Vigil Planning for Matthias - Part 2

Now that we had decided on the vigil garb, it was time to look for inspiration for the detail pieces - particularly the embroidery portion of the outfit.

Thyra and I sat down and looked for inspiration.  Off the bat, we decided that a group of people learning how to do German Brickwork stitch was not going to happen (because we like our friends and want to stay friends with them).

We stumbled upon this lady's blog in searching for inspiration: http://medievalartcraft.blogspot.com/2012_03_01_archive.html  There are lovely examples of her inspiration of polychrome tiles from a church in Burgendy.  More google searching led to information of this being a thing in various portions of Europe.


In Slovinia - http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Slovakia/West/Bratislavsky/Bratislava/photo1450819.htm

In France - http://www.france-voyage.com/travel-photos/photos-brou-royal-monastery-2112.htm.  We also liked this from Kathy's blog - http://medievalartcraft.blogspot.com/2010/03/brick-stitch-pattern-20.html

In Germany (out of period restoration) - http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/7/4/466. You need a subscription for the article, but a google search of the church will yield some nice pictures.

In Vienna - http://www.stephanskirche.at/. St Stephan's Cathedral roof is wonderful.

St Stephan's Cathedral.  Vienna, Austria

We did some initial sketching before deciding on a modified version of Kathy Storm's blog and embroidery pattern especially since we found examples of tiny M's in some of the brick work roofs.

Feilinn and Thyra get sketchy and toy with different ideas for trim!  You can see we started off with a comet theme since no one wanted to embroider unicorns.

With the planning done, it was off to the Worshipful Company for figuring out how to do this and get it sewn.  Marieta worked with Thyra to do the layout of the design with a pattern website I found (https://www.stitchfiddle.com/en),  There was much hand waving and magic (and swearing and throwing things I imagine) and *poof* we had silk, a pattern traced out, thread from Akaterine, and it was off to the races with our embroidery kits.  14 kits in all done by 13 people. It was decided to do a backstitch for the embroidery since there were so many pieces.  Three strings of silk floss were used.

Here is my work for one of the sleeves of the purple silk over tunic.

One done.  You can see the pattern traced out on the plastic medium as a guide.

Two of four done for the sleeve.

All four done.  My husband's truck keys inadvertently provided for scale.

Vigil Planning for Matthias - Part 1

It's been a good year for Darostur (my household) so far.  One peer elevation, and two elevations for members of Edward's personal household in which Darostur helped with.  Well, let's not stop there! I had gotten word this was on the horizon like eight months or so ago.  As as Vice President of the Matthias Fan Club, I may have done a dance when I got the official confirmation he was going to be elevated to the Chivalry.

The big trick with organizing this thing was timing.  First it was Pennsic, then OMG NOT PENNSIC, the maybe GNEW, then sometime "hand wave"....nope definitely GNEW.  Since we had gotten the heads up well in advance, my personal mission start working early and not get sucked into the false sense of security that we had so much time...we'll get to it.  (like most people do every year for Pennsic prep)

I have the benefit of working with Thyra so we could chat during lunch about evil plans and logistics.  The first order of business was working out vigil garb.  Since Thyra knows everyone, she put out some feelers for suggestions on garb in the 14th C time frame for German/Austrian clothing.

Thyra's thoughts on the matter were discussed on our seeeecret Facebook page entitled "Dance Garb" because no one would think Thyra talking about dance garb would be anything other than what it was.. Oh ho!  Not the case!  See below for her thoughts on garbing Matthias.

Thyra:

-Targeting early 14th C Austrian
-From one source: "To a large extent 14thC is pan European so sources like fashion in the age of the black prince or woven into the earth are great."
-Related to that, fitted cotes are lovely, but we have to work off of measurements and I don't want it to look ill-fitted.
-Contrary to that, 14th C German/Austrian pictures show either plate armor + cloak (not an option) or loose tunics. Plus side, we know he likes wearing loose tunics.

- Here's a source that looks promising:
http://manuscriptminiatures.com/5709/20826/

We decided that the kneeling guy was going to be our go-to inspiration for the garb portion of "Dance Garb".  And so it begins.....

Silver Wheel - Katherine

Well, I thought I took a picture of this scroll....my phone disagrees with me. *sigh*

Scroll assignment:Order of the Silver Wheel
Recipient: Katherine Murray

Hand: Early Gothic (still practicing this one)
Specs: Gouache on pergamenata
Source: http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=57652

I only did the left hand border of the manuscript and did some pen sprays/leaf motifs instead of the knotwork toward the bottom left.  The center of the letter was replaced with a red background with some whitework and the Silver Wheel symbol. I was quite happy with the white work overall.

Biggest feedback, I have to learn how to do capital letters now. Boooooooooo.  

Silver Rapier - Matthias

Ah now this was a fun one!  I had gotten seeeeeeecret word from the heraldic staff of Kenric and Avelina that this was likely happening.  As Vice President of the Matthias Fan Club and his consort, I asked Nest for this assignment when it became available.

Fun facts about this project:
- I hemmed and hawed about which source to use and nerded out a bit with some fencers about German fencing manuals.

- Painting in 90+ degrees makes the paint dry REALLY fast which is very frustrating.  Holy crap it was hot that day.

