Embellisher's Grand Accademia 2012

Last weekend the Canton of Kaldorness hosted the Embellisher's Grand Accademia and since it was in Scappoose we couldn't not go. I had three classes that I was initially interested in - How to embellish wood projects, these are things that are already made that you do wood chips and carving into. Paternoster or Rosaries - the different forms of them and how to make them for your persona and period. Lampworked beads, but I didn't get into that class. Brandon the Acanthus, Mantling and Floral Borders class first. Its normally an embroidery class, but he was sitting in to get the patterns to use in wood working. He had fun keeping the ink off his clothes and on the practice cloth in his Woodblock Printing on Cloth class. Some cool wood blocks were made for the students to use. I think he'd like to learn how to make the blocks. Then he had The Craft of Leather Carving. Many of the same principles can be applied to wood working, but he also had fun doing it in the leather. He wasn't planning to attend the Pyrography class but when your Master and Apprentice tell you to attend, you attend. The last class he did was Bi-Colored Tunic better known as a Parti-colored Tunic. He was the only student to attend, so he and the instructor were able to cover a wide variety of topics regarding garment construction.

My first class the Wood Embellishing was very interesting and now I know if I get bored, I could embellish some of the wood salad bowls we have in our camp box. ;-) Might even try embellishing other items in the future. The library had a lot of the books that the instructor suggested so we'll both be going through those! Since this didn't have us actually doing anything, this was a free class and had a handout with reference information. Didn't take a picture of that for you. ;-)

Since I just had the one class on Saturday, I had investigated the schedule and was able to get into the Japanese side-stitch book binding class. There were four of us in the class and I was the only one to get wild and put lots of holes in to practice the stitch. We were given a great handout so that we'll be able to refer to it in the future to make more. 

The class was only $2 and it included the nice cover paper, filler paper, along with the thread and needle with the hand out!

Close up to see the side stitch and my leftover thread and needle

Sunday I had again only one class so was going to try to get into a Two-Color Basket Weaving class, but it was full enough and looked messy enough that I opted not to get into that one. Instead I was able to get into the Portuguese Rug Making class. It uses something called long-arm cross stitch techniques. Here's two pictorials that show you how its done, if you're wondering what the difference it from the cross stitch you may do, or have done in the past.

This was $5 for the class and Mestra Rafaella also provided the Aida cloth, lots of yarn and the needle along with a huge packet of papers.  Here's the start of the pattern and a close up of the braiding that the long arm does:

On the left you can see my practice stitches for 'traveling'

Close-up of the pattern, kind of some of the squares could be confusing if you hadn't seen the  intended end result

Can you see the braiding? 

Finished project. The green is Lion Brand Wool-Ease and the yellow I think is Lamb's Pride Worsted. I like the LP.

I had started filling in the bottom left inner square area and noticed that it was very directional so I did the upper left going up and then planned to do the other side flipped. Not sure if I was supposed to do it kind of circular like the outer edges but I like how it came out. I've soaked and blocked. I just need to finish the edges of the Aida cloth and then find something to sew it to. I was thinking of a little pouch and maybe having it be the flap? 

My last class of the day on Sunday was the Paternoster class, also taught by Mestra Rafaella and also a $5 class. She has tons   of scans of rosaries or their previously known name of paternosters that she shared along with samples that she has made. Surprisingly, there's lots of German examples available. Surprising because they were kind of the leaders of the Reformation and Lutheranism. We then got to make our own. I had some beads that I picked p from Pastiche (awesome vendor that I get my rings for sewing onto my sleeves) and then went through the beads that were available and picked out more. Then had to figure out how I was going to put them all together. Then it came down to not having the right thread to put them all together, so another trip over to Pastiche to get some linen thread. I still need to put them together but have been busy with other projects this week. 

Paternoster packet and my beads

Our next SCA event is the upcoming Carnivale di Venezia. I have my mask supplies and need to start painting it so its all ready. I'm still deciding if I want feathers or not, depends upon the 'will they drive me crazy' or not? I also need to make sleeves and a hair covering. I'm using this as my inspiration. I'm going to use my green dress that I wore in December for the Yule events as the main part. I don't have the green so my sleeves would be a dark blue like my gores. I had also planned to do similar sleeves but had planned for a yellow satin to be the fabric coming out of the slashes. I need to get a couple of print outs and talk with Andrea about that. I'm not a stickler for following exactly but more going with the feel of it. 

For example, I want to do an Augsberg dress, but I have no desire to do it in orange. Another person has done it in pink. Notice the difference in how the dress is on the shoulders? The pink one goes with what many of us think of as a portrait look where the dress is off the shoulders, but isn't practical for everyday wear. I've seen another person that took this interpretation when we were up at Ursulmas, I think I posted those pics of the dress? The red dress with black/navy blue. Crazy huh? I want this as an everyday dress that I can wear at events and specifically for camping and the off the shoulder thing is just insane! From doing more research today, I'll also need to make petticoats and may have to switch out my planned Eleanor di Toledeo stockings to striped stockings (of course now I can't find that picture or reference!) I found this, they are a Landsknecht group so they are pretty thorough in their research and representation, but are also a military group. From there I found this photo, a Texas kingdom has this page that also shows the lady in the Cranach gown that I found the painting she used as her inspiration. 

I really need this new dress by Faire in the Grove the first weekend of May. The end of May is Grand Thing and then we roll into June Faire, Honey War, take a break and then its July and An Tir - West War, Dragon's Mist Champions Tourney, July Coronation. August rolls around and we'll have Trygvy's War and Acorn War. (Lot of wars in there!) All of them are pretty much camping events, except Faire in the Grove. I'm not counting that Brandon has said he's going to put up our pavilion and stay overnight.