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Queen's Prize 2017

How to get to Queen's Prize Tournament:

1. Leave work early to fetch a package from Crescent Moon to deliver at the event before driving home.
2. Make sure the party arriving from Standing Stones is all set to pick up the person from Cum an Iolair on the way to Carlsby so everyone can pile into the same wagon to go to Vatavia.
3. Pack the food.
4. Pack the car. No, not that way. What about—maybe if we? Oh, put that over here, and this is squishy, and you just get to hold that the whole way there.
5. Theology, Star Trek, family updates, LOOK A COW, Disney movie reference, #politics, is it supposed to rain?, drive faster or I swEAR TO GOD I WILL—oh thank you that's very kind, are we there yet?, we should watch that movie someday, horsiiiiieeeeees, you have two seconds to decide if you need a rest stop...
6. Meet the friend who's providing crash space and get dinner at a burger joint.
7. Sleep not remotely enough, get up early to dress and repack the car, take off for Theobald College.

Good traveling companions make all the difference, and I love these people. Thank goodness for that, because we spent a lot of time crammed into my wee car, getting increasingly sleep deprived.

And then we arrived, and the projects were glorious.

Two small, rectangular bone icons, painted with figures in red, blue, and gold. On the left, Gabriel's face and shoulders, wrapped in a red-bordered blue robe, with gold haloing him. On the right, Mary in a blue robe looped over her head, with a gold background and red halo and cross behind her.
Gabriel on the left, Mary on the right.
Konstantia's 6th-century bone box icons are the sort of meticulously researched, beautifully executed gems of things I wish I were capable of. Each half is about the size of my thumbnail, and the miniatures are done in egg tempera and gold leaf, with a protective varnish over top. I really can't get over how tiny and perfect they are.

A square-edged black leather box, with the lid sitting on the table in front of it, heavily tooled with columns of roundels at either side fo the face, and laced along all edges with flat leather lacing.
This was her first tooled project!
Malina's leather book box was beautifully tooled—I'll have to see about fiddling with the contrast of my photo to really show the detail work. Her stitching was also beautifully even.

A large room with rows of tables and green-cushioned office chairs, with several people in bright medieval garb standing and sitting around them. The nearest table has a number of bottles on it, with two people in yellow and green tunics seated to the left, and a black man with plaited, curly hair in a red-trimmed, rust-orange bliaut standing at the right of the table, talking to the seated people.
K, enamored of the brewing entries.
As I'd suspected would happen, K beelined for the brewing entries, so we wandered on while he chatted.

Two pieces of handwoven cloth, in diamond twill variations. The left, lower piece is in sage-green and cream, and the right, upper piece is in blue and black.
Vashti's second and third pieces of flat weaving ever.
Found Vashti early in the day, and oohed and ahhed over her weaving and her plans for the fabric in the future.

I was part of the judging team for a lovely red and black Florentine gown made by Lelia Corsini. It was an ambitious project, and well-made, and luckily one of the three judges was familiar with 16th-century garments and had specific advice for doing even better on the next project. I also picked up some ideas for how to judge effectively—it was my first time helping on that side of the table.

The rest of my bunch continued exploring the entries and took advantage of the quiet auditorium for naps until I joined them again. When we were all sufficiently overwhelmed with projects and ideas, we paused for lunch.

A seated, nearly bald young white man in a grey tunic and white loose pants, with an orange napkin and cheese sticks with plastic wrappers on his lap. A young Indian woman is seated next to him, in a lighter grey dress with a blue sash tied at her side and a sheer white veil. They've both been caught eating; he's looking down away from the camera, and she's covering her mouth with a hand.
Bananabella and Tiberius, featuring extremely medieval cheese sticks.
We overpacked. A lot. We had enough to feed another group of four, and even then we'd probably have had leftovers. There's a lot to be said for bread, butter, cheese, grapes, hard-boiled eggs, and olives. I think I could live on such food.

A young black man with plaited, curly hair and glasses, looking up from the loaf of bread he's carving with a small silver knife on an orange napkin spread across his knee. He's wearing a red-trimmed, rust-orange bliaut with a white undershirt, and sitting on a red cushioned bench next to a brick wall, with a large window behind him.
Don't try this at home, kids.
K demonstrated the delicate process of carving off slices of bread without a board. Bananabella used Tiberius' lap as a board, which is the latest iteration of the trust fall. No monks were harmed in the making of lunch.

