Award Winner - (Spagnolett)Oooh! (Spagnolett)Ahhh!
Award Winner - The Keener (First to Submit an Entry) Award

Greetings from the Kingdom of the West. I am Rudaba al-Nahdiya ORL. Over the past year, I have performed and taught multiple European dances via online events throughout the Known World. One of these is Master Caroso’s Spagnoletta, which I have truly come to understand as being different from Spagnoletto; circle vs diamond, 2 vs 4. My virtual lesson plan is included here for ease of copying, pasting, and editing:

Complete demo

Part of the chorus that everyone does all the time

Questions

Complete demo + trangato section practice

Rest of the chorus that factors into the solos

Questions

Complete demo + chorus practice

Time check (should be 20-25min into the class)

Riverenze (1 sentence)

First and second verses

Questions

1st verse through 2nd chorus Practice

Solos

Questions

1st verse through 4th chorus Practice

Time check (should be should be 30-40 min into the class)

Final verse

Questions

Dance w/ gender factor, once as lord and once as lady.

Repeat the dance for all remaining time/ energy.

Steps from Lady Rebecca da Firenze

Award Winner - Gouache Darn It, That's Amazing!

I was curious about painting with gouache and this was my first try. You can't tell so well in the scan but I even painted the body of the hound white. The design is not my own, I found it on the internet. I chose a hound for obvious reasons. :)

Award Winner - "Wood" You Make It Again?
Award Winner - Caution: Plays with Fire!

During the plague I learned how to wood burn pretty things. Here are a few examples from a box I made my sister for her birthday this year.

Alternate View

Alternate View

Award Winner - How Do I Blazon That? (Heraldry)

Apparently I don’t follow instructions well, and ‘little’ blurb turned into 3 pages.
I promise I won’t mind if you don’t read it all.

TL:DR version:
I played on the computer.

I made mediocre art and learned to like it.

Heraldry. Spreadsheets. Data sorting.

Look, here’s a device you might be able to register.

Award Winner - The Konmari (Sparked Joy) Award

During covid I have been teaching myself Bobbin Lace.

It has been an exciting adventure for sure! So far I have been practicing Torchon Lace making bookmarks.

I am in The March of St. Martin in the Kingdom of Ealdormere.

Award Winner - Excuse My "French"...
Award Winner - Oh Books! Oh Books! Oh Books! (Research)

Wine in Europe: A Very Brief History (PDF)

Award Winner - How Do I Blazon That? (Heraldry)

My challenge during the plague times was to be able to create garments for individuals without being able to meet them personally to take their measurements myself or fit the garment specifically.

Click here for the full entry with photos!

Award Winner - A Little "Bird"ie Told Us, You're Awesome!

My entry, reversible front panel. I first embroidered both pieces, than I made binding for the edges, than I wove trim for the top and final loops

Work in Progress

Work in Progress

Work in Progress

Complete

Award Winner - Oh Books! Oh Books! Oh Books! (Research)
Award Winner - Caution: Plays with Fire!
Award Winner - The Shiny New Penny (Newcomer) Award

I am Klaus (Jonathan Brown) from the Barony of Small Gray Bear in Gleann Abhann. I joined the SCA in Nov 2019...just before lockdown so it's nice to participate in an A&S event online.

Studying German woodcuts inspired me to try my own, which lead to fabric stamping, which lead to making my own ink, which needed varnish, which ended up with lots of things getting decorated.

Carving stamps recreating German printed cloth from the 1500s and an original piece.

Carving stamps recreating German printed cloth from the 1500s

Original piece

Making ink from titanium white.

Making ink from titanium white

Making ink from titanium white

Making ink from red ocher

Making ink from red ocher

Trial printing some cloth

Trial printing some cloth

Finished fencing hoods

Making Sandarac spirit varnish

Spirit varnish mixing

Decorating my project notebook with gold ink and a layer of spirit varnish

Making Damar oil varnish

Making Damar oil varnish

Finished oil varnish

Award Winner - You Know What You Did (this Covid)...

