Archery Bracer #4 for Artemis

This next bracer is for my lovely girlfriend who goes by Artemis in the SCA. The lovely lass cooked up an entire set of Turkish garb for her second event. Her first event she wore medieval garb that she just happened to have 'laying around'. You can see why I'm so fond of her.

So first things first: To find out if she even likes archery! Luckily, Tournament of Armies was just around the corner and Artemis was coming with me. Well, she was sorta the wheels of the operation, so I guess I was going with her. Anyway the night before I wanted to cook her up a bracer for shooting 'cause, ya know, that's what I do.

De Ja Vu: The feeling that all of this has happened before...

I should mention this bracer actually started before Thorun's, but I finished it after. You'll see in a little while. Anyway I cut out a quicky bracer from some leather, not really even sized for her but it came out pretty good. I added a little beveled border around it, just for some flash.

This is the part that keeps it on her arm!

So this is what she took with her to TOA. Basic, but personal. She shot quite well on my old green-stringed bow (named Petunia), after some practice she was hitting the paper with all six arrows at 20 yards. She's a natural, and I aint just saying that 'cause I know she'll read this later.

Ok so TOA is finished. We head home, and I crash for 48 hours. I had been to an event every weekend for a month. Remind me never to become Royalty, because that gig must suck for wanting time to yourself. Anyway I get home, I decide to get back into the leatherworking again. So I tool up Thorun's bracer (as seen in the previous post), then set to work on my lady's.

I talked with her a bit, and she is really into the idea of falconry. I must take her to an event where they have some demonstrations of these birds. But in the meantime we talked about heraldry and things to put on the bracer. Her name, a badge or device she might want to register or even just a heraldric charge. I suggested (like an idiot) that a falcon would look really cool. She agreed.

Birds... why did it have to be birds...

As you may recall after Isabella's bracer, I swore no more birds. But then again I swear a helluva lot, don't I? The feathers are tricky, a lot of sharp points that I'm not used to doing with leather. Give me rounded edges any day! But this heraldric falcon was a LOT easier. Far more straight, clean lines. Also, I suggested maybe adding something in Arabic at the bottom, again because I am a chump. She thought that would be awesome so I went looking online for something Arabic to do with archery and found this from the Hadith of Sahih Muslim, Book 20, number 4711:

It has been narrated on the authority of Ibn Amir who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) say - and he was delivering a sermon from the pulpit: Prepare to meet them with as much strength as you can afford. Strength is in archery, strength is in archery, strength is in archery.

So I decided to put "Strength is in archery" through a Google translator and it spat out a reasonable looking piece of Arabic script. I copy/pasted it into Photoshop, arranged the heraldric falcon and the script then sized it using measurements I took from the bracer. My friend Alex was kind enough to print it off for me, then it was time for tracing!

De Ja Vu: The feeling that... OH GOD! THE AGENTS ARE HERE!

Wetting the leather and taking a (nearly) empty ballpoint pen left quite an impression. It looked gorgeous when transfered onto the leather! I really shoulda grabbed a picture of that, but by then my lady had showed up at my house and insisted on watching me work.

She even took the camera from me!

I traced over the edges with the swivel knife and carved out the eye with my stitching groover. The arabic script was a pain, but I eventually settled on the idea of using the grooving tool again to carve off the leather of the script. It was difficult work, and probably not the best tool for it but it gave the lines some definition that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Much easier to read now, eh?

After that, I took the bevel stamp to around the edges of the falcon. It wasn't as hard as I thought, as I've had a bit more practice. I also took the bevel stamp to the outside of the wing, to make it seem raised against the body. Then I took a very small texture stamp and stamped some texture into the feathers, the talons and the beak. It worked very, very well.

Pretty darn spiffy, wouldn't you say?

I learned a lot on this project. One of the most important things was not to get the leather too wet. I wetted it down a few times, but I wanted to remove some of the tooling marks from it so I drenched it in water. Problem was, this also removed some of my tooling with (or made it kinda indistinct), so I had to go back over it again. Not a horrific mistake, but one I won't make again.

Another issue was with the Arabic script. I was really struggling with a way for it to stand out besides just a series of cuts in the leather. I tried a bit of bevel stamping, but it looked not so good. I like the effect the grooving tool made, though and I might do that again in the future.

After I was finished, I decided to do something really silly. I've been finding that the leather lace I use cuts into the bracer a tad over time, grinding away on it a little bit. Nothing too severe, but I think for my really nice work I'll use gromets. Low and behold, I happened to have some laying around.

That'll hold it!

So there it is, a new archery bracer for my lady Artemis. I am most proud of this one, not just because of the work or how it turned out. I'm most proud that I got to do something awesome and unique for the lady I care so much about.

Enjoy, Habbibi!

Archery Bracer #3 for Thorun

 Earlier this year I sold the first bow I ever owned to my friend, Thorun. I wasn't shooting with it anymore, she wanted something to shoot with... so it all worked out! I sold her the bow, the case and a stringer for a decent price. But as any true salesman will tell you, it's all about the add-ons. So I offered to make her a custom leather bracer as well. Five months later (never said salesmen were prompt), this is what I came up with!

