a&s – Stórfréttir

Arts and Sciences at St. Brigid’s Inn!

a black and white line drawing of a shield-shaped pub sign, featuring a chatloup and a raccoon rampant, presenting between them a woven St. Brigid's cross. banner text around them reads "Saint Brigid's Inn" in a blackletter font. — image description: a black and white line drawing of a shield-shaped pub sign featuring a chatloup and a raccoon rampant, presenting between them a woven St. Brigid’s cross. banner text around them reads “Saint Brigid’s Inn” in a blackletter font.

Salve Accolens! I come bearing tidings of the most excellent classes and A&S activities at St. Brigid’s Inn, which takes place February 21st at the Buffalo Inn in South Park.

Perhaps most exciting, we will be featuring both a craft supply swap and an armor swap: round up those unused tools and that weird yarn you were sure would be useful, and the gorget or gauntlets that never quite fit right, and we’ll help them find a new home. Browse the armor swap and pick up some new-to-you kit in time for outdoor practice season, or leave ready to explore a new and exciting craft! You don’t have to bring something in order to take something, everyone can participate.

Come visit the armor repair workshop and help get our Baronial iron key armor in fighting shape, or get your own all gussied up and ready to go for the season.

Bring your threadbare and holey garb to the mending & sewing circle, where we’ll ply you with tea and teach you how to shore up that ripped tunic for another year of camping events.

We have activities hosted by the Foresters, Æthelmearc Moneyers Guild, Debatable Brewers, and Skyguard (the Debatable Lands Archery Guild); petting zoos for wild mushrooms and (definitely domesticated) musical instruments; make-and-takes for St. Brigid’s crosses and effigies, brick stitch embroidery, cordage, and tablet weaving; classes on painting, calligraphy, and manuscript research; blockprinting and machine sewing; and a heraldry consult table for all your name and device needs.

You can see the schedule and class descriptions here in spreadsheet form or here as a pdf (better than the spreadsheet on mobile).

The best thing about St. Brigid’s Inn is that the classes all run for at least two hours and are designed to be drop-in-drop-out. This means it may actually be possible to attend ALL THE CLASSES, which we all know is the Ultimate Nerd Goal.

Whether you schedule every second of your day or hole up in a corner with a hot drink and good company, we hope you’ll have a lovely time.

Stay warm out there,
– Owen Tegg, St. Brigid’s class coordinator

New A&S Minister

Congratulations to our new Minister of Arts and Sciences, the Honorable Lady Elinor Walden! Her Ladyship Elinor has some great plans to expand arts and sciences activities in the Barony, and better communicate the opportunities for participation that are available. Remember that you can always contact the current minister by sending email to “ansminister (at) debatablelands (dot) org”.

Arts and Sciences on Display at Debatable Lands 12th Night

Here are photographs of more than a dozen entries in this year’s Debatable Lands 12th Night Arts and Sciences Display and Baronial Championship Competition (DL12NANSDBCC for short). My apologies if I missed your entry! Please contact me if that is the case. In addition to these excellent objects, many entries were accompanied by excellent research articles.

THL Agnella Iacopi – 16th Century Fur-Lined Short Cloak

Alric Smith was the winner of the Championship competition and will represent the Barony Marche of the Debatable Lands at the 7 Pearls event. The Honorable Lady Lisabetta (“Bess”) de Rossi has agreed to second Smith if he is unable to attend that event.

Largesse at Agincourt

The Honorable Lady Lisabetta de Rossi ran a largesse derby at Agincourt 15 this past weekend. Nominally, it was a competition, but the real purpose was to collect items that their Majesties Aethelmearc can give as gifts to their populace and to other Kingdoms.

Baroness Aranwen Verch Rhys ap Gwalter brought some lampwork beads and clay tokens.

THL Rachel Daliceux displayed some cast resin “enameld” Baronial Comet Award medallions

Ishiyama Shonagon donated some wooden boxes

Kolfinna donated these ginchy stuffed dragons

…and these thread + needle cases with escarbuttons.

Thank you everyone for enabling the Crown to disburse the artistic generosity of Glorious Aethelmearc!

Iris Festival Arts+Sciences

In addition to the many classes at Iris Festival this year, space will be set aside in the main pavilion again this year for an Arts and Sciences display. Please bring examples of your work in any art or craft. All are welcome. Projects related to East Asia or Japan are encouraged, of course. If you will be wearing your project that day, photographs and short write-ups would still be a great way to let people know about your work. If you have research to present, please bring copies for people to read.

This site is covered but outdoors, so make sure to protect your project from errant breezes and possible stray raindrops. There is also a site restriction of “No glass bottles.”

I had some lovely discussions with last year’s entrants, and they provided great content for my report to the kingdom. There will be no competition and no judging. If you have any questions you’d like to ask a more experienced craftsperson, we can probably find somebody to help out.

Iris Festival Arts and Sciences

There are two Arts and Sciences activities being run at next month’s Japanese Iris Festival event (June 4, 2022 – 121 Brady’s Run Rd, Beaver Falls, PA 15010).

The first is the Iron Comet A&S Competition. The competition has no theme, and accepts all types of projects. The competition is mandatory for anyone in the Iron Comet Challenge, but it is open to everyone. Anyone can win, but only those participating in the martial competitions will receive tournament points.

The second is the Festival A&S Display. The display is also open to any type of project, but projects displaying arts of Eastern Asia are encouraged. There are no points awarded, no judging, and no winner. Please bring all your most interesting, most useful, most attractive, and most intense projects to show. Research and instruction are not required, but we would love to see any supporting documentation if you have it, and enjoy having you answer questions about your work if you’re not busy elsewhere. You can display as many items as you wish, but if you need a lot of room please consider bringing your own tables and possibly your own shelter.

