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SCA

Field Only Armoury Update, July 2023

The 2023 update to my ongoing Field Only Armoury Project is finally done! This project started way back in the fall of 2017 as a way to explore SCA armoury and get better at blazon and emblazon, and then it became it’s own thing and has gotten annual updates since 2019.

This year includes six new entries and at least that many updates to existing entries, with some FO entries changing hands, some name changes, and some re-emblazons for various reasons. This fifth annual update is up to 264 items, still sorted alphabetically by blazon so similar designs appear next to each other.

If you want the 11 page 11×17 ledger sized PDF to download or view, here you go:

If you just want the single page PDF of this year’s six new entries, that’s here:

Finally, for the completists amongst us, as I’ve done for the past couple of years, here’s a ZIP file with the Excel file I use to organize the project, a copy of this year’s working SVG file (I do all my emblazon work in Inkscape), and a short README file.

As always, corrections, comments, or other feedback is encouraged! You can drop a comment here or send me an email at wirelizard@gmail.com.

In heraldic service,
Vémundr Syvursson
Pily barry argent and azure
Principality of Tir Righ
Kingdom of An Tir

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SCA

A Straightforward Dayshade

At our first local event post-COVID-restrictions in August of 2021, the absurd winds at the event well and truly wrecked our 10×10 modern popup dayshade. We’d been talking about doing something more period anyway, and I’d already been making sketches and gathering resources, but the popup-eating wind meant we actually had to get something done, for real.

The dayshade at it’s very first event.

We’ve gotten a lot of interest in the dayshade since building it, so I’ve finally gotten around to writing up the design and building process in a PDF handout, which you can read or download below.

I make a few assumptions about sewing and carpentry skills in the handout, in the interests of keeping it short, but if you need more details please feel free to contact me by email or by leaving a comment below.

If you wind up making a dayshade inspired by ours, please share photos and feedback on the process, I’d love to hear from you.

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SCA

Field Only Armoury Update, May 2022

UPDATE: The most recent version of my Field Only Armoury Project is now the July 2023 version.

This update of the Field Only Armoury Project updates us as far as the March 2022 Letters of Acceptances and Returns and adds fifteen new registrations to the collection.

For those unfamiliar with this project, it started back in the fall of 2017 because I wanted to get better at interpreting blazon (the language used to describe heraldic devices) and doing digital emblazons. I looked through the Ordinary & Armorial, the SCA’s massive online database of every name, device, badge, and other thing ever registered in the fifty plus years the Society for Creative Anachronism has been in operation, and eventually picked the Field Only registrations because they interested me, and because the size (about 200 registrations at that point) was ambitious but not wildly out of reach.

Over the course of a few months I published one page at a time of that first draft, nine devices at a time. Finally, in April 2018 I published The Whole Thing, 202 devices and badges.

Since then I’ve done annual updates to the project; this is the fourth such update.

The 2022 update brings us up to 258 devices and badges on 11 pages. It’s designed to print on 11×17 (Ledger size, in North America) paper, but scales down nicely to smaller paper, even Letter or A4 sizes. The whole thing is sorted alphabetically by blazon, starting with Fridha av Bergen’s Argent masoned azure and ending with Deykin ap Gwion’s Vert scaly Or.

If you just want the newest additions to the project on their own, possibly because you’ve already got a full printout of an earlier version of the Project, here’s the May 2022 new registrations only PDF.

Finally, if you want to dive into the working end of the Project, I’ve stuck my Excel sheet and the working SVG file into a ZIP file with a short README.

For a list of sources, please see my April 2018 post The Whole Thing, as it is still complete and accurate. Thanks again to all the people who’ve helped out and inspired this project over the years. I never expected it to become a regular part of my SCA routine, but here we are five years later and it very clearly is!

As always, comments, suggestions, or corrections can be done in comments here or by email; my email is on every single page of the PDFs. I really do like hearing from folks how they use this work, whether it’s to inspire and find potential conflicts for new registrations, for heraldic education, or other uses!

In Heraldic Service,
Vémundr Syvursson
Paly barry argent and azure
23 May, 2022 CE, A.S. 57.

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SCA

Absolute Beginner’s Fingerloop

This is a blogpost version of a handout I put together for a Society for Creative Anachronism event in May 2019, where I taught a short class called “Absolute Beginner’s Fingerloop” as someone very, very new to fingerloop braiding myself!

The “live” updated version of this document lives over on Google Drive and can be viewed there. It has several updates and edits that have not been incorporated into this post, and will have more as time rolls on.

Absolute Beginner’s Fingerloop

For Sealion War 2019 – Vémundr Syvursson

Fingerloop braiding is a technique of making sturdy and decorative cords from threads. It is a type of braiding known as loop manipulation. The braid is made from loops of thread, attached at a central point, and the loops placed over the fingers and interlaced in different ways.” – from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fingerloop_braid

Fingerloop in Europe dates at least as early as the 12th C and was well established by the 15th C. Cords are used for lacing and ties, purse strings, shoelaces, and decorative embellishment.

