Choosing a Name in the SCA

So you've decided to choose a name. Or two. Or three.

Calligraphy by Kathy Heaser

Modar University's Article on Choosing a Persona/Name:

http://www.modaruniversity.org/Names.htm

The author suggests newcomers start this way:

1. Choose a Culture

2. Choose a Time Period

3. Choose a Name

It is hard to always follow this formula, as we often want to start right away with a name and then flesh out a persona later. Remember, there is no crime in changing your name. Just don't do it every event.... Tangwystyl verch Morgant Glasvryn has written a fantastic article on changing your name.

Let's focus just on choosing a name.

First, how unique is the name you are contemplating? Does it matter to you if you could be attending an event with others of that name? In period there would have been quite a few "John Smith"s running around, but how practical is that in a society where we already have two names to have the same name as someone else? Or be "John Smith called Spinny" and have people not recognize when a herald is trying to call you into court with your formal name? My advice is always to go for a unique name. At an event in my local shire there were 5 Mistress Elinor/Eleanors, and that was before House Strangewayes got our own! Don't add to the confusion! 

Pro tip: Try starting at the bottom of name chart and work your way up!

At Herald's Point at Pennsic they keep binders of the registered names. The alphabet starts with HUGE binders and drops off as the letters go on. There are so many wonderful, unique, and perfectly period names out there! 

As to popular names, anecdotally, - any variation of Cat or Kitty whether Catherine or Caterina has dozens across any area. And don't be another fighter named Angus. Just don't.

When contemplating a name, first check this chart of the most common names in the Society:

http://www.modaruniversity.org/Names2.htm

Then try to keep these key points in mind:

http://www.modaruniversity.org/Giata/Fleurtyherald-NAME-CONSULTATION-WRKSHT.pdf

Remember that your first and last name should match both in culture and time period. The Society allows some leeway on time period (I believe it is about 100 years) and culture, but names generally "used only one language, or sometimes two. Most people didn't travel far from home, and knew just the one language they grew up with. The few who did travel did so mostly to make war or money (or both); rarely did they travel to settle in some distant, inhospitable land. As a result, names with two languages appeared only near kingdom or national borders, or as a result of major invasions or regular trade. Thus, it's reasonable to combine English and Danish, or French and German, because those people ran into each other regularly. On the other hand, mixing English and Arabic, or Hungarian and Irish, isn't reasonable, because those people interacted only rarely, if at all." from:http://heraldry.sca.org/armory/whatis/name.html

Then comes the heralds. The pronunciation of your name (or the butchering thereof) is more than a little likely if you are unknown to a court herald, or if they haven't seen your name written. So, unless you are my dear friend Þjóðrekr ógæfa and think that this is a fun trick to pull on the herald, try sounding out the names as you go down (or up! Pro-Tip!) the lists. This may make you look like a crazy person to co-workers, but will serve you well in the end.  

Now, in my household our Founder Eleanor Strangwayes now Iulia Agricola will tell you that a joke name will eventually get old. As Fortune, I won't tell you that. But that is something to bear in mind. This will likely be your name in Society for years to come and looking forward how will it "age"? 

Also, as many of us can tell you, there are people who will no longer know your "real" name and you may get stopped in the grocery store or have your SCA name called out across a crowded room at a convention or on the street, and how will it go in those spaces? Your name, just like your mundane name, will be what people judge you on without knowing you as a person, so choose thoughtfully.

Another issue I've seen happens when someone chooses a descriptive name and then they change focus. This is very evident in heraldry, and the Herald's Point staff will caution you that just because you like archery - doesn't mean you have to have a bow or arrow on your heraldry. 

Your heraldry, like your name, will come to mean *YOU* it doesn't need to define you. 

Later down the road Malcolm Bowman who once was a fletching young archer is now Master Malcolm Bowman a well-known herald of the East Kingdom. 

Name website resources:

Academy of St. Gabriel

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/

Modar University:

http://www.modaruniversity.org/Heraldry2.htm#Names

SCA Heraldry Website on Names:

http://heraldry.sca.org/names.html

Websites to avoid:

http://www.s-gabriel.org/names/arval/badpages.shtml

I originally wrote this for my household's Wiki  but felt it was good information to share here as well. 

The Post Birka Post: Mostly Event Pictures

Well by now I'm sure you're wondering "Fortune, how did Birka go?" and "Fortune, do you ever want to sew again after Birka?" 