A large room with rows of tables and green-cushioned office chairs, with several people in bright medieval garb standing and sitting around them. A young girl with long blond hair and a red bliaut is leaning on the shoulder of a grey-haired woman in white shift and madder-pink apron dress in the foreground..
A wee bliaut!
I always try to get a photo of the hall and all the wonders in it, and the photo always comes out underwhelming...the chatter and movement just doesn't translate to a still image. Suffice to say it was as wonderful as ever to see rows and rows of projects and entrants sharing what they learned and planned and did.

A grey, rectangular bag with red contrast stitching at the side seam and a basketweave-patterned red-and-white decorative band about two inches below the top, attached to a zigzag-carved wooden frame at the top. It's sitting on a grey-tipped white sheepskin, with the braided grey-and-brown handle looped underneath.
Lovely trim on this one, not to mention the exhibit design.
There were a few Birka bags—this was an adult's entry. A six-year-old boy had also made two very nice leather versions for carrying his things to events.

A large oval map in a decorative rectangular framing design, labeled "Belgica Orientalis" at the top, in an ornate old-gold frame.
The inked and tinted version of Hugo's map of the Low Countries.
Hugo van Harlo created a pair of lovely maps in a late-16th-century style, one in black and white as it might have been printed from a plate, and one tinted as wealthy patrons might have commissioned from a cartographer.

I didn't get a photo of it, but Aelin was hard at work on her embroidered version of a 14th-century map, with beautiful detail work to fill in the miniature cities tucked among geological elements.

Six taper candle in brass holders, the four at side and front of the group standing upright, and the two at back completely melted and slumped. In the far back, two slim columnar candles sit in a dark, round container.
Illegal candles!
Adelheide's tallow and beeswax candle experiment was great fun, and a brilliant demonstration of the limitations of different materials. In the holders at the back, the slumped and melted candles are pure tallow; the others in holders are blends of tallow and beeswax, which would have been illegal in SCA period for adulterating expensive beeswax with tallow (and making "tallow" candles more expensive through the addition of beeswax). Very fun chatting with her about what she learned.

A young white woman in a red brick hallway with large checkerboard tiles, wearing a sheer white veil and green-gold silk dress with pendant sleeves lined in peach and a full skirt. The collar, sleeven and skirt hems, and upper arms are decorated with bands of gold floral embroidery on brown, and she has a double-wrapped gold belt that hangs to her knees. She's suppressing a smile, and has her hands clasped in front of her belly.
Pardon the background.
And yes, The Dress was finished in time—barely. I stayed up late the night before to attach the skirt and tack down the lower edges of the bodice over the lining and folded-over edge of the skirt, and got up early Saturday morning to check the fit and insert laces. And then discovered the laces I'd made were about a third as long as I'd need them to be if I were lacing myself in, so enlisted our host in Vatavia to lace me in. She did a marvelous job, and my posture has never been better. Not sure I'd want to use this strategy every day, but the clothes do make the woman.

Also, it's magnificent for twirling and looking dramatic when the wind picks up.

A young white woman spinning to her left in a red brick hallway with large checkerboard tiles, wearing a sheer white veil and green-gold silk dress with pendant sleeves lined in peach and a full skirt. The collar, sleeves and skirt hems, and upper arms are decorated with bands of gold floral embroidery on brown, and she has a long gold belt. Her long red hair, veil, and sleeves fly out, and her yellow-socked ankle and pointed black shoe peep out from under her skirt.
Wheeee!
A young white woman spinning to her left in a red brick hallway with large checkerboard tiles, wearing a sheer white veil and green-gold silk dress with pendant sleeves lined in peach and a full skirt. The collar, sleeves and skirt hems, and upper arms are decorated with bands of gold floral embroidery on brown, and she has a long gold belt. She's side-on to the photographer, grinning, with her skirt and near sleeve completely belled out by her motion and her white chemise showing through the lacing gap at her side.
Voila, Tudor.
A young white woman spinning to her left in a red brick hallway with large checkerboard tiles, wearing a sheer white veil and green-gold silk dress with pendant sleeves lined in peach and a full skirt. The collar, sleeves and skirt hems, and upper arms are decorated with bands of gold floral embroidery on brown, and she has a long gold belt. She's facing slightly left, grinning, with her skirt belled out by her motion, her sleeves swept forward, and her white chemise showing through the lacing gap at her side.
More gratuitous spinning.

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