Works of Lady Helena Kassandreia

I made a bunch of embroidered cup covers for largesse; they're all based on extant patterns. 

I was the event steward for Skewered V: Tenoch's Table, which was focused on Pre-Columbian Meso-America. I wanted the event to have an A&S challenge, because that way I could set the challenge several months in advance; I also wanted to set it up so that entrants didn't have to lean into the theme, but if they did choose to there were extra challenges they could win. The result was a three-part challenge with a general food and beverage category (present something to Tenoch for him to eat/drink!), non-comestible category (present something that would plausibly be present at a feast - table linens, table gear, garb or jewelry worn by guests, etc), and present something to Tenoch that he would be familiar with (display a food, beverage, or other time from pre 1520 Meso-America). A challenge needs prizes! I made cup covers embroidered with a motif of a cat, taken from Chancay examples (which is... not quite Meso-American, but is close, and is from the right era. And it was something I wanted to make). 

The pattern is based on this extant object (described as a "mummy-mask"), currently housed at the British Museum (Museum Registration Number Am1907,0515.1). The embroidery is probably pattern darning; similar examples seem to be both pattern-darned and woven. I used pattern darning, and put together a pattern based on the extant object. 

This is an unusual one; at some point an embroidered Silver Nautilus scroll blank was made, then lost, and recently re-found. Their Majesties Randall and Iul'iana wanted to award it, and as I had made a few embroidered scrolls, I was asked to put the final touches on it so it could be awarded. The scroll I received is on the bottom (almost - I put in "this" before I realized I should take a photo), as presented is on top. 

This was a really interesting challenge; the scroll almost certainly used cotton floss (I got a perfect match for the blue in the capitals!) but I wasn't confident that it would be possible to get the pencil lines out without hurting the scroll - so I tried a little water on a line in the corner, which did nothing - then I left them. I used a bit of polyester gold thread for the edging on the capitals, which also worked nicely. Trying to match the lettering was also interesting; the original artist didn't make the letters the way I do, and matching that style was quite the challenge! I'm quite happy with how it turned out, though. 

Link to Embroidered Mosaic Documentation

Link to Embroidered Altar Cloth Documentation 

This was for a "group project" altar challenge; Leonarda Delchiaro and I made an altar for St. Uguzo (aka St. Lucio), saint of Alpine dairymen. She made the Saint image, the candles, the cheese basket, the little plasticine udder with mastitis, and the little wax cheese; I made the embroidered altarcloth with little dairy animals. I've got better photos somewhere, but the pattern I put together is below; it's an amalgamation of the dairy animals from this 16th c modelbook. I didn't include the texture on the sheep, because I was working to a deadline and had two projects due at WoW (see the embroidered mosaic), but it's still very cute. There's also a little lace insert and edging; I'll get better pictures!

We won! I lead a six-person team (me, Magister Ishmael Steadfast Reed, Lord Erasmus Taylor, Gentle Helena of the Farlands, Gentle Eleonora of Roxbury Mill, and Gentle Anthe of Roxbury Mill) in creating a 16th century Venetian gown with all the trimmings, every stitch of which was hand-sewn on site! I'm wildly proud of my team, who were all rockstars of the first order who rose to the challenge gleefully and with a thimble at the ready! 

Ok, to back up a second: this is a 24-hour sewing competition held by the Shire of Spiagga Levantina - I was part of the Shire of Roxbury Mill's team for ROTS VII, for which we hand-sewed a 16th century Venetian sailor's ensemble for Niccolo, and I had enjoyed it enough that I had batted around the idea of running a team. I had too much going on to make it happen for ROTS VIII, but a lot of bits and pieces came together to make it possible for ROTS IX!

Our ensemble consisted of:

• Red leather turn shoes (Erasmus from a pattern by Lord Mattheus DuPuy and with sole leather donated by Lord William of Glencoe)

• Wool twill hose (lead: Ishmael, execution: Helena, Eleonora)

• Knit garters (Erasmus)

• Drawers (team effort)

• Camicia (team effort, embroidery by Eleonora)

• Sottana/gown (team effort, pad stitching by Ishmael, assembly by me)

• Partlet (me, Erasmus)

• Pearl necklace (me)

• beaded belt/girdle (me)

My goals, in order, were: 

1. Everyone enjoys the experience (ROTS can be A Lot, and I really wanted to make sure that everyone walked away having enjoyed themselves, rather than exhausted and regretting their life choices. This meant making sure everyone knew they should get as much sleep as they needed and wanted, making sure everyone remembered to eat and drink and walk around, and that if someone got even a little frustrated they took a break and, when they were ready, swapped activities)

2. We make a complete and completed and fully documented outfit (we had a decently complicated outfit and goal, but it was one that I was fully confident that we would be able to achieve; in order to make that happen, I was clear - and occasionally firm - on what things we were definitely aiming for doing, and which things were stretch goals)

3. Winning (always nice, but external validation is an impossible goal, so I tried to make sure we were focusing on doing our best and making an extremely excellent outfit, and the rest of the competition will do whatever they're going to do and the judges will do whatever they do and there's nothing we can do about either of those).

