Monday, March 11, 2013

Three Mountains Welcoming Court

At Twelfth Night Baron Alfric and Baroness Jill stepped down from being the Barony of Three Mountains. Baron Aedan and Baroness Alexandria were voted in by the populace and confirmed by Their Highness's of An Tir.

They had their first court, a Welcoming Court on Saturday. It was a lovely sunny spring day. There was a mid-day potluck with the barony providing meat and bread. They had a little armored combat:
Lord Asim talking with the Marshall


Fans cheering on the combatants

Lady Amelia in the foreground with Their Excellancies watching the field

Lord Asim and Lord Attius


Lord Attius and Lord Gerard

Lord Attius and Duke Almaric
There was a children's subtlety contest. Lady Larissa also competed and won her age group for her squirrel.
Building their subtleties


There was also an Arts and Science competition. Herr Ignatius had made a chair/stool as the prize for the winner. The winner of the competition, and I don't know what she did, was Lady Tamar their A&S Champion from the Shire of Mountain's Edge.

Hand carved and the leather was hand sewn by Herr Ignatius

I missed Lady Tamar's squee face, but she was very happy to receive it from Herr Ignatius.  She is the perfect person to receive the prize. It's is low enough that she'll be able to comfortably sit in it.
There were local awards handed out and people inducted into their local service groups. They also had people who are interested in participating in Sargentry Trials. Lady Kattera had the most unusual letter of intent. Hers was written on a cake. Here she is presenting it and a piece that Lady Amelia and I shared - chocolate with raspberry filling - yummy!  Very impressive writing on the frosting too!


Herr Ignatius wanted a picture of us together. I'm not sure why I was looking at the ceiling. 
Before the end of court Baroness Alexandria announced that the Barony of Three Mountains would be gifting our Barony with a donation to help fund our upcoming multi-kingdom event West Coast Culinary Symposium.
Their Excellencies of Dragon's Mist - Baron Refr and Baroness Svava with Lady Aramid and Archery Champion Lady Caterina

Baroness Alexandria presenting the IOU marker for the symposium since the Exchequer was not available to present a real check. ;-)
It was a lovely day and a lovely event with lots of good food. It will be fun watching our neighboring barony with their new coronets. I also started a wimple for Lady Kattera from hand spun qiviut that I had spun for her. It's delicious to work with. 

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Carina's Goodies

I helped Carina, an SCA friend, to pick out a few skeins of yarns to make some socks for her. She likes ankle socks so they knit up fast.

She loved the orangey-red of Jill Draper Makes Socks, Splendor Sock a lovely blend of superwash merino, cashmere and nylon. I used it to knit the Who Are You? socks from last year's Rose City Yarn Crawl patterns and the knit along that was done in preparation for this year's crawl. They were another entry for a gift card, but didn't win me one. That's okay, it was a fun pattern to knit and Carina got a pair of socks.


There was still yarn leftover but not enough I thought for another pair of socks. So I found a pattern for fingerless mitts, Warm Hands, Warm Hearts. She's the Kingdom Deputy Town Crier, so she's up very early in the cold and needs to keep her hands warm.


I had thought to do the Padded Footlets, but after reading it over decided it was a major PITA. So I found the Brigid sock pattern. Its a lovely cable pattern and it stops about mid foot and I thought it was a waste of a good cable stopping there so did two pattern repeats and took it to the toe of the sock.

It used a little less than one skein of the The Fibre Company Road to China Light. Its a delicious blend of baby alpaca, silk, cashmere and camel. It's lovely to work with. Plus I had another skein to work with. I checked in with Carina to find out if she wanted another pair of fingerless mitts or socks and she went with socks. Then it was a matter of finding another pattern to do. I tried out a couple, but finally settled on one I had done for Gail - the International Socks of Doom. It's a simple two row pattern but keeps you interested. I had the same leg length as the Brigid socks and same foot length, but when I came to the toe of the second sock I was joining the wee leftover from the Brigid and had to find the leftover I had from Wendy's shawl and fingerless mitts in the same yarn, different color (still have a wee bit left of that so may be able to repair heels if need be in the future.)

Can you see the color difference? 

We had Welcoming Court for the new Baron and Baroness of Three Mountains on Saturday, Carina was the Event Steward for the event so knew she would be there to deliver them all to her.
That's a happy squee face and she was taking them around and showing friends her new goodies. She knows how to care for them and wear them. She also said that I'll be making her new socks each year. Repeat customer!  Now I just have to figure out what I want in trade. Wool or linen fabric, or another for dresses?  I would want a lightweight wool.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Founding Revels 2013

Ummm.... forgot to fill in the blank? When I was pulling together blog posts I had this one planned and setup when to publish, just forgot to go back and fill things in.

So a couple of weeks ago was Founding Revels for the Barony of Stromgard. We have a lot of friends with close ties with the Barony so we have been kind of slow at participating in this event. Fun was had and it was a nice day.

It's a bit of a drive from Hillsboro to Battleground and we had left a little later than planned but still arrived in time to enjoy the fighting:
Lisa, Lady Maighreid with Ulcan the Gentle
Lisa had just gotten fight certified the Thursday before and I'm used to seeing her with her shiny armor. It took me a bit to realize that the person in purple I was watching was her!

Lord Nicolai of Iron Ring and Alexandros Khristodoulopoulos

Axe versus Mace. They both ended up on their knees but I think it was the mace that won that round.

Lord Assm on the right in his new armor. We're liking the pony tail on the helm. ;-)  The fight marshal on the right was awesome. He was getting wet and cold and he was still there for the fighters, and I felt very protected as a spectator.

