Phew - I can finally post about this now that the event is over! Thanks to the guidance of some pretty amazing mentors, I decided to pull back on some pretty lofty goals of participating in my own baronial championship and Kingdom A&S and just focus on one championship entry that was a single entry so I could ramp up slowly and focus on doing one project to the best of my ability. It was really great advice despite my constant want to do all the things! I started my project in December 2017 (at least the idea portion) and researched a good deal in January 2018. Everything seemed so far away at that point!
I ended up researching my little heart out, did a lot of test pieces, failed a few times, got some advice on areas to improve, wrote a long paper (see below), and attempted a final piece... then noticed it looked weird, reresearched and restarted/finished the FINAL final version.
Click here to view research paper on topic.
Then I made a presentation and planned a nice looking display... and somehow managed to get all of it to an event. It made for a pretty crazy few months and I'm sooo glad that I was discouraged from entering all the competitions I had planned to! I grossly underestimated the amount of time I was going to put into this project. I'm leaving out a good deal of describing the production of my object because it is all described in the research paper I've linked above.
I'm still incredibly floored and honored that I was selected as the Dragon's Mist A&S Champion. Other peoples entries blew me away and when I look back at the past winners for the barony, they are all people that I've flipped through their Facebook photos and drooled over their work. I'm not ashamed to admit that! I just hope I can be worthy being in their company!
Here are some pictures of the event that aren't included in my research paper... mainly my display and photos of me presenting (photo credits to D. Antal and D. Hollingsworth):
I'm really excited to have come this far and will grow and refine my tablet-weaving as I continue my journey in the SCA. I'm scheduled to be at Athenaeum next and I think a non-competitive A&S event will be a nice change of pace!