For the curious, our documentation is here! I particularly recommend checking the last few pages - we have links to all our extant examples and supporting artworks!

For the super-curious, I do have comments on everything. but it was getting long enough that I didn't want to have it in the main scroll - that's posted here

I was delighted to be asked to work on an embroidered hood for Lady Adelaide's elevation (03/04/2024)! She's a lovely person who has given a lot to both the SCA and our Shire in particular, and her elevation was well-deserved.

This hood was a collaboration between myself and Mistress Ysabeau ferch Gwalchaved (also a wonderful person <3) - she provided the materials (a lovely thick red wool for the hood itself and a cream silk for the lining) and constructed the hood, and I did the dags (the dangling leafy bits), the embroidery, and put in the lining. Lady Leonarda del Chiaro made the buttons - there's one on each side of the neck, though one is a dummy.  

There are 37 dags on the hood (if you try to count them below, note that there's a two-dag overlap, because the process of embroidering the wool stretched it beyond the original full circle), plus another two for the liripipe; another 36 are embroidered onto the hood.

At Dun Carraig Baronial Investiture there was a 5-hour sewing competition to make a T-tunic for a newcomer or Gold Key - as a Chatelaine and someone who was considering organizing a Revenge of the Stitch team in 2024, this seemed like a good fit for me and a few friends! We were in the "novice" category, because I had the most experience of the group, and despite having a lot of experience with embroidery and sewing generally, my ability to make anything that actually fits someone is minimal. That said, we did hand-sew the entire thing, and won the "novice" category :)

Link to Embroidered Handkerchief with Lace Edging Documentation

For Battle on the Bay 2023 there was an A&S challenge to make a ship-inspired A&S project. I had been getting into lace-making, so I decided to challenge myself to make a lace-edged embroidered handkerchief. Check out the tiny ships! 

Link to Embroidered Silk Almspurse Documentation

This was for a Tempore Atlantia challenge to do something related to the Silk Road in 14th century Spain. I had seen this lovely bag (see below) in a manuscript from the period, and I hadn't done a lot of silk-on-silk embroidery before, so I gave it a shot! We weren't able to stay for court, but I was later informed that it won the Tempore Atlantia competition, so that's exciting! 

The bag itself is silk, with silk filament embroidery thread. I'd never worked with this before, and doing so in winter was a bad idea (I knew this, and went ahead anyway!) - it caught on my fingers incessantly. The strap is tablet-woven white cotton crochet thread, as are the tassels.

Because it was Tempore Atlantia, I was asked to provide my documentation to be published in The Oak, Atlantia's A&S newsletter - that's posted here.

This was a much-belated backlog scroll for Jehanette de Provins; it was awarded in AS XL, so 2005-2006. It ended up taking me over a year to finish it, I think? but I'm pretty happy with the result :)

• Text

  • By Ollam Lanea! Many thanks <3

  • I'm delighted by having details of her arms being in red! It gives the scroll just a little more interest in a way that I'm very pleased with.

  • "w" continues to be the bane of my existence.

• Heraldry

  • The secondary bane of my existence is the little flippy bits on either side of the helm. The helm needed to have the hood/fabric thing, and stylistically therefore it needs the flippy bits to be understood, but it was so hard to find a version of them that I could live with.  

  • I also am not a particular fan of the diapering/filler on the hood, but it was also necessary to make it visually understood. 

  • Otherwise I'm actually really pleased with how the heraldry turned out! The helm looks good, the filler stitch/diapering on the blue field reads as solid without actually having to be solid (which would have drawn the eye awkwardly), the little needles are legible, the detail of the red for the fire moves the eye from the arms to the heraldry it describes, and I'm entirely delighted with the phoenix!

• Border

  • Those are little pearls in the shells!

  • Keeping everything even was not as hard as coming up with a design that I liked! Figuring out the right ratio of pearl-to-shell and then shell-to-circle and then circle-to-spacers-to-frame was definitely The Hard Part.

Starting from upper right, we've got two scarletwork needle books, two in voided/Assisi stitch, and two in German brickstitch. I had a lot of fun with these - even if there's not a lot of historical basis for needle books, they're a great way of trying out a stitch type or pattern.