With the New Year comes new projects!

Going back a couple years I promised my lady Thalia I would make her a favor to wear. To add to this, I set out on a personal quest as well. Our Baronial archery group, The Hael Hounds, has a weekly contest where archers shoot at a small red dot. The three archers that come closest to (or hit) the red dot are awarded a wolf token. I decided that I would shoot in my lady's honor until I had won 20 of these wolves in her name, then give her this token of my love along with my favor for her to wear. As with many things during the reign, time got away from me. However just this week I was able to finally make good on my promise. The favor is tooled and painted leather. The black portion is leather dye. The wolves are commercially available tokens.

Time to get back on track!

Time to get back on track! My duty as Baron of the Rhydderich Hael has come to an end and it is my hope to find more time for projects like this blog. My goal going forward is to focus more on projects that expand my skills and my portfolio, and to work on these projects in a time frame that allows me to really spend time on little details. I want to get away from constant last minute deadlines that force me to work quickly and in many ways steals the joy from doing what I do. Today I present a couple quick updates of projects I have worked on recently. These are an example of what I am talking about. I am very happy with how these came out, but because of my schedule I had to build three items from raw leather to completed project in less than a week and a half. Given more time there are so may small details I could have improved upon. More updates to follow...no seriously, its going to happen this time.

Court Baron Coronet

The coronet is tooled and painted leather. The yellow is leather dye and all the colors are painted. The pearls are mounted into the leather on posts. The back is open for adjustment of size.

Leather Circlet

The circlet is tooled and painted leather. The black is leather dye and all the colors are painted. The back is open for adjustment of size.

Minister of the Lists badge

Finished another project. this is an Æthelmearc Minister of the Lists badge of office. I created this as Birthday gift for our Baronial (Rhydderich Hael) MOL Lady Thalia Papillon. The badge is tooled leather. The badge was dyed with black leather dye and the details painted with acrylic paint. I was very please with the level of detail. I did not make the cording.

Far too long - A quick update!

It has been far too long since I updated this blog. Life (both actual and Society) has kept me busy. I have worked on the odd non-creative project, but never found time to update the blog. I plan to improve on my productivity (project wise), but we will see what happens. I did manage to squeak out a project at the request of Edward Harbinger, completed for the The Scarlet Guard Inn archery festival at the Shire of Hornwood. A simple leather archery arm guard. Tooled and painted leather. Sorry for the quick photo. I finished the project just before leaving for the event and snapped a shot before getting in the car. The leather is dyed Ox blood, but looks darker in the photo. I had a little issue with the dye bleeding into the white paint. I forgot to seal the leather before painting and that caused the dye (Ox blood is a pain) to bleed into the white a bit. Not a huge issue, but the white was not as smooth as I can normally achieve. I was happy with the final project given the time I allowed by self to work on it (no I totally didn't wait until the minute).

Æthelmearc 500 - Prize Sword

I had the honor of building the prize for the Æthelmearc 500. The Æthelmearc 500 was a series of heavy weapons tournaments run at different events over the course of several months. The winner of each leg of the tournament was the first fighter to reach 50 wins for the day. The overall tournament winner was the first fighter to reach a total of 500 wins.

The winner of the first Æthelmearc 500 was Duke Sir Maynard von dem Steine. The prize requested was a sword sheath and belt that combined His Grace’s current knight sword with the commemorative coins he was awarded during the tournament. The completed sword sheath was given to His Grace Maynard at Harvest Raid 2017 (Shire of Heronter). The belt is a work in progress and will be handed out at a later date.

The original sheath was made with low quality leather that was easily damaged and was showing signs of wear. I needed to replace this but still needed to meet the project deadline. Instead of building an entirely new sheath I used the original sheath as a substructure and rebuilt the swords new sheath around it. Using the old sheath as a substructure did not reduce the quality (cosmetically or structural) of the new sheath.

I started by wrapping higher quality leather around the old sheath. The leather was pebble grain 2-3 ounce cow hide. I was a little worried it might look a bit "modern", but once on the sheath it looked really nice. This was glued and sewn into place. This also added a bit of strength to the sheath as a whole. I also added leather bands (under the new leather) that created mounting points for the future sword belt. This is not the period mounting system, but was a close approximation of it.

Next I attached a selection of the commemorative coins to the sheath. I carefully drilled the coins in a way that preserved the surface details and then sewed them to bands of red leather. I glued the bands/coins into place on the sheath and then sewed them onto the sheath. The idea was to create the image of a “wax seal” around a scroll. I opted for this method over attempting to inlay the coins because of the mix of shapes and dimensions (shape of coins, sheath, the mix of flat and curved surfaces, etc.). I considered bending the coins so I could inlay them, but decided against that. The beautiful coins are the work of Master Pearce Redsmythe.

Lastly I tooled and painted Maynard’s device on a small shield and attached this to the sheath. I considered stitching this in place but was concerned it would look a bit “clunky”, and honestly given the glue I use would be overkill.

I was not very happy with this project at first (as is often the case), but was really happy once it came together. Cosmetically I would do one or two things differently, but structurally I am totally happy with the final project. I think the only part of the project that I was really not happy with was the tip of the sheath. I really wanted to

Long time no post!

It has been a while since I updated my blog. I have worked on several projects over the months, but my work and event schedule kept me from updating the blog as much as I would like to. I am just starting to catch up now and hope to have at least a few things up in the next week or so. So for a quick update here are two projects I worked on since my last update.

Painted leather badge:

Full disclosure. I did not tool this piece. It was tooled for a friend (Laird Coinneach Mac an Leigh, CS) by a person who left the SCA (Athyric Pennywise). Sadly it was never painted by the original artist and I was asked if I could paint the piece so it could see new life. Normally I don't work on other people projects, but given the circumstances I made an exception here. Tooled and painted leather. I believe it will ultimately be attached to a rapier sword belt.

Leather half gauntlets:

This was a quick build. My Lady Thalia and my good friend Lord Chebe recently authorized as SCA heavy siege crew. To accomplish this task they needed better hand protection. I built two pairs of leather half gauntlets (wrist and hand protection) for them. They are designed to slip over gloves of choice and are intended for low-profile light hand protection. Not intended for full heavy combat, but perfect for combat archery and siege. There are some technical skills issues with these (cosmetics on the rivet setting) because I built them in two hours one afternoon in time for Pennsic. The empty holes on the back of the hand pieces are for laces that go around the palm and hold the gauntlet in place.

More awards...

My quest to make at least one of every award in the SCA continues. This time I took a break from tooling and went with a assembled project. These are Silver Buckles, the Kingdom of Æthelmearc's award for youth service. I built a leather strap for the buckle to give the award a more "finished" look as well as providing an attachment for the necklace. I was happy with the result and plan to make more in the future.