Well, gentle reader, Birka went well, and I did eventually want to sew again. 

Lady Fortune St Keyne as Lotso from Toy Story 3

Here is my finished dress. 

I even smelled like strawberries (a character feature of the villainous Lotso). Thank you Bath and Body works and your Fresh Strawberries Hand Cream. 

The fashion show went amazingly well. We had over 40 entries and many of them for the Pixar Queen's Challenge. Lady Syele runs the challenge and does a wonderful job. We had some very tough judges (Lady Elena, Mistress Albreda, Mistress Amelia Venture, and her Majesty and her advisors) and the wonderful Mistress Alys Mackyntoich volunteered to MC. 

My household members Gritta won an award for her amazing Crannach "Ham" (she's been in the SCA less than a year locally!) and Lady Bianca Anguissola won an award for her late period "Bo Peep". The overall winner was the most amazing WALL-E early Tudor by Lady Astrid. 

I somehow never got a full picture of Partysaurus Rex in his tunic by himself, but I will share construction pictures. Tho and I are still working on how to get his pants to be comfortable and stay up. 

Pictures of the event: 

Most of House Strangewayes: Lady Bianca Anguissola, Lady Cecily Windham, Gritta,
Lady Elvira Ballesteros, Mistress Iulia Agricola, Lord Fearghas Randonneur,
Lady Lysken die Wayer, Lady Syele von Heidelberg, Lady Fortune St Keyne,
Erdene Qadijin, Jacquemine van Bel, Lord Thothreker Ogaefa
Jeremy (Mr. Syele)

And we've reached punchy o'clock.
Lady Simona bat Leon, Lady Syele von Heidelberg, Lady Lysken die Wayer
Lady Fortune St Keyne, Gritta, Lady Elvira Ballesteros, Jacquemine van Bel, Lady Bianca Anguissola
Lord Hermankyn, Lord Thothreker Ogaefa
And once again: Jeremy. Who loves our darling Syele. 

Lady Syele ran the fashion show and had a lovely German gown that looked like Jesse from Toy Story, her loving and patient husband Jeremy had a Buzz Lightyear houppelande. 

Lady Simona and her husband Hermankyn were the green claw machine aliens from Toy Story

Let's just say family picture time this year was chaotic. 

We also have a tradition of taking ankle shots as a household: 

Mistress Iula refuses to show her ankles as she is wearing her work boots.
Mistress Iulia is a spoilsport of the first order. 

The other tradition we ladies indulge in are selfies in the executive ladies washroom by the Armory: 

Simona and I 

Selfie time!

 Actually walking in the fashion show:

I borrowed Master Ekkehardt's cane to complete the look. 

And the twirl!

All in all it was yet another wonderful Birka!

 

More Pelicans! A Hood for his most excellent Excellency Xavier

This time I created a hood for Master Juan Lazaro Ramirez Xavier- former Baron of Stonemarche and my SCA big brother.

Xavier, as he's known, with his beautiful wife Maria were brought before the king at Great Northeastern War and given writs to contemplate joining the Order of the Pelican.

I would not be in the SCA without Xavier.

My household, House Strangewayes, would not exist without Xavier.

It was Xavier and Maria's wedding that a young Mistress Iulia Agricola (formerly Elinor Strangewayes) attended which hooked her, then her childhood friend Simona, and then Simona's work friend me on the SCA. And it's been encouragement and support for us and a legion of other newcomers that he and Maria undertook during their decade as Baron and Baroness Stonemarche.

You know those posts I have about Palio? Palio is his idea. His baby. They also established the newcomer tour at Birka. They first introduced me to Sir Kyppen's YouTube videos on being a chatelaine by holding a class about these videos at Harper's Retreat.

So needless to say we wanted to give back. Stonemarche is the home of our hearts, and a huge reason for that is Xavier and Maria's work as Baron and Baronessa.

So on to the project! He wanted a hood, as he overheats easily, instead of a full cloak and cap of maintenance. We also had a two week window due to Pennsic. So I sent him a sketch of what I was thinking:

Red linen hood, with gold silk lining and red jewels and embroidered pelicans.


A simple hood with red cabochons for the blood drops around the hem and two embroidered pelican roundels



We made a few modifications, he was worried that the red jewels would not stand out against the red linen so he suggested gold balls behind the jewels as gold balls are part of his heraldry.

