Fox Embroidery Pattern

Posted on November 16, 2015 by Elen

Remember that fox embroidery I did, back in the day? The one, I uh, apparently never posted finished pictures of? Huh. I should do that. Only three years late…

This was for a Sable Swap a couple years ago. The recipient was an embroiderer and had a Kievan Rus persona. I know what it’s like to never have pretty things for oneself, after giving them all away. So I wanted to make a little kit that was relevant and useful and pretty. It consists of a pouch, a needle roll, and a scissors fob.

The design for the pouch was taken from Kievan temple-brooches from the relevant period. Most of them show animals or saints mirrored. I went with foxes, since the recipient listed those as favorites. Embroidered in split and chain stitch with DMC cotton floss. The needle roll was embroidered with a dragonfly (also a favorite) and some Kievan motifs to tie them in together, with a blanket stitch in varying long and short lengths to be a decorative finish. The scissors fob echoes the shape of the temple brooches, and has a lucet cord loop to attach to the scissors. So. Now that that’s done, even though I didn’t necessarily intend to do a project recap in this post, let me show you why I DID want to write today. I finally cleaned up the fox brooch motif. A few people have asked for it, and I’ve forgotten about it multiple times. So here it is! Enjoy!

Super Secret Scroll: Finished!

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Elen

The scroll is finished, and the title was given this Saturday during court, so I can talk about it now. It’s a Court Barony scroll for Robert de Bray, and it was requested that I include a European dragon of some sort and his coat of arms, all in a vaguely 16th century style. I went through Pinterest looking for suitable medieval depictions of dragons and found this page from a German manuscript (c 1463-1476, so a little early, but I can’t resist a good versal).

I moved the verbal up to the top of the page, to start the words, and made the tail spiral down around the gold bar. I also lengthened the top border to go all the way to the other margin. I calligraphed the words in my standard blacklister gothic hand, but replaced the capitols with painted letters in blue and red, to match the manuscript.

I didn’t use period pigments on this scroll, because of the time consideration. I had two weeks from commission to delivery, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to re-do it if I ran into a problem. I used store-bought gouache, and the Majestic Gold pigment from Griffin Dyeworks.

I wanted to include this picture of the coat-of-arms with a ruler for scale. The little dragon is an inch and a half tall. The details were painted with an insanely tiny liner brush. I am very proud of this wee guy, and the whole scroll, for that matter.

Tablut Game

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Elen

Last year, I participated in the Sable Swap, a kingdom-wide secret gift exchange. You may remember that I made an embroiderer’s kit for my assigned giftee. It was easy to decide what to do because, as an embroiderer, I know what I would love to receive.

This time, though, I got a gentleman with an Icelandic persona, who is into medieval artillery and archery. Uh…

So I decided to make him an embroidered game bag that folds up into a pouch for easy carrying. I did some research on variations of a game called Tafl, which was played ll over the Scandinavian world.

Despite it being a Laplandic variant, I chose to go with a version of the game called Tablut, since it was the best documented. Lapland and Iceland aren’t that far apart, in the grand scheme of the Viking reach.

The board consists of a 9×9 grid, with the central cross being one color, and the Ts at the end of the arms in a different color. The squares are embroidered in chain stitch, and the lines are stem stitch. Everything is stitched in DMC cotton, because you never know when you’re going to have to wash out a spill. (As an aside, I’m not sure what prompted me to choose baby food or 70s appliance colors, but he did say he liked earth colors.)

The defending army starts off in the center blocks, with the king on the middle square. The attacking arms starts on the T shaped areas on the ends. The goal is to either get the king to a corner, or to capture him, depending on which side you’re playing. All pieces can only move orthogonally, or in straight lines.

Traditionally, the king is a taller piece, but I only had these glass pebbles and no time to make a different marker for the king, so I just included a different color instead. I love the way they look all lined up and ready to go. And when you’re done, the strings pull tight…
…and make a neat little pouch for carrying. I made the strings long enough to stay in the eyelets when the game is laid out flat, and that means that they wrap around the pouch neck a few times to insure that none of the pebbles fall out. It would tie onto a belt quite nicely, too. I am always glad of diversions during the longest bit of an event, which seems to be between the end of fighting and the beginning of feast or court. I hope Karl likes playing his Tablut game as much as I enjoyed making it!

