Sabina di Zorzi

Category: Finished projects

  • Some A&S updates!

    Some of my Arts and Sciences efforts landed at Ursulwyck Medieval Faire this last weekend!

    First up – the second gambeson I sewed Rollo made its first appearance at the event! So glad it worked out how he wanted once he added the arming points!

    Next – my Protégé contract. Zahra had asked me to create the contract since I’ve been practicing my calligraphy, with instructions to write it twice on one page with room for signatures below both, with the intent that each of us would be able to walk away with a copy once it was cut in half.

    The trouble was, I had written too much and I couldn’t conceivably fit all of that on one 8.5” x 11” space at the skill level I’m at with the pens I have on hand. Given that this was done in the last week leading up to the event, I didn’t have a lot of time to change my plan, so I pivoted from what I’d initially pictured and wrote it on both sides of the paper, flipping the page head over heels, with a gap in the middle of the contract on both sides so that when cut, we each had as close to a duplicate as possible. During the ceremony, the careful cut was done with some squiggles to make it a unique key-like match, showing the two copies as a pair.

    I’m really happy with how this turned out, and am amused at the image with the lightbox behind it showing the delicate space the cut had to be made, lest screw up the entire plan!

    And finally – my first original scroll! This is a Golden Estoile, a second level service award in Aquaterra. The words were adapted from The Day Sky by Hafez by Zahra bint al-Rammah and calligraphed by me in Uncial font. I chose elements and colors to reflect the idea of stars in a day sky from Codex Amiatinus, linked below. Their Excellencies awarded this scroll to Peter of Aquaterra this past Saturday!

    https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_20150/?sp=2&st=image

    Also, here’s a Golden Estoile charter that I painted. I am most pleased with the face I added to the moon, inspired by many medieval examples

    As a final fun note, Ilian Lucious Michelle Gloschat drew me while I was sitting in court and blessed me with the piece to take home. This was one of my top five moments of the event!

  • Good Yule 2025! – Pt. 1

    So much going on at Aquaterra’s Good Yule 2025!

    First, I’ve had a plan to replace the main body of the A&S Champion regalia bag for some time, but this was the deadline. The original bag was made from wool, which collected all the pet hair, and it was starting to show signs of wear and tear, so I removed the existing embellishments, folded in the edges and created patches when needed, and sewed them onto a new bag I made out of linen. I then used a couple of the main pockets from the original bag to be the internal pockets so the soul of the bag is fully intact. The various embellishments have been added over the years, I believe by previous Champions, and I wanted that to all live on.

    I made my first ever donation to the dessert auction, 25 Chocolate Covered Cherries with Hazelnut, and they went for far more than I could have hoped, and I was asked to make a second batch so the second bidder could *also* make their donation and get a set of chocolates, so that’s in my future! I also won a bid for some Espresso Brownies, but forgot to photograph those before they made it into bellies!

    Shortly after I walked into the event, my friend Camilla Valerian surprised me with this perfect set of jewelry she made me to go with my mourning gown project! I am so excited to debut this, it’s helping give me to gumption to move to the next part of that project! Thank you, Camilla!

    I was also able to finish up painting my first handful of charters in a very long time and got them submitted to Their Excellencies. Since they’re not unique scrolls, I’m posting them now. I’m so excited to have gotten back into this art, and to have treated myself to better tools this time!

    I’m going to continue this in another post, since this one is getting quite long!

  • Gambeson #2

    Here’s Rollo’s new gambeson I finished last week. Fairly similar to the original I made about four years ago, though I believe I did more by hand this time, and per his request, the arms are attached at the shoulder instead of being tied on. It’s ready for him to add the closures, arming points, and some leather coverage where his armor bit into the last one.

  • Aquaterra’s Arts and Sciences Championship

    This past weekend, I attended Aquaterra’s Good Yule event and entered my 16th-century Venetian-style gown in the barony’s Arts and Sciences Championship—and won! There was only one other competitor, so the competition wasn’t particularly fierce, but I’m still proud of myself for completing the entire process. From creating the gown last winter to putting together documentation and presentation at the last minute, I couldn’t have done it without the encouragement of the current Champion, Sigbjórg, who urged me to enter just a few days before the event.

    The project wasn’t so much about my sewing skills, or an intricately finished gown, so much as engineering that style to fit my body as well as accomplishing parallel ladder lacing rungs with a new method using period techniques—while ensuring I could still dress myself without assistance. I believe other recreationists could benefit from these techniques, so I’ve always planned to write it up, I just needed the push of a deadline to finally get started! The judges gave me some great feedback on improving my documentation, which I plan to refine before sharing it more widely. If I don’t finish by Ursulmas, it will be done soon after. (edited 10/7/25 to note – life happened, and I learned more along the way, so this is taking longer than expected, but coming!)

    Being a Champion comes with certain responsibilities, most of which align with my goal of leaning more into the arts. One of these is taking care of the A&S Champion’s regalia (the fancy drinking horn and tote bag) for a year, to pass on to the next Champion. I also received an Aquaterra Champion’s medallion and a lovely box to store it in, which are mine to keep!

    In other news, this was my first event wearing my new, beautiful circlet, which I commissioned from my friend Tabby (Tabitta Eliza Longtail), who will soon become our next baroness. That just made it even more special! The design is meant to be worn more like a headband since it’s more in keeping with the styling of my persona and is a more flattering style for me to wear. I love how it turned out! Thank you so much, Tabby!

    I also want to point out the beautiful site tokens created by Camilla. She made around 100 unique beaded necklaces for the event, which made for quite a display at gate!

    And finally, I’ve included my purchase from the dessert auction. I just couldn’t pass up the Krampus cookies!

  • Largesse – 1st donation

    I finally got around to making some largesse!  These were inspired by this product by Kate’s Paperie:

    inspiration

    I wanted to make these because they are perfect for events so the kids can do evening tent wall shadow puppet shows!  However, I also wanted them to be usable during the day, so I wanted a landscape that would work to hide their hands if it was placed on a table top.  To finalize this wish list, I also wanted to make it all easily packable so it could travel without taking up too much room or risking the safety of the pieces too much, but also wouldn’t cost more as I am tight on funds at the moment.

    First, here is the landscape, which is made from one 12×12 piece of cardstock with two castle silhouette’s cut out.  Slits allow the two pieces to lock together, forming a corner.  This also nicely forms a tower behind the foreground, which I think adds nicely to the image.

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    Here are the puppets themselves, cut using the Silhouette Cameo Mom and I received for Christmas.  They work well up next to a tent wall with a light behind them.  If they need longer handles, they can be put into a straw, but I wanted them to be short so they could pack better.  The handle is just a craft wood stick glued to the back with Elmers.

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    Here, you can see that the two walls of the castle are brought together like a book and the puppets are carefully sandwiched in between.  I then wrapped a ribbon around the bundle enough times to make sure nothing slipped, added a little explanation, and tied a bow.

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    And here you can see the layers.

    20140120_234656

    I also included who made them and where I am from so the royalty knows they came from here so they should be passed out in a foreign land, or at least not back to me.  Not that I would expect to get a children’s piece of largesse! 

    I did six sets, half with grey castles and half with lavender.  All but one set of puppets is black, with just the one set that is beige pictured above.

    I used some templates from the Silhouette Online Store, made a template for the princess using a free clipart found here,  and a the castle template from here.

    I am quite happy with the results of these!  I was originally planning on only doing ‘period’ pieces of largesse, but there are a lot of SCA specific needs as well that are inspiring, so I don’t think I am going to let that stop me.  This was actually a lot of fun to see come together!

    *This was initially published on a different blog and moved here 10/2/25