AND BECAUSE I LOVE MY FRIEND I AGREED TO APPLIQUE CIRCLES

 

 

Pennsic gave me a chance to shop for materials. The gold silk which was too heavy to line the hood was perfect for the gold silk Pelican giornea which Lady Simona bat Leon was making for Maria from the lovely new fabric and notions vendor in Poison Pen Press's old spot. Booth 63 I believe. Instead I got the silk at home at Sewfisticated and Xavier ordered the red linen from fabric-store.com.

 

The things that make this hood are the jewels, which I got at Cabochons on Bow Street #19. Run by the amazing (Mistress, Countess, all around awesomeness) Arastorm the Golden and her daughters Willow and Kat. They had not just teardrop jewels, but I could pick from red faceted jewels or red cabochons! They came with the fittings and Willow gave me a crash course in sewing them on. Plus, they are from Stonemarche!

Layout

I copied a hood that he already had which was made based on Cynthia Virtue's hood pattern. The one he had the buttons were sewn on the very edge and the buttonholes handsewn through both layers.

I basically cut the same shapes for the outside as the lining. On the lining squared off the back of the hood instead of making a tail. The only thing that wasn't fully lined was the liripipe (the long tail) which we measured at 41" long on him, to give just the right amount of drape when the tail is tucked into his belt. So I cut a 4 1/2 inch wide by 42" strip for the liripipe. More on the liripipe later.

The hardest part of this were the appliques. The thing that made the hood though, were the appliques.

I first cut out a template out of a folder for the heavier paper weight the finished size of my circles. I then cut out ten circles with a quarter of an inch seam allowance around the edges. I then proceeded to use ALL THE STEAM! I wet down the circle, placed the template in the center and folded up the steam allowance carefully and ironed it down around the edges. (Pictures forthcoming) I take this technique from quilting circles.

The first one I serged around in red, but there were two difficulties in that. First, serging tiny circles is a maddening task, and second, the serging didn't do what I wanted it to, which was give me an even guide to hand sew against. Instead, it betrayed me and showed in an ugly manner around the ironed edge. So I banished that circle and cut a new one.



The finished ironed silk circles

Then I added the findings, snussled the jewels into them, and played around more with placement.

More spaced out. Less work. I felt it didn't look right.

More circles! This is the right look!

Then I got to hand sew around the wee little balls.

 

Here are the mistakes I made doing this:

1. I should have sewed the gores in first, but I was intimidated to do that, so I procrastinated.
2. I didn't use silk pins so I then had the smooth out the silk from the fat quilter's pins I used.
3. I agreed to applique circles in the first place.

 

Finished sewing on the circle! Now to embellish

How it looked from the back... at first.

The finished applique

 

After the stitching around it, I did a back stitch in gold and whipped around it in white.

Due to the different fabrics they sort of "puffed" when I finished them. So I put a circle of red wool felt (left over from Viking Sailor Moon) behind it to keep the convex shape and give more of a "ball" look to the appliques.

A note on the motivational cocktail:

It's a motivational cocktail! A Fortune must while sewing!

Syele von Heidelberg made me an awesome boozy milkshake from vanilla ice cream, cocoa and cookie butter from Trader Joe's and vodka! And it had a cool straw!

I sew (on a deadline) better when a little buzzed, it gets me over some of my hesitations and have Brilliant Ideas (tm)! (I once came back tipsy from a Halloween party, drafted and made a Venetian gown and wore it to Crown Tourney the next morning. I looked FABULOUS)

In this case I had a Brilliant Idea (tm) about the liripipe. Xavier, for all his noble qualities also has a great sense of fun and whimsy. So I was determined to hid the squeaker from a squeaky toy in the tip of the liripipe.

Which of course meant I got to go to Wal-Mart and look like a lunatic squeaking various items in the pet toy aisle to find the right pitch of squeak.

Turns out - squeaky toys are harder to open than you'd think.

The way my mother's 8 lbs Malte-Poo goes through them I figured no problem, this thing will give up it's squeaker easy. NOPE. I had to eventually stab it to death.



Squeaky squeaky murder

Back to assembly!

I have done these hoods before - but every time I get intimidated by the gores, look up Alysaundre's Perfectly Pointed Gore Technique and wonder why I get intimidated by the gores. They came out perfectly, no having to rip out and try again on any of the four gores.