Viscount Pembroke on the left and Ulcan the Gentle
There was a lot more that I am not posting here. I have them in my Facebook album. After the fighting was a children's "equestrian" event. The children ask an adult to carry them piggyback so they can spear rings and a couple of other things that I didn't know about and missed getting pictures of. Here's the ones I did get of the ring jousting:
Viscount Pembroke with his son

Herr Ignatius with one of his riders. He had two girls that he took through the course, so he got a bit of a workout!

Lord Asim, aka Sandstorm did take his rider to victory for the event
I was inside looking at the silent auction baskets and resisted temptation to bid on a three pound bag of Gotland fleece. I have a pound of it to spin already and don't really need more. Mine is from Gotland, this was probably from a sheep raised locally. ;-)

Spent some time working on my Thorn shawl while at the event too. I probably only added a few rows, but near the end they were long time consuming ones. People watching is also a fun thing for me, so sitting quietly and watching all the going on is not a problem. I did spot a semi-snood like item that Conchobar took my camera and asked for permission for close-ups:
Embroidery is also another past time while waiting for the feast to begin. Lady Nidda is on the right in her awesome red and white jester garb along with the Kingdom Bardic Champion cloak.

The coronet is holding it in place.

I have gold thread and some pearls.....

The kilt was for Susan since she was home sick. ;-)
Lord Caius and Senor Jose with their kids. It was awesome to look over the auction tables into the area set aside for the kids to see them down on the floor playing with their kids. They really are awesome guys too. 
Dinner was impressive. You didn't have to pre-register for the feast and Condessa Ilaria had made individual bread bowls filled with beef stew as our first course. The high table had alternative courses served to them. We were allowed tastes if there were any leftovers - such as smoked salmon, deviled eggs, pickled herring and some stuffed dates.

The beef stew bread bowl. I could only eat three-quarters of it.
There was also a whole chicken that showed up and dessert was a quince cream with a shortbread cookie - yummy! In between there was a cheese and salad plate as well as a pickled veggie plate. I think we all managed to get enough food to fill us up! Not bad for really only $5 per person!!

We'll definitely keep this event on our list of repeat events. This next Saturday is Welcoming Court for the new Baron and Baroness of Three Mountains. Herr Ignatius has been asked to make a prize for the event so we'll be attending. It's a potluck and I have to decide which name I want to do the item under. I do have a Smoked Salmon soup mix that was a Christmas gift that might be good to bring. Probably not enough for a lot of people, so I'll need to bring along another dish or two. Maybe a side or salad?

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Carnevale 2013

I'm late posting about this event, so I'm catching up!

This is the fourth year that we've had the Carnevale di Venezia. Before the event I met at Lady Ana and Jose's house along with Lady Helena and Lady Mairghread for some scroll painting in preparation to give to people. These are the two that I painted and the first ones, I've done:


The people they were intended for didn't attend so they'll be used at a future event.

This year was a bit different for me. I've taken on Largess Coordinator for the barony along with Lady Amelia. Lady Amelia has been the one up at court behind the thrones, but with her foot she wasn't going to be able to do that, so there I was. I had gotten the bags that Baroness Svava made out of wool and filled them, so it was kind of cool to hand them forward to be given to each recipient.


We arrived before opening gate so that we could help with setup. I helped get the tulips cut and put into the vases. Ignatius helped with getting banners hung. Then once Lady Amelia arrived, I learned what wording was to go into the Thank You cards for items received from the baronies of Glymm Mere, Three Mountains, and Terra Pomaria and the Prince and Princess of The Summits who attended. I was also receiving largess made by members of the populace for the event as well as future largess donations. Plus after Lady Eulalia had her hair done in an Italian wrap hairstyle, I asked for mine to be rebraided and wrapped:
Lady Eulalia wearing Italian garb. She looks good in orange! Like her green German glass too.




I had hoped to attend two glass painting classes held during the day. One was on a drinking glass and the other was a ceramic tile. Maestra Rafaella d'Allmentejo was teaching both and since she is local she has promised to teach another class in the near future. Lord Ignatius taught a dice class for the kids and it was well attended and appreciated I'm told.

We also have our rapier championship at this event. There were several people, besides the current champion who came down from the Barony of Glymm Mere to participate:
Herr Klaus our current champion in the red/black/white German and Lord Octavius on the left and Lord William on the  right.
Lord William is closest among those petitioning to become the next champion, and did become champion.

Herr Ignatius carved and made the rapier champion's feast box. It has been said that Lord William saw it and spoke his desire for it. He was successful!
Lady Amelia was the only one from the household that opted to eat the banquet. Eodain joined us in sharing food for the day and evening and that worked out well, if not as fancy as what was served. I did get to try a few dishes along the way, but the fish scared me. I'm not a fishy fish eater. I like halibut and some smoked salmon, but I was afraid trout would be served so opted out. It was tunafish on zucchini, I didn't care for it.

Part of the theme of the night was "Dinner with the Borgias". You had to sign up with the head of retinue, Airamid to be part of it so you could win a prize, there were several categories. So through dinner we had some very interesting 'deaths' as people were enacted. Towards the end it was proposed that Airamid was the poisoner and even poisoned Baroness Svava! Baron Refr though was able to revive her with a kiss. :-)

There was the usual children's garb contest as well as the adult garb and mask competition. Eodain competed in the adult. She made her entire outfit from the skin out including the shoes!
Children's 

Adult's
Lovely first garb work!
So again another fun time was enjoyed by all! Afterward we stayed to help with clean-up. Found out that Lisa's car had issues that we were finally able to get a hold of Matt and he was able to talk Brandon through the process of getting it so she could get home that night. So a very late night!