using the Oslo stitch. The yarn was spun by Melissa, who also washed and carded the fleeces–both colours are the natural colour of the sheep. Nathanael did the naalbinding. We had to work to keep up with each other, a speed project that took about a month! Because it was worked with doubled yarn, it is very warm!
Lady Melissa and Lord Nathanael are doing a combined challenge: 10 items total, but they are working together on some. This entry is one of the combined projects, and is entered into the categories Show Us Your Arms, One Metre Material Project and For Science!
They will receive the spot prize for hitting the For Science! category first – some replica medieval glassware.
Lady Melissa writes:
This pentathlon entry is an horary quadrant–a device used to tell time (in equal hours!) It is used to measure the height of the sun, and has a table (raven side) to determine the sun’s maximum height throughout the year. The quadrant is designed after one owned by King George II, made in 1396, which is pictured alongside the one we made. A historical aside: King George owned four brass quadrants, but we chose to replicate this one as it was mysteriously discovered in an old barn in Queensland, Australia in the 1970’s.
The original was made of brass, but we made ours out of marine plywood and linen, with a plumb made from kowhai. It is constructed for 45 degrees from the equator rather than 51 degrees (the original was made for London, England). Nathanael did the wood work and derived and constructed the arcs and adjusted the table. Melissa designed the decorative deer and raven images, did the pyrography, braided the plumb line, and added the linen border.
THL Aveline submits this brewing entry – a beer in the style of a Biere de Garde, or, Beer for Keeping for the category With The Grain.
She says:
A Biere de Garde is a traditional northern French beer style, with a dry, malty, spicy flavour and high alcohol content to act as the preservative, so that the beer may be drunk during the warmer months of the year when the farm is busy with its regular chores. There are many different recipes for this beer, but the key factors tying them together are:
– A variety of grains might be used, in a relaxed, ‘What I have I got in the cupboard?’ fashion. This particular brew uses a combination of flaked, unmalted barley, ‘Special B’ dark malt barley, and liquid Pilsner malt (a light malt and I was cheating by using this).
– A top fermenting, low temperature ferment yeast such as Wyeast ‘Farmhouse Ale’ which was used in the brew. A ‘saison’ style yeast would also be suitable.
This brew is not quite true to the traditional Biere de Garde brewing method, which should be using only the pale malt (not toasted much) and it should be boiled for a long time, 6-9 hours according to some of what I’ve been reading, in order to produce caramelisation of the sugars within the wort (pre-beer liquid) instead of by using extra-toasty malt as I have done. At present, I don’t have the facilities to keep a brew at boiling temperature for this long, which is a pity as I expect this would produce a softer malty/caramel flavour than this beer is likely to have.
The beer is now starting its ferment and will be bottled as soon as that is complete and then cold cellared under my house until September (early spring). Alternately, I could have siphoned it to a secondary container and stored the bulk brew under the house for that time before bottling it, which would be more traditional, unfortunately, I cannot spare the storage to do this at this time.
Master Bernard from Darton submits this entry to the Challenge: a 14th century hood, with the pattern and colours coming from the Romance of Alexander. It is for the categories The Neck Best Thing, Cover Me, and One Metre Material Project.
As Master Bernard is the first entrant from outside the Barony, he will be receiving a spot prize of some Southron Gaard themed items. 🙂
Lady Melissa’s first entry for the Pentathlon Challenge is this painted shield. It is entered in the category Embellish It – adding decoration to an existing item.
She says:
This entry falls under the category “Embellish it”. Nathanael had gone through two previous shields, and I avoided anything fancy on this third one in case it met a quick end like the others. However, as the improved construction and quality of material appeared to be holding up, I decided that the pentathalon entry was a good excuse to get it looking flash. The design is my own: a white stag done in an approximation of the Mammen style (with some deviations to ensure that it was obvious to the viewer that it is a stag and not a generic knotwork beast). Modern paints.
Her Excellency Ginevra has completed this project for the Challenge: a pin book to hold veil and sleeve pins.
It is entered in the categories of One Metre Material Project (definitely less than one metre of fabric here!) and Containment System.
Categories 12 & 25- a book to contain veil and sleeve pins. Made from remnants of velvet, linen and felt. I put pins on the felt to figure out what size it needed to be, then cut 2 pieces of felt- one that size, and one 1/2 an inch larger on both sides. I wrapped the velvet around the larger piece, cut away some excess fabric, and sewed it to stay put. I then sewed a piece of linen to cover the edges of the velvet and the middle section of the felt. This made the cover. I sewed the pages to the cover along the spine of the book, and made some cords to tie it closed out of silk embroidery thread. It was a quick and easy project, and something I’d been wanting for a while.
Congratulations and thanks to Mistress Taddea, for the first entry to be received for the Challenge.
As a small thank you for kicking things off, she will receive a $20 gift certificate to Hands craft store.
The entry is this little knitted bag, featuring the Baronial heraldic colours and a bee, part of Taddea’s own heraldry.
It has been entered to meet the categories Out Of Your Comfort Zone (medieval knitting), String Theory and Show Us Your Arms. Cecily notes it is also appropriate for Fly The Colours.