I stitched the long liripipe strip to the outer hood, folded everything and ironed it, sketched a half moon shape at the tip and stitched up the liripipe and down the center back.

I stitched the tip of the back of the hood together, left a generous 6 inch space and then stitched down the back of the neck as well. I then matched them both up and stitcked around the edge of the hood and around the cape edge. This uses a lot of pins, but worked out really well. Then I pulled it right side out through the slit and sewed that up by hand. Now it's more ironing, because linen NEEDS to be ironed and silk takes so beautifully to an iron.

It came to the night before and I sewed on the buttons which I'd found at a local Jo-Ann's which looked like period metal buttons. The young lady at the checkout also let me use every coupon they had going so it cost me about $5 for $20 worth of buttons. I stitched them to the edge of the fabric about every inch, tightening to ever 3/4 of an inch around the curve of the neck.

The intention was to do handsewn buttonholes through the fabric. But... that looked terrible and I was doing it on site the date of the event. For some reason the silk and linen did not want to cooperate and it looked like a small rodent had chewed a hold through the garb.

So I changed tactics. I had three hours, and I had seen a technique for turkish garb making thick thread loops and doing a buttonhole stitch around it. This site calls it the buttonhole bar stitch.

From rocksea.org Sarah's Hand Embroidery Tutorials

Instead of doing it here in the middle of the fabric I did it on the very edge with red embroidery floss and when done correctly the loops don't even twist!

I was able to get the loops done in plenty of time for court and they looked fabulous!

The below photos are from Lady Estefania del Bosque who did a magnificent job photographing the day.



Her Majesty places the hood around his shoulders



Xavier, His Majesty Omega, and Her Majesty Ethedreda



Xavier, Maria (and her gorgeous gold giornea), His Majesty Omega and her Majesty Etheldreda

 

Master Juan Lazaro Ramirez Xavier

Here you can see the one handbound buttonhole I managed to finish. The Pelican embroidery did not make it to the event, but will be added later.

I didn't tell him ahead of time about the squeaker. I told a couple other people, but not him. So after he was done with court some rapscallion squeaked him. It was huge hit.

More about the event:

It was a beautiful day at King's and Queen's Equestrian.

Inspired by Pennsic my cohort Lady Bianca Anguisola and I made a big effort to have as much of a period pavilion as possible.


Isn't she just lovely folks?

We borrowed the tent from a friend of Simona's and brought our wood tables, wood benches and period servingware. We served a simple but period lunch and had some great fellowship.

And aside from the vigils we were the place to be

It helps to have a war kitten!
Zeus (the cat) and Munchkin (the dog) were great entertainment

Lady Este offered to do a photoshoot with us so... we couldn't resist.

Some of House Strangewayes: Lady Lysken die Waeyer, Lady Cecily Wyndham, Lady Elvira Ballesteros, Myself- Lady Fortune St Keyne, and Lady Bianca Anguisola

Things quickly escalated...


Drama Queens



The Hills are Alliiiiiiiiiiive!!!!!!!!

 



As you can see, my household are a super serious bunch.

 

My dress is based off several portraits in the 1520s made for Pennsic out of some wonderfully soft lurex striped fabric from Jo-Ann's and the lower sleeves are out of velvet. The camicia is from my Birka dress for the Queen's Celestial Challenge - which reminds me I need to do a post on that dress. Bianca has a 1550s back side lace gown and her dramatic walking veil. Elvira is in a 1530s gown which is scandelously under dressed without sleeves (the hussy!). Cecilly is in a similar dress out of gold key because she wanted to be in on the Italian flavor of the day and Lysken, who has to be different, is in a Roman outfit, while technically still Italian from several hundred years in the past.

 

A wonderful day all the way around!

Pics or It Didn't Happen: The Viking Sailor Senshi at East Kingdom University

We set a goal of trying to get a lot of these dresses done by EKU in the Barony of Endewearde this past weekend. We are all mostly together and we had many of the Senshi attending.

A few of House Strangewayes:


From left to right: Lady Bianca Anguissola as Sailor Jupiter, Becca as Sailor Mars, Lady Fortune St Keyne as Sailor Moon, Jacquemine van der Bel as Sailor Mercury and Lady Cecily Windham as Sailor Neptune

And the very important shot of the bow!
 

