The best thing about having a partner who also does medieval reenactment is that you can text them like “do you want a sexy leg pic 😏” and when they obviously go “of course 👀” you send them a close up of a really nice piece of leg armour. And then they aren’t even mad and go “yeah that is sexy as hell, thank you.”
SCA Thirty Year Tapestry Project
(1995-1996)
The Barony of Adiantum (Eugene, OR) created a Jacobean style tapestry to gift to the Kingdom of the West depicting a "Tree of Life" showing the kingdoms and principalities of our organization as they branched out from the first kingdom, the West. It was presented at the SCA's 30 Year celebration event held in An Tir (1996).
All of the yarns used were hand spun and dyed using natural and period dyes. An army of 50-60 volunteers spend about a year carefully stitching the tapestry itself. It was an incredible project to be a part of. These photos are scans of film photos taken to document the project.
Annathea Yarnspinner spun most of the wool yarn we used.
These show a day-long session of dying the spun yarns. First picture shows Catriona of the Fields preparing an indigo dye bath. Next, as yarn came out of the bath it was hung on a line to dry. You can see yellow yarns (done with onion skins) and blue done with indigo. The green was achieved by overdying indigo on the onion skins yellow. Pictured are: Catriona, River, Baranne, and Annathea.
Here are some of the variety of colors we achieved for the embroidery of the tapestry. We had a very impressive color palette to work from.
Here is one of the MANY group embroidery sessions. This is in Madelynn's living room. Pictured from closest and clockwise: Fearga, Annathea, Marian, Alys, Raven, River, and Meagan.
All total there were probably hundreds of sessions like this with 50-60 people working on it overall. It was taken to various events and people would work on it while other things were happening (such as court). I think we all got at least a few stitches into it.
Here is the finished project as it was being prepared to be presented. Then baron and baroness Ambrose and Marian presented it with much ceremony to the king of the West. He was moved to tears (the good kind) when presented with it. It still resides in the Kingdom of the West.
(my Facebook Archive originally posted 10-18-2013)
THAT'S A WEARABLE ITEM!!! Now all I have to do is hem the edges!
At this point, there will be some more divergence between this hood as it exists for the competition and the extant garment. The original garment has a small amount of decorative stitching and embellishment. However, I still want to dye this hood and do more work to turn it into a garment that I can continue to wear for years. To that end I've made some samples of the decorative stitching that will be displayed alongside the hood and will be added later.
Also, the extant hood is ONLY hemmed with a simple blanket stitch, not even turned in. For the competition I will do that, but after I dye the hood I will turn in the edges and add a tablet woven band for strength and decoration. I think I may use my woolen Dublin Dragons pattern, or potentially one from my Finnish Iron Age book.
WE GOT THIS! AFTERWARDS ALL THATS LEFT IS THE DOCUMENTATION BOOK REPORT!
[Image description: Henric, an androgynous white person, sits in a brick alcove in medieval dress, posing camply with their hand under their chin and looking off-camera.]
Hey folks!
(Sorry for the crappy image resolution, it was dark and my friend's phone camera was doing its best)
Finding Instagram deeply soul-destroying lately so thought I'd come back to the cockroach social media that refuses to die.
I'm Henric (they/them), I turn 30 this year (which is terrifying), and I'm a SCAdian/ reenactor based in the UK. I love all things medieval and early modern Europe, and make a lot of fifteenth century Burgundian clothing and related accoutrements.
I go by Noble Henric van den Casteele in the Society for Creative Anachronism, but you can call me Henric.