"Cooking at home" seemed to be a trend for most people at the beginning of COVID and learning about medieval cooking took off. Although I didn't do a lot of medieval recipe redacting, I did teach quite a bit of food classes online, attended Ealdormere Eats almost every Tuesday, wrote an article for Montengarde's newsletter and will be teaching/did teach three classes at KW Cooks and Bards on September 10-12, 2021 (https://tilted-windmill.com/kwcb2021/).

My first food class in COVID was Medieval Food Preservations in Our Modern Food Safe World at FOOL (Fruit Of Our Labour) 2020 for Ealdormere which was my first recording (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIKRQFeWy7U&t=809s). I've taught this class again at Avacal's Online TUA and will be/did teach it at 2021 KW Cooks and Bards. It seems to be a favourite.

Other classes included Introduction to Spices in Late Period English Meat Recipes (Avacal TUA 2020), Meat... What did Medieval People do for Protein? (Samhain 2020), Period Food and Kitchen / Dining Setups for Camping Events Roundtable (Dragonslayer 2021), How to determine the amount of spice in a medieval recipe - the flavor matrix revealed! (2021 KW Cooks and Bards) and Fish Culinary Changes in England (2021 KW Cooks and Bards).

Email me at arwynofleicester [at] gmail [dot] com if you would love to talk about food research!

Award Winner - This is Paw-some! (Cats)

Award Winner - You Weathered the Storm (Stormiest)

Award Winner - Because Giving is Divine (Largesse)

Mitts for Largesse

Experimenting with dye. Madder.

Experimenting with dye. Walnut.

Experimenting with dye. Walnut. Madder. Logwood. And weld

Experimenting with dye. Walnut. Madder. Logwood. And weld

Award Winner - You Rose to the Occasion (Bread!)

I have been reading researching period and medieval recipes along with learning about shelf stable foods and period shelf stable techniques.

Books!

Award Winner - Smaug Approved

Beaded undersleeves for a Tudor gown. I sewed clusters of four (4) 4mm glass pearls between the fleur de lis motifs on the fabric and a small gold glass bead over the cross piece of each fleur de lis,

The cat hair is because I was working on it in my house. 😀

Detail of Work
Detail of Work

Award Winner - You Weren't Kitten Around (Cats)

Award Winner - Populace Choice Runner Up!

What did I do during the pandemic? The two arts I do most in the SCA --making clothing and C&I--I had no real reason to do, with no events to attend and no new scroll assignments. (I did participate in two of the An Tir backlog contests). What I've poured a great deal of work into is various pieces of embroidery, which has kept me sane and allowed me to push the boundaries of my skills. I completed a set of five embroideries of various cats from illuminated manuscripts, and then attached them all to a modern vest. I also stitched a Pallas' cat and an internet-famous cat from the 2017 Texas floods that summed up my mood at the time. But I've also been listening to a lot of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, and decided to take some of my period embroidery techniques and apply them to various portraits of the composer. Most recently, I designed my own blackwork motifs for one of those. I've attached a bunch of photographs of these various projects. All totaled, in the past year or so I've completed a total of seventeen embroidered pieces (two of which had multiple component parts).

Embroidery

Embroidery

Blackwork

Cat Embroidery

Cat Embroidery

Cat Embroidery

Cat Embroidery

Cat Embroidery

Cat Embroidery

Embroidered Quilt

Embroidered Vest

Award Winner - The Rufus de Vert Award

For my COVID project, I made hand sanitizer! We utilized our stock of food-grade ethanol to produce hand and surface sanitizer for the local health region at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. After that, I was part of a team dedicated to upgrading fuel-grade ethanol to medical-grade ethanol to be used in hand sanitizer. Attached is a picture of us (I'm on the left with the clipboard) producing our first 400L batch of sanitizer.

Award Winner - We "Ink" You're Awesome!

