Undaunted by having technically already completed the challenge, Mistress katherine has continued to submit entries. This project – spindle whorls, is submitted for the category Tool Me Once.
Mistress katherine says about this project: I made a batch of these for a Kingdom A&S entry last year and promptly lost them at the event. Here’s another attempt; I’m still not happy with them, so will give them another go, but I have learned more on this second attempt, which means the third lot should be better, right? You can read all about the overall project on Mistress katherine’s own webpages here.
Submitted for the categories Forget Me Not, and Show Us Your Arms, this entry marks Mistress katherine’s fifth entry into the Challenge, and makes her the first person to meet the Pentathlon requirement, and complete the Challenge!
She will receive a prize for doing so.
Here is her description: This rather macabre project involved producing a tracing of katherine kerr’s tombstone, which is very similar to that of her cousin Ionet Ker (Lady Restalrig). According to the 1927 drawing made by S.T. Calder in Restalrig Church, Janet Kerr died on the 12 Day of Maii Anno 1596. Katherine’s tombstone follows the same pattern, but notes that she died on the 31 Daie of Dec 1599 (the last day of the SCA period); cites her as being a Pelican & Laurel; and includes her arms (with the hopefully soon-to-be-passed augmentation) marshalled with those of her husband Master Bartholomew Baskin. You can find Ionet Ker’s tombstone here.
Mistress katherine has been very busy indeed, submitting several projects to me at once.
These three are a Travel Coronet (Remake, Reuse, Refashion, and Show Us Your Arms, and Embellish It), a Coif (Embellish It) and the Kerr Necklace (The Neck Best Thing)
About the travel coronet, Mistress katherine writes: This tablet-woven mini coronet was inspired by Viscountess Mountjoye’s spiffy example at Faire. It uses one of the lovely tablet-woven garters Mistress Catherine d’Arc gave me which displays the curs’ heads and tower from my arms as well as my livery colours or red, white and blue and my motto. It is embellished with the six pearls of a Court Baroness; the copper and brass mounts are actually letterpress printers’ thins used to make leadtype tight when setting text, a reference to my Laurel speciality.
The coif details are: Adding pearls, beads and some couched gold thread and trim has blinged up a plain commercially made hairnet.
Finally, the Kerr Necklace: This necklace is based on the well-known portrait of Anne Boleyn from the UK’s National Portrait Gallery, in which Anne has a capital B suspended from a pearl choker around her neck. I’ve had a craftwood initial K for a number of years, but delayed making this, hoping to be able to find a metal K rather then use a wooden one. Some slathering of gold paint has produced something that may pass in low light and I finally found a use for the large string of big freshwater pearls I’ve had for a while. The portrait of Anne Boleyn can be found here.
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)
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!
This is Mistress Taddea’s second Pentathlon Challenge entry, and she completed it within two days, which is impressive. It is a Skjoldehamn hood, and was made for a newcomer, and given to them to wear at their first event. It is an entry in the categories One Metre Material Project, Give What You Get (gift for a newcomer), The Neck Best Thing and Embellish It.
Fabric and embroidery are both wool. Embroidery is simple chain stitch and running stitch.
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.
