Category: Blog

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Love for my Laurel-Ican

Several months back, my Pelican reached out to me and asked if I wanted to create tokens for my Laurel as she was going to be asked to join the Order of the Pelican. At that time, I was unable to complete the project so I said no. More covid struck the world and the event was moved to a much later date. I wanted to do something more special than just tokens. I wanted to do something that meant something to Sabine. Her full SCA name is Sabine de Kerbriant and she is a 14th century french woman. What better way to capture that than to do a 14th century brooch. Her badge that she marks all of us is a heart. So, I found a heart shaped brooch. I wanted to something truly accurate to her persona. Luckily, l found this. See the below link:

Link to museum where brooch is housed

The original brooch said “Without being parted” which wasn’t what I really wanted to convey, so I did some research and found a 14th century french phrase which seemed to be more fitting. “Here I am Yours” IOSV IEI ATI VCI.

From there, I did my work. I 3D modeled this in fusion 360

This is the image after many many hours of modeling

From there, I made a mold out of high temperature silicone and cast it

After it was cast, I cut off the sprue, cleaned it up, ran it through a rock tumbler.

To make the brooches functional, I took silver plated copper, cut them to length, wrapped them and filed the edges to make them sharp. I made 75 of these for Sabine’s elevation. My hands were cranky.

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A More Challenging Assembly

You would think after the 3 prior years of running this event, it would be easy as cake. The problem was that the 3 previous years had all been different. Covid-19 is still raging on and that lends itself to many other challenges.

In the first year of the challenge assembly’s inception, it had a large location in an area that was well accessible by many of the performers in the region. Bringing it up north had it’s own challenges. EKCOP has no money of it’s own, so we would need to find a sponsoring location. Luckily, Stonemarche had some extra money in the coffers and could offer us a sum to run this event. Finding sponsors for the challenges was another item as folks were unsure how their challenges were going to be taken and how they would view them.

This year, I was able to have 18 sponsors of 20 unique challenges. Next, getting folks to travel to New Hampshire and be willing to perform. We still had the requirements of masking indoors and performing outside would pose a challenge as there was a baseball game booked on the same grounds we were using. Can’t really complain considering the site was only charging us 75 dollars for the day. In addition we had to figure out how much food to feed people for day board and how we could encourage folks to teach.

The performance community in Stonemarche is decently sized, however, covid was making this all difficult. All in all, we had 43 attendees and actually made a profit of a little more than a hundred dollars for the day and this with charging folks the least amount we possibly could. We also had 12 amazing classes ranging from singing, story telling, history of stories and insturmental. The videos will be up soon… I hope.

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Demo at the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire

One of my jobs, as it has been for the past year is to serve as the Chatelaine of the Barony of Stonemarche. For the previous year, it has really just been an administrative job due to the nature of events and COVID. However, at the Aisles of Marche, I had set up a mini demo for any possible new comers to be able to see what we had besides shopping. I wanted something that was more visually pleasing than just some folks, standing around in garb and answering questions. I wanted something interactive.

For the NHRF, I started off with a new, revamped booklet, which was not as intense as what we have on the SCA website, but has some key information that a new comer would need walking into their first, second or third events.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1quyibfNwdMUSnwOxnH4hwkdgSateUS5r/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=105255312117189439983&rtpof=true&sd=true

From there, I also created a form with pictures of all the main folks in the Barony, as well as the Royals. This was accurate at the time of it’s inception. This will get updated as officers and royals change.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mND-AeuMKRuFKDMQosknxJdEkfRBMiFy/view?usp=sharing

From there it was grabbing weapons, crafts, books, arts and SINGING! I cannot have an event without singing. I brought a few copies of my rounds book and as folks had time, would encourage them to sing. We also had live crafting demonstrations and board games. I picked a few of my favorite medieval board games and set them out to teach people. On the games, there was a copy of the barony and sca information as well as the rules. I figured this might be a better alternative to business cards. Also, for the hip crew, we had a QR code to scan so I could email folks directly. I know I don’t want to carry a card with me if I don’t have to.

The rest of the day I spent answering questions for new comers, herding my amazing volunteers, scheduling breaks and just having a blast welcoming new comers.

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Bardic Around the Fire-Barrington Addition

It’s been a few years since I hosted one of these… well, because of COVID-19. I was hoping at least a few people would show up, but I wasn’t optimistic. My husband and I cleaned up our backyard, put up tiki torches, had some folks bring finger foods and waited for the sun to go down.

Much to much surprise, we had 35 people show up. I am thankful we have a 180 ft driveway and a huge firepit and open back yard. We had folks new and old to performing. Folks I had known for years and folks I had never met before. We went till about 12 and closed up. I am please. We will do this again!

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Harper’s Retreat 2021

This was a weird year. I had responsibility, but not a ton. This was also my first event back in person. Masks everywhere. All I wanted to do was hug my friends, sing and teach. I got to do some of that.

I started off by doing my first real A and S display. I had sort of done them in the past, but none with my documentation. I presented my rounds book and also my pewter tokens.

I helped Amalie review the A and S class tents but the rest of time and taught a couple classes. I did my rounds class outside and I taught my class on how medieval music was written.

That night was Bardic. I did not compete. I convinced a whole lot of other folks to who never would have, but I didn’t. It was so nice to see my friends being brave and doing a thing that’s hard for them.

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Challenge Assembly 2021- Online Edition

Another year, more challenges to come. Literally and metaphorically. This years challenge assembly and schola was very similar to the year prior since that too had an online format. We had about 12 folks for each and every class and many repeat offenders (Which is always nice). We had representation from 5 kingdoms, which, is super neat since in non-covid days, we may have had 1, maybe 2.

There is not much to report otherwise. It was a smooth day with the help of my Co-Autocrat, Drustan.