During covid I got active again with my local group which was meeting entirely online by that point, and other friends scattered around the SCA. With all the time I was no longer spending commuting, I decided to continue researching and finally get around to arranging and composing a few songs I had been intending to do for far too long* (*translation: decades). One project led to another and turned into a new writing project a week for most of the year (including newsletter columns). Some of this is posted on-line, with some songs (translations, arrangements, and filk), prose and class notes posted on Mid Bards and Friends including a few research links; and some poetry written for a challenge was posted as part of Virtually Bardic Madness XXII. With all that writing, ink was added to the project to-do list. The ink is currently in process and has been made from most of these walnuts (picture).

YouTube Video of Entry from Bardic Madness XXII

Test of the new walnut ink

Award Winner - The Rufus de Vert Award

These are hand forged woodcarving tools. I use them to carve spoons.

Award Winner - All You Bead is Love...

Award Winner - When Do You Sleep?!?!

Here is one of my covid projects. It is a Byzantine dalmatica with a hand beaded lorum approx. 15 feet long. The tunic was made from fabric hand printed by Viscountess Morrigan Bushra Clubfoot.

I hand beaded the lorum and dalmatica.

Photo!

Another Photo!

Detail Work

Award Winner - We Pleat the Fifth on How Awesome This Is!

German Renaissance Dress

Click here to see the full entry!

Award Winner - Simply Stated... Diana Thinks You're Awesome!

Award Winner - The Shiny New Penny (Newcomer) Award

I present my first garb! I joined the SCA in February of 2021 via the online A&S meetings in Montengard. I have made a Tudor Kirtle, Smock and several accessories. Can't wait to meet everyone in person!

Pouch

Award Winner - Bard-tastically Amazing!

Ines de Freitas sings, recites poetry and provides a tour on YouTube during Covid.

Award Winner - Pan-pipe: The Square Flute of One

Musical instruments! Mostly flutes, but a couple pan pipes and one lyre. Also hand-sewing some bags to go with them now, too.

Each flute has helped refine the next, so they're getting quite good at this point!

Award Winner - How Do I Blazon That? (Heraldry)

My first Pandemic Project, showing my arms, my husband's arms, the populace badge of the Kingdom of Lochac, and the Ealdormere Ensign. It's worked in brick stitch using cotton floss on an even weave linen ground. I'm pretty new to embroidery, and this is my first ever brick stitch project.

Brick Stitch Project

My second Pandemic Project. It's a 16th-century linen partlet decorated with blackwork embroidery worked in cotton fliss. Since I found myself with quite a few hours to occupy, I went for quite a bit of embroidery. I used a pattern from Practical Blackwork for most of the design and worked out a few details from period portraits.

Linen Partlet

Linen Partlet (back)

Linen Partlet (detail)

My third Pandemic Project. It's a pair of bodies. I basically made this to improve the appearance of some of my existing outfits. It's made of linen, handsewn, boned with hemp rope, and bound with grosgrain.

Image

Image (detail)

Award Winner - When Do You Sleep?!?!

HG Darla and I have been building Castle Kirk for 41 years now with the help of many SCA friends.

This last Summer we were able to cast the Keep and supporting Turret.

I will soon be fashioning a Dome to support the first floor and finishing the parapet.

Additional Views

Additional Views

Award Winner - Oh Books! Oh Books! Oh Books! (Research)

Award Winner - The Shiny New Penny (Newcomers) Award

Award Winner - Populace Choice Runner Up!

I am Ælfric Hort of the Barony of South Downs in Meridies. I joined the SCA in late 2019, just before the lock downs. During the Plague times, I decided to do some research into Early English (10th century) leather working through the construction of a leather storage and drinking vessel. This leather drinking vessel, sometimes called a costrel or flacket, was based on a pottery piece currently within the collection of the Winchester Museum. In addition to learning about period leather working, this project also required some exploration into working with beeswax – a material I had not, to this point, used before - minor wood working, and rope splicing.

Documentation

Award Winner - When Do You Sleep?!?!

Most of what I have been doing during the Age of Covid is bardic.

* New bardic things:

I took a traditional song, "Lyke Wake Dirge", that didn't feel right to me, and modified the words and music to create a version that I am happy singing. This would probably be the most creative thing I've done during the Age of Covid. The Lyke Wake Dirge

I learned a traditional Chinese children's song, "Mo Li Hua" (Jasmine Flower).