Both activities will be under shelter, but this event is primarily outdoors so please be prepared to protect your entries from stray raindrops and errant breezes. By site policy, no glass bottles are allowed.

You do not need to register your entries or display items ahead of time, but if you want to send email to let event staff know what you are bringing or if you have any questions, please contact “ansminister (at) debatablelands.org”.

Arts and Sciences in the Park – Sunday

We have been given the go-ahead to have our first Arts and Sciences “practice” this Sunday (May 23rd) from 10am to 1:30pm at the Washington Boulevard site. The parking lot now bisects the site. The Archers will have their practice on the “Large Field” side as usual, and A&S will be over on the “Small Field” side closer to the river. We will finish up promptly by 1:30pm to make room for afternoon practices.

The theme of this gathering is “catching up”. Please bring a project you are working on now, and one or more projects you worked on during the shutdown for show-n-tell. We’ll chat and enjoy being out in the (I hope) sunshine with our artsy/crafty friends.

Attendance is limited to 25 people, and masks are required. We will give everybody the distance they need to be comfortable, so please bring your own seating, water, food, and shade if you desire it. Please note that the parking lot is smaller than it was, and be considerate of others.

Salve Accolens and see you Sunday!

A&S in October

There are a wealth of opportunities to explore A&S this month with folks from the barony! See below for announcements and teasers of fun things to come:

Sewing circle: Thursday October 3rd at 1105 Shady Ave starting at 7:30. There will be scroll case construction, but feel free to bring other things, if you don’t want to work on scroll cases. Donations of medium sized material scraps or precut cardboard are appreciated; we already have a nice supply to start. If you wish to donate items for scroll cases, but don’t plan to attend, please email sewing at debatablelands dot org to arrange to hand-off.

Scribal opportunities in Bellevue: Mistress Graidhne continues to host scribal gatherings on Wednesdays weekly from 6-9pm. Address is available in the Dark Pages. There is talk of a special meeting at the Cathedral of Learning on Thursday, October 10th!

Brewing Guild: Please note that the October Brewers Guild meeting is being moved from Wednesday, October 9th to *Saturday* October 12th! We will be having a marathon session of wine racking and/or bottling at not one but *two* houses! Jorundr & Muirgheal and Alaric & Elsbeth will be hosting throughout the day. Details to come. Hope to see you there!

Artisans Play Time at Agincourt: October 19th at the Monroeville-Pitcairn Sportsmen’s Club, 505 Mosside Blvd, North Versailles, PA, 15137. The site will open at 9:00 a.m. and close at 9:00 p.m. Come and display your art, discuss your art, bring your current projects to work on! We’ll do our best to have good lighting and outlets available.

Fiber Guild: Two fun adventures this month! Explore Russian Distaff Spinning at the regular meeting of the fiber guild, tentative date of October 15th. Then, later in the month, the fiber guild takes a trip to the Carnegie Museum of Art! Tentative date: October 20th. Keep watching for more info!

Woodworking Guild: October 24th: Planning Meeting: These meetings are weeknight evening meetings, for the purpose of deciding what we want to work on next and when we’re going to do it. 7pm to 8:30pm at the Panera in Oakland. October 27th: Workshop Days: These meetings are on weekend days, for the purpose of making things. Sunday, from 10am to 2pm, in Ishiyama’s shop (1105 Shady Avenue, 15232).

Social event shared to the group hosted by Gardner of Elygh and THLady Bugga Bilibit: October 26th: Pittsburgh Pennsic Pile Pick-up Practice and Potluck Picnic. Hurdy Gurdy, recorder, shawms, sackbuts and crumhorns? Bring an instrument, we’ll read through the Pennsic Pile in an ad hoc manner. There will be a couple copies of the music available but bring your own if you have it.

Scribal East: October 31st meeting will be held at the home of Lady Ceindrech and Lady Libby in Monroeville, starting at 7:00 pm. Their address is available in the Dark Pages. Disclaimer: The ghouls and goblins may spook the scribes! If the date changes, there will be another post!

AEthelmearc AEcademy: November 2nd. This is a great opportunity to travel and learn so many new things from around the Kingdom! More info at AEcademy.net

Food Guild Announced

Food!! Glorious Food!!

The inaugural meeting of the Food Guild will be at the Archery Muster at 1 PM, on April 7, the day after Coronation. If you like cooking, or baking, or experimenting with recipes, or eating food that other people prepare, then this is where you want to be.

We’ll talk about what we want to do, what we want to learn, what we are interested in, and where we are going with this guild. We will also be making cheese, and testing various flavor combinations.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Contact Elss Augsburg on Facebook or email her at elss.of.augsburg@gmail.com

I’m hungry already!

-From Elss

A and S — Sewing Circle – December 30th

Extra A&S Meeting in December!!

Date: SUNDAY December 30th
Time: 1 PM – 3PM more or less
NEW Location:
HackPGH
1936 5th Ave.
Pittsburgh, PA 15219
(In the garage around the back of the building on Watson St.)

You can also put 1960 Watson Street, Pittsburgh, PA into your GPS.

Home

This A&S day is for all equestrians (or anyone actually) who would like to work on barding or garb. There will be sewing machines available. Please let me know if you are interested in a specific project, such as banners.

HackPGH is a maker space — sort of like the best basement or hobby room ever. We’ll be getting a tour of the facility – you won’t want to miss it.

Standard disclaimers here:
We are accessible to our less mobile friends, and have free parking on the street.

If you need assistance or have questions, please call or text me at 724-759-3333.

Thank you for asking! These meetings are free and we are generously supported by the Barony and the teachers themselves.
Elss