Resources

Loopbraider.com has great introductory tutorials and YouTube videos. I recommend starting with her site, especially her “Start Here” series of videos on three-, five-, and seven-loop braiding. You could also go direct to her YouTube channel.

Silkewerk has a trio of 15th C fingerloop manuals typed up, cataloged, and translated into modern English instructions. An amazing resource once you understand some of the language used.

Fingerloop.org is run a a couple of SCA folks and has some good information, using largely the same period information as the Silkewerk site.

Basics

There’s a standard convention for finger designation in fingerloop. Hold your hands with thumbs topmost and palms facing you. Each index finger is A, middle finger is B, ring is C, and your little finger is D.

Three Loop – Split/Divided Braid

This gets you two little three-strand braids top and bottom; it can be used to make a loop at the start of a cord, to add buttonhole style openings to a cord, or to make one long thin cord without needing really long starting loops.

Start with 2 loops on the Left hand (on A & B) and 1 on the Right A. Right middle finger (B) has no loop. It will be the active finger—the ‘operator’ finger—for the first move.

Right middle finger (B) goes through L middle loop (Left B) and L index (Left A) loop, then takes the left A loop and pulls it through the L middle finger (B) loop.

Shift the one remaining loop on the left up from Left B to Left A.

Now repeat the steps above from the left hand. Left B through Right B and Right A, take Right A loop back through Right B. Shift single loop on right up from Right B to Right A.

Three Loop – Round Braid

Follow the split instructions above, only when you reach through B to take A, reach over the top of A to take it instead of reaching through A. This flips the A loop around and will get you a single round(ish) cord.

Three Loop – Flat Braid

This one takes the two different methods of taking the A cord – either through or over – and combines them.

When taking the Left A cord, go over it and flip it – the mnemonic is “left over”.

When taking the Right A cord, go through it and do not flip it – the mnemonic is “right through”.

This will get you a flatter braid than the round braid method, and it can be spread and flattened after braiding as one edge is open. Note that it can be difficult to see the “flat” part of this with only three loops in play, it tends to look like a not-quite-as-round round braid…

Five Loop Braiding

Start with three loops on A, B, and C fingers of one hand, and two loops on A & B of the other hand. The finger movements and transfers are the same as with the three loop methods, except you’re reaching through two loops (C then B) to take the A loop, and using your ring finger (C finger) on the active hand instead of the middle/B finger.

V-Fell vs A-Fell

All our patterns above use V-Fell braiding, where the lower finger (middle/B with three-loop or ring/C with five) does the active passing and manipulation. It’s a bit easier to start, as all the loops you’re passing through are on the opposite hand from the active finger.

Almost all the historical patterns at Silkewerk and other sources use A-Fell braiding, however, where the uppermost index (A) finger does all the passing and manipulation, and more of the passing through is on loops on the same hand as your active A finger.

Simple five loop with A-Fell starts with three loops on A, B, and C on one hand, and two on B and C of the other. Active A finger then goes through B and C on the same hand to retrieve C from the opposite hand. That hand then shifts the two loops down, freeing that A finger to repeat the pattern, and so on. (this is an enormous simplification, not a set of specific instructions!)

A grene dorge of 6 bowes.

This is a beautiful braid that winds up rectangular and solid with single-colour stripes down the sides and an alternating colour stripe down the centre. It’s a good intro to A-fell braiding and multi-colour patterning. (copied from Silkewerk)

Start with four loops of colour #1 and one each of colours #2 and #3.
Color #1: B C – both hands
Color #2: D right
Color #3: A left

Work with the right hand:
A goes through B C right, and takes the loop on C left reversed.
Lower B left onto C.

Work with the left hand:
B goes through C left, and takes the loop on C right reversed.
Lower the right loops.

A left exchanges loops with D right.
(Put the A left loop over and around D, exchanging loops with D.)

Repeat from the beginning.

Morgan Donner has a video of this braid on her YouTube channel that is very well shot and worth watching. (Search YouTube for ‘Morgan Donner fingerloop’ and you should find it.)

Further & Onward

The three websites listed previously have a wealth of knowledge, especially (once you get comfortable with the basic movements and the language used) the Silkewerk site, which has three whole manuals (two 15th C, one 17th) transcribed and translated.

You can get into two-colour loops (Loopbraider has lots of material for this) , pickup pattern braiding up to and including lettering (Loopbraider again), two- or even three-person braids (Silkewerk, mostly), different materials, and a whole host of other complications!

There’s lots of other great resources out there for fingerloop braiding, including some highly recommended books and at least one Compleat Anachronist (#108) written by the two gentles who also run fingerloop.org and published by SCA, Inc.

I have also put a version of this handout up on my personal blog with working web links and some additional material, which you are reading right now!

YIS,
Vémundr Syvursson
Barony of Seagirt
May 2019
Contact: wirelizard@gmail.com