Halfway Done

Posted on July 15, 2013 by Elen

Maybe a little more than halfway, actually. There’s the other two quadrants to be finished, and two lines of yellow chain stitch around the outside of the bowen knot, plus the stem stitch outlines.

Gwenneth Update

Posted on June 25, 2013 by Elen

Still chugging along. I’m trying to stitch at least a little bit every day, like I have been (or rather not been; I took the weekend off) with the spinning. I think my plan today is to finish that green section. Then on to the black at the bottom.

Hellsgate Chivalric Scroll

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Elen

One of the things I really enjoy doing is making scrolls for the Barony. The Stronghold of Hellsgate is a satellite group to Bryn Gwlad, north of us, but associated with us. They hold their own competitions to determine chivalric, rapier, and a&s champions.

This scroll is based on a Greek manuscript from the late 1500s. I used gold watercolor instead of leaf, because I don’t actually know how to do that yet (it’s on the agenda, though).

I substituted a delicate Uncial for the Greek lettering, and added a sword, since this was for the Chivalric Champion.

The gold does shine nicely, doesn’t it?

Myfanwy’s Device: Completed

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Elen

And, a long overdue post about Myfanwy’s device. I finished it some time ago, but apparently forgot to post the final pictures. The first one here is with all the split stitch and couched background finished.

And here it is with the stem-stitch outline added. I’m particularly pleased with the iris.

Gwenneth’s Device

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Elen

Welcome to the new blog! I kept finding that my other, mundane one was getting cluttered and that I needed more space for Elen’s work to be shown, as well as having one central place where I can put my documentation and class handouts. The SCA-related posts I made on the Sycamore Grove blog will remain there, but I’ve migrated them here and cleaned up the categories and tags. It should be much easier and more specific, now.

I’ve made some more progress on Gwenneth’s device. I stitched the bowen knot (that loopy cross thing that’s also on Myfanwy’s device [have I really never posted finished pictures of that?!]) in chain stitch, and the background in long-and-short stitch. I liked the idea of the radial background pattern, and I didn’t want to interrupt it with a couched stitch.

Here you can see the top quadrant finished. I’m actually a little further along on it now; I’ve finished the knot, and started the left green quadrant. I’m quite pleased with how it’s turning out.

And my thread storage system. It actually doesn’t hold much this way, just about two stitching lengths of floss. But it sure is pretty.

Celtic Snake Cup Cover

Posted on May 14, 2013 by Elen

As promised, here’s the other cup cover I’ve been working on. It wasn’t for the largess competition, so I wanted to post it separately. I had a cup cover that I was using, and two of the Queens (well the Queen and a former Queen) started play- fighting over it. So I gave it to one of them, and promised to make another for the ‘loser,’ too. And since then, I’ve tried to make pretty cup covers for all the Queens that have come. So this is the most recent. Her colors are gold, purple, and green, and her persona is something Celtic. Ish.

Early and Late period Cup covers

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Elen

So, I’ve been a little silent lately. It wasn’t on purpose, I’ve just been working on a lot of stuff lately, and it’s sometimes hard for me to balance the things I like to do (this blog) and the things I’ve committed to doing (the things I’m going to be posting about this week). It’s not you, it’s me. Or rather, my non-existant time-management skills.

We had a big to-do this weekend. It was an SCA event called Queen’s champion. The rapier fighters (guys who fight with light metal swords, all Princess Bride style, instead of big rattan swords, in roughly the style of Braveheart) get together and compete to be the one who fights for the Queen’s honor during her reign. There’s a King’s champion, too, but they’re the rattan fighters, and don’t feature in this story. Usually, all that happens at a QC event is the fighting, but this time, they held an Arts and Sciences competition as well. The items that were put in would then be donated to the basket of gifts that the Royals hand out as largess during their reign.

I made two embroidered cup covers. Although they’re not strictly period, they’re a nice visual touch that can conceal a soda can, and keep bugs and leaves out of one’s drink. I made one early period, based on Anglo-Saxon brooches.

The other one is a later period design, with an Tudor Rose and an Ansteorran star, and the shading created by the use of blackwork fill patterns. I think they came out nicely. I’ve got one more cup cover, a ton of calligraphy, and pictures of the actual event coming up this week. And then, hopefully, we’ll be back to our regularly scheduled blogging.
Blackwork Rose and Star cup cover

Opus Elenae

Elen's Work: historical explorations

Category Archives: A&S 50