Queen’s Prize…Mayhem? (Tournament) 2022

I am so far behind on posting this that I hardly remember what I planned to say! So it will be brief.

Documentation with detailed descriptions and photos of the process can be found here.

The judging process was amazing. I got feedback from three judges and they were extremely helpful and encouraging. My main takeaways:

  • Attempt to make biased cut hose-it isn’t as scary as it sounds.
  • Cut the top of the foot piece larger and then trim down as needed rather than trying to cut the bottom of the foot piece shorter to get a better fit and avoid pleating.
  • Try a lighter wool (tropical weight)

Not only were the judges awesome, but everyone who stopped by the table wanted to hear about my project. And not just a little “I made stockings,” they all genuinely wanted to hear me nerd out and gush about what I did, what worked, what didn’t, and what I want to try next time. It was so much fun!

Part of this event is that every sponsor picks an entry that they did not sponsor that is their favorite and presents that artisan a prize. I was chosen by HE Syele Pfeifferin who makes absolutely amazing Landsknecht garb. It was an honor to be chosen by her plus she presented me with this amazing wool fabric and silk thread! It hasn’t told me what it wants to be yet.

For QPT 2023 I’m going in a bit of a different direction but I’ll tell you more after that happens!

A&S Entry at Unslung Episode IV

I wasn’t planning to attend another event in April (I had attended two already this month) but when I found out the theme of Unslung was “Rabbit’s Revenge” and the A&S competition was “Rabbit in any medium” I couldn’t very well NOT go. So then the question was what exactly to enter.

I considered doing a research paper but then I don’t have much to show at the actual contest. I didn’t have time to actually spin yarn or make anything finished so I decided instead to prep wool and put it on a distaff for future spinning.

Distaffs in use with drop spindles are depicted frequently in period art spanning hundreds of years and many locations. Here are just a couple photos I found:

La Cité de Dieu, Museum Meermanno circa 1478

Osterreichische National-bibliothek MS 2980, f23. 1400-50

I didn’t own hand carders or combs to prepare the wool so I asked my local fiber guild if anyone had a set of either that I could borrow. The first person who responded had carders she was willing to loan me so I ended up hand carding the wool. I learned during my research that in period it was more likely that it was combed for the distaff so that will be my next trial. As it was the carding had been done by the time I discovered that fact.

The plan was to use my angora wool from my own rabbits for this project, therefore bringing in the “rabbit” requirement. However, I’m told angora rabbit can be hard to spin for an inexperienced spinner-and I’m definitely still a novice. So I wanted to blend it with sheep wool. I choose shetland wool as it was readily available in period, easy to work with, and available in several natural colors. The blend is about 50/50.

To create the bat I carded sections of wool, laid them out in a line overlapping the ends and two layers thick. I then rolled the line this way and that to get it to gently stick together.

Then I rolled the bat onto the distaff and secured it by wrapping a hemp braid around the entire thing.

I’m a bit of an overachiever and I couldn’t help but take some rabbits with me to the event! So my display included my documentation (linked below), two rabbits – Thror whose wool I used but who tends to be a bit grumpy and Gloin who loves attention and was happy to allow everyone to pet him! I also had a summary sheet and a bowl of both angora wool and shetland wool.

If you would like to check out the full documentation for this project click here. You can also check out all of my Angora related research and projects here.

I also had the privilege of getting this amazing photo with the wonderful ladies who ran the A&S Competition!

Me in the middle with the bunny statue!

Calontir Coronation Largesse A&S entry

Today I attended the Coronation of Hirsch Ross Eichmann and Magdalena vander Meere in Calontir (specifically in the Barony of the Lonely Tower. Despite very cold temperatures, last minute covid restriction changes to keep everyone safe, and a bit of drama surrounding a minor fire it was an amazing event.

This was a big event for me personally because I entered my first ever A&S competition. The theme was largesse so I entered .5 oz samples of angora wool. There were 16 boxes of wool; some from each of my 5 rabbits (photos of the rabbits on the Angora page where you can also find a working annotated bibliography).

Because I’m type-A (and slightly insane) I may have gone a bit overboard on my entry. Each box was labeled, included a card with the name of the rabbit that the wool came from and the wool was wrapped in tissue paper to cut down on static and avoid it floofing (yes I just made that up) out of the box.

The entry also included pictures of 4 of my 5 rabbits (I need to do a photo shoot), my full documentation, a summary page and the bibliography in frames for those who didn’t want to touch but wanted some information about the documentation.

If you would like to take a look at my documentation you are welcome to check it out here. My plan is to build upon this research and enter future contests with my angora wool in various forms and especially to continue to work to prove that these rabbits existed in period.