This bracer was a bit different from the others, I used a thinner grade of leather for this one, and it had an interesting effect. The tooling required almost no effort at all, and it left some very nice impressions. It is a big more wiggly than the typical stiff bracers I'm used to, but I think this also means there is less chance, as time goes on, of the leather drying out and cracking. Plus it has a really nice texture.

I went through the usual steps for cutting out the bracer and rounded off the edges. After wetting the leather (as always), I cut the holes out for the lacing, beveled the edges, then took a stitching groover and created a line running about an inch and a half around the edge of the bracer.

Taking one of my stamps and a mallet (not a hammer, too heavy), I placed the leather on an anvil and gave the stamp two whacks just beside the groove I cut. This was more than enough to leave an impression. I traced the line with the stamp to create a very nice border effect. Then I grooved out another line along the edge of the stamping. Voila! Instant fancy border!

I wanted to try something a little new for this bracer. After speaking with Thorun, I decided to put her name in Norse runes on it. The website I used to translate her Norse name into runes can be found here.

I traced the runes onto a piece of paper, then traced it onto the bracer using the empty pen method. Taking the swivel knife to the smaller rune lines was a bit tricky, but the bevelled stamp I used really made it pop. I gave it a coating of water sealer and tied it up using leather lace.

For those keeping count, the TH is one letter.

Overall, I was happy with the result. In the future if I put script on a bracer, I'll use a larger font (I did use a pretty big font already) to give me some wiggle room with the knife and stamp, and some of the lines are a tad uneven. But I really like the border effect and I'm quite proud to give my friend something unique she can shoot with for years. The fact that she's giving me a little cash doesn't hurt either!

A Tournament of Armies

Ok so as some of you may know, last year I went to Tournament of Armies 1 in Lions Gate, An Tir. It was a bit rocky, some major delays and schedule changes. There was a lot of very cool ideas being implemented, such as a warband processional in which all the armies came into court and presented a bit of propaganda for their side. Nice idea, but it took quite a while and it was less than comfortable waiting around in that armour. The idea that A&S and service added to your Warlord's warchest was also great, but alas the economy became a bit inflated due to all the volunteering.

This year, none of those were issues.

Despite the fact that the event venue had been changed at the last minute (flooding and mosquito infestation of the original site), the entire thing went over very smoothly. Well, less smoothly for me and my lady Artemis, since we got lost a time or two on the way and when we got there, we found that our tent had the wrong polls. No worries though, Johanna gave us the use of her tent for the weekend, to which we responded by gifting her with Turkish delight (the candy, not a swarthy man from Istambul) and Belgian and Insula Magna beer.

Court was very quick, lots of banners and pomp for all the warlords. Right after that we basicly jumped right into war mode. There were a lot of people there, easily twice as many as last year. A great deal of fighters as well were present, and a solid force of Rapier mercenaries. It was starting to feel like a big event.

I pledged my services to Baroness Margaret of Lions Gate as an archer to gain her army boons. I even submitted my bow quiver into the A&S competition to give her some more coins, and was drawn into judging a research paper as well. Despite not having any documentation (except what I gave for an oral presentation), I scored pretty decently. I'll put some of the feedback up in the blog when I get around to posting about the project in question.

After that it was archery. The set-up took quite a while, and it was damn hot on that field. Lady Jaqualine, who was MIC, did an amazing job of providing us with shade, water, and a lot of fun shoots. I shot myself a king-sized rabbit, shot two arrows through a cross-shaped loop hole and one arrow through an inch-wide 'Assasins Slot' in a castle wall. I was one of only 3 archers to make that shot (One was a Gray Goose, the other was just a really good archer!). We even had enough space for a Clout Shoot (the kind where you have to aim your bow 45 degrees up to hit a target 100 yards away). Our group of archers earned many boons and points for the Baroness' army, and it was an absolute pleasure to be on the line with the fantastic archers from Lions Gate.

The evenings were... well... The first night the Drakkar's invited me to drum with them. I only had my little thing that I picked up at San Fransisco (the store, not the city) and scraped off the painted pot leaf, but they were incredibly encouraging and gave me hope for my white-man rythem syndrome, AND my lady even got up and danced a little in her new Turkish garb. I also drank nearly all the wine and most of the beer we brought.

The second night I got to sit back and enjoy the sound of my favorite instrument in the world: The Saz, as played by Shareef Musiqi al-Rashid. If you haven't heard one, youtube it. There was also much dancing, coin tossing, singing of drinking songs, and one awkward moment when Tiampo was feeling me up.

The following Sunday was my favorite moment of the weekend. I got to teach my lady Artemis how to shoot a bow. I even made her up a bracer from some leather the night before. I don't mean to brag, but she got pretty darn good with that bow. By the end, she wasn't missing the target once at 20 yards. I was very proud and thrilled that she was enjoying it so much.

We packed up a little early and left site before 2pm on Sunday. After saying goodbye to all our new friends and old, we got lost on the highway back to the ferry. Not to worry, we made it out and caught the 5pm ferry with no difficulty. Artemis was lamenting that the weekend was over so soon, and I could definatly relate. I highly encourage everyone reading this to go next year to Tournament of Armies.