- Alys is a wordsmithing saint and Eva's "messy-terrible "calligraphy is better than my calligraphy on any given day and she's a perfectionist.

- I picked this picture because it reminded me of LARPing and "losing an arm" while in a fight.  It narrowly won over the picture of someone getting bashed in the face with a buckler that Thyra really liked.

- I worked on a portion of this scroll at Matthias and Thyra's house with Matthias RIGHT THERE.  After all this was for "some dude with a weird name" *shrug* and I "wasn't going to see this scroll again anyways so meh". :P  Matthias did offer a few compliments on the illumination as I was working.

Without further ado - the uncleaned up pic Eva sent me right after she finished her calligraphy (which I think is still awesome).

Scroll assignment:Order of the Silver Rapier
Recipient: Matthias Grunwald
Calligraphy: By Eva Woderose
Words: By Alys Mackyntoich
Specs: Guache on pergamenata
Source: German fencing manual - http://wiktenauer.com/wiki/Opus_Amplissimum_de_Arte_Athletica_%28Cod.icon._393%29#/media/File:Cod.icon._393_II_061r.jpg

Award of Arms - Eudes

Going up to Tir Mara is always fun. This time I got to bring scrolls with me to be given out at Crown Tournament.  The one tough part in making scrolls for recipients up in Tir Mara is the panic after I had finished of "Oh crap....was this supposed to be in French?!??!".  I rechecked the assignment and no preference in language was listed.  Well...too late.  It's in English.  Hopefully the French Heralds can translate if need be (and they did).

Recipient: Eudes de Creully
Assignment: Award of Arms
Hand: carolingian miniscule
Specs: gouache on pergamenata
Source: (forthcoming)

Scroll Wording - Eydis' AoA

Yes, the wording was for "that Eydis" who also happens to be a friend of mine and fellow Dancing Lady.  She was given her AoA by Brennan and Caoilfhionn on April 9th at the coronation of their heirs.

Marieta did a lovely craving based on the Osberg ship that featured intertwined cats.  For a lovely viking lady who happens to be a bard, I took a stab at skaldic style poetry.  I didn't have a lot of time to research how to phrase or set up sections of the poetry or to see if there were actually set "rules" for writing skaldic poems.  That will be part of my "to do" list when I take another stab at this.

This is my first attempt at this type of poetry.  Copious amounts of looking at text from rune stones happened and Googling Norse gods/patrons.  Bygul and Trigul are the names of Freya's cats that pulled her chariot.


"Fierce Caoilfhionn and wise Brennan called their people to hear their word. On this day of Eostre’s pride, winter wanes and the skald’s words are known to all:

Thorgrim’s daughter, fair Eydis

Friend of Bygul and Trigul kin.

Bragi-favored skald, gifts wordfame to the north.

Ring givers Brennan and Caoilfhionn

Honor and arms to her proclaim."

Award of Arms - Aine

Like a complete doof, I forgot to take a picture of this scroll.

This assignment was an AoA with very little info to help construct words and find an inspirational manuscript.  I did some digging on OSCAR and found that her name and badge are going through commentary.  Her byname "Fháeláin"was a dead give away that perhaps....maybe... this person likes wolves (gee, how would I know that one?) and there were wolves on her proposed device.

A lot of medieval pictures of wolves I've found involve wolves harassing sheep and attacking people.  Could I just fine one that says "Hey, I'm wolf!  Look how cool I am!"?  Nope.  I did find this gem though and decided to use it a source material.  I used the first panel of the story for the illumination.

Recipient: Aine ingen Fháeláin
Assignment: Award of Arms
Hand: gothic (second attempt at a gothic hand)
Specs: gouache on pergamenata
Source: http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=royal_ms_13_b_viii_f001r (f17v -f18r)

When I first started looking at this I wanted to figure out what the heck was going on in this picture.

1) Why is this wolf blue and looks like a fox?  (Now I understand why foxes and wolves conflict in heraldry).

2) Why is there a wolf in an acorn cap receiving a host? (host being the Eucharist wafer)

3) Why is the other wolf wearing a St. Bernard whiskey cask?  Is it a traveling tabernacle?  Where the heck did it come from?  Does the priest know the wolf possibly stole a tabernacle and is wearing it around his neck?

The story going on here (from what I can tell from various sources) tells of a priest of Ulster traveling through the forest when he is approached by a male wolf at his camp.  Some versions have this as a friendly and good werewolf instead of a normal wolf.  Wikipedia (in all it's peer created wiki glory) says that this was a man who was curse to live as a werewolf for seven years and as a man for another seven (with his wife curse the same way).  Either way, our heroic wolf seeks the aid of the priest to cure (or administer last rites to) his mate.  He leads the priest through the woods back to their den where the she-wolf is resting.  The priest then gives her a host and she's either cured of her sickness (as she's a normal wolf) or I guess she dies (as she's a dying, but good, werewolf).

There are a few variations of this story as I mentioned above, but I prefer the version of the noble wolf who was just looking for help for his mate and in turn helped the priest get through the scary forest with weird trees unscathed.  Wolves are awesome like that (in my own biased opinion).  ;)

The idea of a wolf helping someone is what led me to choose this illumination as a source material.  The text I wrote is short but sweet.

(text to be added later)