Mary Ostler

I got to go to Daffodil Tourney this year. I’ll be posting soon about the annual Seagirtian event, but I thought I do a quick post on my entry into the A&S tourney.

The contest was “items inspired in some way by the theme “daffodil”. Since I only decided to go to the event the weekend before, I decided to do a quick carpet sample piece. The daffodil design is from a blanket I found online. It was a grid pattern so it adapted well. The tourney is in its 33 year, and my heraldic obsession & mascot is the turnip named Ash.  Design done, I warped up the porto-loom with  52 threads (4 threads for the bound edges each side, and 22 sets of threads for the knots). I should have done the sides in a different color, as they just blend with the knots right now.

I still am having some issues with the edge binding. Will be working on that in my next mini project.

The weft threads were cotton sewing thread (2 shoots).

I had every color I needed except a nice yellow. The gold wool I had just didn’t seem right. I did two skeins of wool. One pre-mordant in alum, and one with no mordant. The dye stuff is Turmeric and its 100%wof. ( I think you could use a lot less considering the amount of slug on the bottom of the pot. I also added 1 tbs of vinegar to try to get it brighter yellow.

Cooked it at a low heat for 30minutes.

The large skein is the pre-mordant Alum one, the one on the right on mordant. The color is just about the same.

I feel kind of stupid though. So many of these A&S things are little throw away things put in place for something to do while the fighters fight. I didn’t document it at all. I had the cartoon for the design and a few notes jotted down in pencil. Well four judges sat down with principality A&S judging forms, and the judging was pretty bad. They all seemed to like what I had did alot, but the lack of documentation was noted down ALOT….

I hunted down the organizer to thank her and the judges, and apologized for wasting their time. No Documentation… Bad Apprentice… No Cookie for You!