I recorded seven videos of me singing seven songs, three for display and four as competition entries. Two of these songs were new to me, so I had to learn them. As a learning experience for recording videos, I made a bad video of me dancing.

* Bardic things that weren't particularly new:

Singing online is new, but otherwise this is the sort of thing that I have always done. However, the numbers are surprisingly high.

During covid, from 2020-June-28 to 2021-September-19, I have attended 82 virtual bardic sessions around the Known World. At a very rough estimate of 2.75 hours each, that is 225 hours total.

I kept a record of which songs I was singing so that I could avoid too much repetition, and the list numbers got surprisingly big. There have been 211 unique items performed -- almost all songs, with a few of my poems or stories -- for a total of 649 performances.

I did learn a few new songs, or brushed up existing versions, or tried to research where I had learned words and/or music, or did other song documentation.

I have taught one virtual bardic class on "Ballads" -- I've taught it in person before, this one was updated.

* On to non-bardic:

Almost every week I answer one or more questions related to period cooking.

I have taught nine non-bardic virtual classes on five topics.

Four were cooking-related:

• "Potatoes in Europe in Period" (I have taught this in person before, these ones were updated).

• "Translation" (new).

• "Ouverture de Cuisine" (new).

• "Food and Recipes in Europe" (new).

One virtual class was on my "Early Avacal Experiences", a partial history of the early days of Avacal, based on what I had witnessed or learned of back then, so with the absence of almost anything that I didn't learn about at the time (new).

Award Winner - Around the Known World in How Many Days?

Virtual bardic circles have been the one bright spot in these long months of isolation. This year alone, I have participated in 92 online bardic, in 15 different kingdoms. I have shared stores and songs with people I would never have met otherwise, and made many wonderful new friends.

Harp, ukulele, and bardic notebook pictured here, with one of my favorite back-up singers, Tinker, who made frequent appearances during the bardic circles.

Award Winner - Don't You Dare Curb Your Enthusiasm!

Award Winner - The Shiny New Penny (Newcomers) Award
Shire of Sigelhundas - A&S Defendership

These images are a small sample of the many things I have attempted during this Plague Year. If I try to consolidate my thoughts, two main strands of teaching, learning and crafting emerge: medicine, disability and mobility aids on the one hand and persona related (10^th/11th-century Hiberno-Norse) on the other. Truth be told, my hand skills are, I have discovered, quite poor; my garb is a bit lopsided, my shield handle has cracked, and my bow has a pathetic draw weight. My catch-phrase has become, ‘Now that I have finished this, I now know enough to go back and do it right next time!’

A broader view would suggest that what I actually learned about is the SCA! I joined the SCA at the end of February and as I write this today, still have not met a SCAdian, in the flesh. Speaking of flesh, by my portrait, you can see that the Plague has not affected me in the least! To date, I have only been a virtual SCAdian – admittedly not very Period. I have, however, tried to research, to learn, and to share as much as possible. To me this meant listening and watching, reading and writing, and, finally, teaching. These are the A&S ‘things’ dabbled in this Plague Year:

Classes Taken:

Forty-two in total, across eight sessions, in six virtual Kingdoms; thank you to all the wonderful SCAdians who share their knowledge and enthusiasm.

Classes Taught:

Six different classes, one presented twice, across six sessions, in four virtual Kingdoms; thank you to all the wonderful hosts and organizers who trusted an unknown and welcomed him into their events.

A&S Projects:

Three projects, across three sessions, in three virtual Kingdoms; thank you to all the patient mentors and judges who take the time to help others with gentle suggestions on how to improve.

‘Heraldic Mondays’:

Fourteen online heraldic classes; thank you to Dame Arwyn for teaching many of these classes, and thank you to those tutors whom Dame Arwyn recruited to teach the remaining classes.

Newsletter Tales:

Three ‘traveler’s tales’, one Kingdom; thank you to all the Chroniclers who tirelessly, month after month, publish the missives that keep us informed.

What did I truly learn during this Plague Year? In Avacal, I am truly home.

