Last Kingdom A&S was hot and pretty good. I entered things in the open A&S category, got some good feedback. All in all pretty decent.

This Kingdom A&S was also hot, but so much more excellent. Best one yet, I’d say!

We drove down to southern Alabama with Blogless Lea and Mr. Norwegian, who are great road trip buddies. On the way was a stop at Chik-fil-a Dwarf House, which sports a tiny novelty door and serves hamburgers. I did not have a hamburger, but I did go through the tiny door. Twice.

We sort of crashed when we got to the hotel. I am so happy we decided to go for the hotel. Best idea ever.

Anyway. Next day, we all got up, had breakfast (confused the crap out of the hotel owners), and headed to site. There was some frantic rushing around, trying to get things all set up in time but also get to meetings and such. There was a finger loop braiding class I had wanted to take, but found myself doing other, equally interesting things.

This is how my display looked once I got it all set up:

I made sure to show off some of the tools and materials I used, which was something I neglected to do last time. I think it helped this time around.

Then I shadowed the judging on this:

(Adela’s very thorough and informative illumination entry.)

And on this:

(Crazy awesome Bayeux tapestry embroidery, sorry for the upside-downness)

And also Elisenda’s scroll, which I thought I had photographed but didn’t.

I like shadow judging. It’s like judging with no pressure. Also, I talk a lot and am therefore a bad shadow judge. I’ll work on that. It was great, though, because the group judging was Mistresses Thorkatla, Christine (I forget her SCA name, though that may actually be her SCA name) and Tamara, who are very good at instructing and explaining and being very thorough.

At the same time that was going on, the judges working on my book were, well, judging, and so it felt like a Herculean effort to avoid listening in. I managed, but was convinced the whole time that i was doing terribly. I kept hearing “she did,” and “it looks like she,” and was all paranoid.

B entered her lace, which is spectacular:

WH entered this crazy entry, on nasal reconstruction in period (focusing on Tycho Brahe and his copper/silver/whatever nose):

This was my favorite of the open A&S entries:

Hand-carved bone spindle whorl. So awesome!

And then it was almost 2, and I was informed that i needed lunch, which I did, and then we watched some performances, and then we sat around a while trying not to be too warm.

I also got my score. I had gotten a 12/20 on my last book, which was good considering I had never entered a book like that before. This time around I was hoping for maybe a 15, tops. To my complete and utter surprise, I got a 19/20! Like, whoa! The one point was for a couple of things I couldn’t figure out, like the hinges, the tooling and how the endpapers worked. I sat down with one of the judges, who was well-versed in European bindings, and now I know what I need to fix those things. Another of the judges, a friend of mine, has done a lot of leatherwork, and has offered to help me with that part. I am ready to make an even better book. I’m going to practice a little before I bind it, though, just in case.

Finally, it came time for court. We changed, and headed out. I attempted briefly to sit court the “proper” way, with my veil covering my face, but it was both windy and stifling at the same time, so I gave up. Allesandra (sorry Serafina, I am a ditz) received her AoA (well-deserved), there was some other stuff that happened, and then Adela got up before the court to give a prize and was about to go sit when the king called her back, and then, to everyone’s immense astonishment and delight, called up the Order of the Laurel.

Obviously the next step was to announce that she was being put on vigil for her elevation.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think I may have said “WHAT.” out loud. It was such an amazing surprise. It also made two of two vigil announcements, both to people who totally deserve it (yay for M, too, who has heard extensively how excited everyone is for her). Whew.

And then it was announced that B had gotten the only perfect score of the day (woo!), I had gotten the only 19, and WH had won Laurels’ Choice for his crazy project.

All of us CG apprentices felt like we’d done House Awesome proud. We still feel that way. T got loads of compliments on her garb, too, which added to that, as did R being pretty dang awesome all around.

Then I helped a lady wrap herself in a sari, before being completely hot and wilted and going back to the hotel with everyone.

The night ended with sitting in the hotel pool, drinking tasty drinks, and then eating way too much pizza in the hotel room. We watched True Blood and went to sleep.

The next day, on the way home, we passed this:

(evidently they sell turkey, rather than things from Turkey)

and went to this flea market:

(it was much better than this when we arrived, but was closing down by the time we left)

where we got a Playstation memory card and saw this:

Once we were home, I played 6 hours of Final Fantasy IX, gave Jennie some photos, and crashed at about midnight.

It was a great weekend.