Yeah, we are even more fun in person.

I taught a class on viking garb mostly using resources from previous classes on the apron dress and "Vigdis" style underdress. I also included a tutorial on wool felt applique and the Eura underdress.

It was a fantastic day as most East Kingdom University's are, full of learning, fellowship and laughter. The autocrats are super heroes, as the location changed less than 24 hours beforehand and aside from the map in the guidebook being wrong YOU COULDN'T TELL. Lady Yzabell du Perche the event steward and her team did an amazing job and Baroness Isabelle de Montreuil sur Mer who heads the EKU effort pulled off a miracle.


And a huge shout out to Morgan Donner and her 16th Century Sailor Moon! I had to pick myself up off the floor when I saw that you'd been inspired by this project. Full on swoon I tell you!

A Good Time: 10th Century Sailor Senshi

I haven't mentioned anything about my SCA household so far really. I'm a member of House Strangewayes. We're out of the East Kingdom and most of us live in the beautiful Shire of Quintavia (Central Massachusetts). We're a service household, we're constantly helping run events, gates, dayboards, feasts, retaining and creating things for our Kingdom.

I love my Household, we're a big dysfunctional family, we dress alike, we have our own vocabulary (F'nah), and we love stupid jokes and puns. (Exhibit A: the Sequin Rose Incident)

Which brings us to.... Sailor Moon.

 The Inner Senshi: Sailor Mercury, Sailor Mars, Sailor Moon, Sailor Jupiter and Sailor Venus

 

The Idea:

 

Yes. I did say SCA earlier. I know what you're thinking. Many of the household have otaku and cosplay roots and most of us have seen quite of bit of the series. It was hard to avoid as a nerdy girl of a certain age.

 

So when Elvira, who gets very sudden and very intense ideas, messaged the ladies of the Household in late December about a Sailor Senshi themed group costume challenge it was embraced immediately. Almost too quickly for a pack of late 20's, early 30's ladies who may have just finally grasped their chances to be magical girls and defeat the Negaverse.

 

The Design:

 

Sailor Moons Says: This is a ridiculous idea!

 

How to interpret this for a large group with vastly different levels of sewing prowess? Easy, 10th century Viking dresses. They are easy to construct, easy to embellish, and in the SCA we often do large felt applique on this style of dress.  

 

The thing about Sailor Moon unlike other superheros is that they all dress in the same base outfit of Japanese school girl outfits/sailor suits with color variations. Each Senshi also has the astrological symbol, in some cases slightly modified, to represent their planet as well. At various points during the series, movies, manga et cetera they get powers or other representations.

 

So, I chose Sailor Moon, because I'm blonde and Sailor Venus was taken. (No one is bitter Elvira)

 

In my case, Sailor Moon is red and blue and has the gold crescent moon symbol. 

 

The Plan: For the underdress I am planning on a white linen base, with a blue linen facing on the neckline for her sailor collar and two red guards on the cuffs to represent the red accent on her gloves.

Underdress

Apron Dress

 

The apron dress is cobalt blue linen with red and gold contrast stitching on the seam lines in interwoven herringbone stitch and will have a red ribbon of wool felt around the base and pale gold crescent moons on each of the three panels. (I don't want the moons too yellow, but we have a kingdom level award for service called the silver crescent and I also do not want to be mistaken for falsely advertising my accomplishments)

 

To top it off crescent moon pins and red beads to represent the front bow. I may also do a back bow appliqued on in wool felt to start the red ribbon that undulates around the hem, I haven't decided yet. I'm trying to walk to line of inspiration vs literal interpretation.

 

Supplies Needed:

• White Linen - 4 1/5 yards
• Blue Linen - 4 yards
• Red Linen - 1/2 yard (I could probably have gotten away with 1/4 yard)
• Red Wool Felt - 2/12 yards
• Pale Yellow Felt - 1/2 yard
• DMC #321 (red) - 4 skeins
• DMC #729 (gold) - 4 skeins
• DMC #796 (blue) - 4 skeins
 

Using the modified Vigdis underdress pattern from this post and the apron dress pattern from this post I cut out my fabric.

 

Then I realized something. My blue linen was thinner than the usual 58" wide that I use. Which led to adding a second gore at the front and a small gore at the top:

Pretty sneaky if I do say so myself.

 

 

Next time: Embellishing the outfit!