Award Winner - You Weathered the Storm (Stormiest)

"I have learned to make better use of color in my tablet weaving, and have become much more proficient in weaving patterns with many card reshuffles. The Plague has provided both the opportunity to finesse my technique, and a hunger for shareable crafts. Pictured is a Oath-taking band, depicting the Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, for those who swear by Heimdall. Taliesin Wordweaver made this."

This particular piece is for Ragamund of Donnershafen, who has been working on this big project of assembling items for a Temple to Heimdall, so it won't be the prize that Viking Sloth will contribute to the good artisans of our Society, but Viking Sloth will choose something similar for that. Viking Sloth remembers.

Award Winner - Putting Us Between a Rock and a Bard Place...

My biggest project during the Year That Wasn't has been in support of the bards. It has included assisting the Bard Hard with Montengarde community, helping moderate and occasionally filling in as a stunt bard, occasional dance partner to HL Althea, and co-commentator for the Kingdom of Northshield's Pun-ultimate online "Something Punny This Way Comes".

There may have been a Bardic Authorization somewhere in there as well ...

Bardic Shenanigans for Virtua-L 12th Night - <<Click at your own earworm risk >>

Award Winner - We Feel "Sheep"ish Telling You How Awesome This Is...

Award Winner - Because Giving is Divine (Largesse)

My entry is felt balls, I make these for children's largesse, but I've been told furry friends also like them.

Making them keeps hands busy during zoom get togethers.

Award Winner - Populace Choice Winner!

Recently I tried a new technique with my gouache paints and attempted to portray a scene from the MS Ludwig tournament book. I have been interested in this manuscript but lacked the technique yet. It is definitely not my usual style and took a little trial and error but I am happy with the results. I think I have figured out the technique or at least a way that works for me to copy the style.

Award Winner - Me Too? You Too? We Love Sutton Hoo Too!

This project was made during the height of the Covid lockdown. It's an early Irish tunic for Ryan, based on the blue one he's had forever. I designed the border with inspiration from the belt buckle from Sutton Hoo, and some illumination from the Book of Kells.

The border is Seminole pieced / strip pieced dyed cotton applied on linen. It is a long process with strips being sewn to each other, cut, and pieced again into longer and longer strips. I always find quilting relaxing and meditative, with joy being put into every stitch.

Progress Photo

Progress Photo

Progress Photo

Inspiration Photo - Sutton Hoo

Award Winner - The Full Package (Photography)

Award Winner - Heart on Your Sleeve (Vied for Defendership)

My entry is an 15 century tudor court gown.

During the pandemic I decided I was going to research my love of the Tudor period, and clothing.

This is my second dress I made. First one had some fitting issues.

The entire gown and accessories are hand sewn. With exception of the farthingale which is bought.

It includes a linen chemise, kirtle, overgrown, false sleeves, and French hood.

The cross necklace is also made by myself.

The kirtle pattern and false sleeves have a pineapple design which is also in my heraldry.

Linen chemise: Linen fabric. Entirely hand-sewn. Pattern from the Elizabethan smock pattern generator.

Farthingale: Store bought, but adjusted to the proper 15 century shape. One of my next projects is to make a farthingale by hand.

Kirtle: Pineapple fabric of unknown content. Pattern drafted by me. Entirely hand sewn.

I used buckram, and plastic boning to achieve the conal shape popular in 15 century fashion.

Over gown: Burgundy fabric of unknown content. Pattern drafted by myself.

Entirely hand sewn.

False sleeves, French hood:

Used fabric from dress and kirtle to make both items. Pattern drafted by myself.

Tudor necklace with cross: I chose to wear a cross as the Catholic church was very predominant in the 15 century. I chose to string white pearls and add the cross I bought from a tudor supplier online. The pearls also match the false sleeves and the French hood.

In the future I would like to add blackwork to the chemise.

The project was definitely a learning experience. I've overcome my patterning obstacles, as well as my desire to try something new.

Photo Photo

Photo Photo

Photo Photo

Photo Photo

Photo Photo

Photo Photo