Largesse - Another tiny book

Our kingdom made a call for largesse to provide for the 50 year celebration of the SCA (kind of a big deal). I had all kinds of plans to make a fancy schmancy book with the device/symbol chosen by Their Majesties of Northshield to commemorate their reign. Sadly, reality had to hit me eventually. The largesse display was at Quest this last weekend, and time had run out. I did manage to finish one of my cute tiny books, so that had to be my little contribution.

My heart is big, but my crafting is slow. I was also working on two scrolls, so that ate into my time a bit.

Special thanks to my hubby who acted as my "hand model" to show off the size and scope of this book.

These little things are the perfect size for taking notes during circles. This one is covered in a lovely blue suede, and is kind of "first cousins" to the books I made for largesse last year. One even has the same leather cover, but this has square corners instead of round!

Notebook Largesse

When our glorious Majesties of Artemisia announced they would be travelling to Avacal for their premier coronation, and requested largesse to take for the occasion, I knew exactly what I wanted to make. Hand-bound notebooks, covered in leather.

As I was also in the process of beginning to make a vigil book for a friend (a post to come later), I decided to practice my meager bookbinding skills by making a few small notebooks. Killing two birds with one stone, you see.

The first, as you can see, is bound in a smooth supple tan leather, and the signatures are made of a taupe high quality paper. The end papers are pieces of scrapbook paper that I thought was pretty. Queue my obsession with the classic damask pattern.

The signatures are hand stitched with waxed linen thread, and bound with linen and twine on the inside spine. The book board is simple cardboard, but certainly sufficient for such small books.

The second was covered in some powder blue suede, and the signatures are a plain white paper. Its end papers are similar to the first, but the colors are grey and white. I rounded the corners of the cover of the blue book, and I quite like the look. I neglected to take pictures of the second book prior to handing them over for largesse, alas.

There was a largesse derby held, so I handed them in despite the fact that there were only two instead of a half dozen. They just take so much longer to make than I'd anticipated. Her Majesty posted this picture of my entry, so that's the only image I have of the blue book!

Saccoccia Largesse

When my beautiful Baroness made a cry for largesse to give to visiting nobles at our premier court event, 12th Night, I almost immediately knew what I wanted to do. A few weeks following this event, there was to be a Masked Ball in another Barony, with an Italian theme. So I chose to make a few saccoccias so that the lovely ladies would have an Italian accessory to sport.

I'm afraid that these are far from my best work - I'm a bit rusty with the needle these days, and I was having fights with the iron as well as the fabric.  But they are what they are!

The first is a lovely green damask (cut from a curtain I picked up at a thrift store!), lined in a horrible, evil, shreddy nasty satin. The lining pealed out of the sewn front slit like a banana, when I was flipping the lining inside where it belongs. So I had to make bias tape from the same evil satin (hiss), to clean up that hot mess. Don't we all have fabrics in our stash that were purchased unwittingly over a dozen years ago that we are a bit ashamed of?

The second is a brocade from my stash lined in a similarly evil satin, but it behaved a bit better on this one. I added a silk wrapped button as a pointless decoration for the fun of it, left over from my eggplant veste project. This one has a more rounded, tear shaped bottom.

The third is a bit of damask left over from my butter sottana from the Artemisian Costuming Challenge, lined in white linen. The casing for the belt is made of ivory silk taffeta.

Napkin Largesse

Or serviette, whichever you prefer.  I've spent quite a bit of time pricking my fingers lately, working on a largesse project.  I started by making a couple of embroidered medallions, which are done in satin and chain stitches. All materials came from my stash, so the embroidery was a mix of silk and cotton floss.  I then appliqued the medallions to hand-sewn linen napkins, made from 14"x14" linen scraps.

 

The gold embroidered napkins were given to Their Royal Majesties, Raven and Sajah at Solstice Court this weekend, within gift baskets full of goodies from the household I belong to, Sable Sun.  

Each napkin was carefully turned and hand-sewn, with mitered corners.  Of course, we couldn't leave out our Esteemed Barons and Baronesses of the Kingdom in our endeavors.  This happened to be an investiture event, meaning the Baron and Baroness of Loch Salann, the hosting Barony, were retiring, and the newly chosen Baron and Baroness were invested (the ceremonial term for receiving their coronets and taking their station).  The outgoing Baroness has a thing for dragonflies, just like me, so their napkins included some dragonfly appliques from my stash.  They are iron-on jobbies, for which I am ashamed but simply didn't have time to hand-embroider them.

Each of the Baronages in attendance received a gift basket including two napkins, and we also donated a basket that included four napkins to a silent auction.  This was an easy but time consuming project.  I could have done it much faster by machine, but there's something charming about little uneven hand stitches. It was also a great way to use up some of my scraps of fabric.

Name Change + Largesse

Firstly, you may note that I've changed my blog name from The Path Within to Cobalt-Dragonfly Creations.  I made the change because this blog has become much more public than I first thought it would be.  I thought it would remain just a log of my personal projects, but now the name seems...off.  I think it's a good thing, to progress forward and move with the times.

I doubt this will require anything of you, though your blogrolls may or may not self-update.  I don't have a clue on that.  The URL did not change at all.

Secondly, a common practice within the SCA is to provide largesse, to show your skill and generosity to the crown / coronet / etc.  About seven   years ago I created Kingdom flag fans which were then taken to a large war for distribution.  I honestly can't remember if it was Estrella or Pennsic... oh brain, how I miss thee!  Either way, I was not in attendance, more's the pity.

I worked on these with Lord Grifon, and I think we got most if not all Kingdoms done, even if they aren't pictured.

I'm trying to determine what my next largesse project will be.  What's your favorite thing to make and give away?