Grimm goes Eventing

Sorry I did not post last week but, for the first time in a long time, Grimm was able to make it to an event! last week was dedicated to preparing my A&S entry and writing the documentation instead of writing the blog. I made it to Highland Havoc with my Wife and he horse. It was a very good event and I am sorry that there were so many other events up against it. I would have loved to see it better attended. I ended up helping with the equestrian for most of the day and had a good time helping out. I also brought a piece of work to enter in the A&S competition, a hand forged curry comb. And now that the event is over, the backstory:

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After my wife and I decided that Highland havoc was the next event we would be attending, i quickly turned to the blue sheet to see if there would be an A&S contest. And joy of joys, there was one! and it was one of my favorite types. A direction to work in but no structure to the parameters:

Arts and Sciences Organizer: Baroness Sinn Larensdotter

There are two categories for Arts & Sciences competition entries : Useful Items and Representations

Useful Items

The Useful Items category encompasses any item that would be used by an equestrian, archer, or thrown weapons enthusiast. Examples include quivers, bridles, and targets. Don’t let these examples limit you, though— feel free to think of something useful to one of the martial activities at the event, and let your creativity take hold! Documentation preferred and encouraged.

Representations

The Representations category includes images and other depictions of the martial activities. This could mean illumination, embroidery, pottery— whatever you imagine— showing riders, archers, and thrown weapons. Documentation preferred and encouraged.

To me, and I only speak for myself here, this is the best form of A&S to have at an event. Does not restrict time period, or medium, or method, yet gives you a unifying theme. A contest where I could use it as an excuse to make something from history. And so I did. The object that I choose was a curry comb used in the middle ages. This was something I felt I could get done with the time restraints and still make a good reproduction.

The documentation can be found here: Combe of Curraynge.

The rest of the time sense my last post has been spent getting Grimmsfield ready for A&S nights to begin again. There have been 2 so far and things are going well. we have arrow making, shield painting, Medallion making, spinning and sewing going on this year.

Of Barn-hooks and Broomsticks

Well, this weekend was a bunch of “other”. I was not able, nor did I feel up to working that much. Fortunately, i was able to work on some easier things that just brought joy. I managed to get three projects done. The first is the one I am happiest with. At my wife’s barn there is a young girl (Charlotte) who is 3 who keeps a pony in the same paddock as my wife. In order to keep my wife’s tack clean I made her a fence hook to hang the ropes and bridles from. Well, Charlotte fell in love with it and began hanging her tack on it. Because she loved it so much I decided to make her one for herself. It is just like my wife’s, just in charlotte’s favorite color: PINK.

While I was at the forge, I decided to take care of something that was bothering me. I made the viking frying pan/ griddle last week and put the matching handle for the Pennsic cooking set I was working on. This handle is designed to hang from the tool holder at Pennsic, but not a period design. This kind of bugged me more then I care to admit, so it needed to be remedied.

So…. Time to forge another one:

So now I have 2 griddles. One is going to remain at Pennsic, but what to do with the other one. Hummmmmmmm…… I know, Mistress Lorelei was the inspiration for making them in the first place, so I will go ahead and give it to her to use in her period cooking. I love when my A&S projects get used instead of just being made for A&S. And putting it in the hands of Mistress Lorelei insured that the thing will be used instead of just being carted around to events to be displayed at A&S. This is the perfect idea, and because Lorelei has told me that she reads all of these posts, she will know she can have it when she next comes to visit! All she needs to do is to let me know how happy she would be to own one of these and it is hers. Of course if I do not hear from her, I will assume she does not want it and i will just add it to my finished product pile and it will just travel with me to events to be shown off. The fate of the griddle is now in her hands….we will see.

Because of all my other commitments over last weekend, some of the work time I was able to find was after forging time (i try and be considerate of the neighbors). So it was time to pull out the broom making supplies. I had made a matching broom handle for the Pennsic set, and I had 3 other handles that I had made that were still waiting on broom heads. And so, Broom Time!

One is for the Pennsic set, 1 is for Gunnora’s Mother for Christmas (Shhhhhh…. don’t tell her) and I think the other 2 will be sold at Holiday Faire. Well that was what I have been working on for the past week. I have no idea what comes next, I hope to get into the forge this weekend, but I need to figure out what to work on next.

Forging on a weekday!

Well, I was able to get to the forge on a Tuesday, and it was wonderful I had plans to work on a cooking set (spoon, fork, spatula) for the cooking table, but my heart was not in it. Instead I decided to make something much more period. A viking griddle or frying pan.

 
 

While working on that, i also decided to forge another knife blade (also shown in the picture). There have been several frying pand of this design found throughout the viking range. Here are a few examples of finds:

I will be including more in my documentation of this item, but for now, that is what you get. The handle end was changed to match the other pieces in the Pennsic Cook Table set. I hope to make another one with a more period handle. This will be sent to Mistress Lorelei to further her period cooking in the south. I did not take any in progress pictures, so here is the final product:

As far as the knife goes, there is no extant piece that I am trying to duplicate. More of a general concept of a utility knife. The bar on the left of the blade is the blank that it started as.

At this point the blade has been forged, and ground to shape. I will need to harden it and finish the fine grinding before it is a finished blade. That is what I was able to get done last Tuesday. Hopefully, i will be able to get some more work in this weekend.