I’ve been kind of slow on taking major SCA projects right now. After merchanting at Birka, I definitely needed the rest, and honestly, as I’m wedding planning for my nuptials in October of this year, I don’t really have a lot of time for SCA projects.

Though, sometimes, an opportunity presents that’s too good to pass up. So here we are. My friend Beatriz asked me if I had time to create a scroll for her apprentice Marguerite, and after looking at a couple of things, I said yes. Marguerite’s persona shifts between Henrician Tudor, Italian Ren, and Roman, so I had a few places I could look for inspiration. My friend Iago, a few weeks prior to me starting this project, posted links to a period album amicorum (more can be found on those here) dating from 1587 which had various arms of individuals, mostly painted, but a particularly stunning example of canivet is on page 22 of this little book.

My big thing when doing scrolls is seeing how close I can get to doing a 1:1 of a period piece. (It’s my personal thing, and I don’t have any personal opinions when other scribes scale up, because we’re all at differing abilities. That said, my desire is to work at period size as much as possible.) With that, I looked at the scale, photographed by the side of the album, which noted the height as being about 15cm, or about 5.9 inches tall, and 18cm, or about 7 inches wide. I ended up choosing a piece of 5×7″ pergamenata, and started doing layout. One of the things I wanted to include was a laurel wreath (because, hello, Marguerite was getting a Laurel), but I liked the text of the round of the extant. By also placing a laurel wreath where the delicate mantling was would help with the general aspects of keeping the design stable. I also replaced some of the more delicate features (such as the crowned heart with arrows) with the Atlantian populace badge. I did, however, want to retain the hunting scene as much as I possibly could, so that remained in my original design.

I ended up starting (on Valentine’s Day, no less) a lot smaller than the extant, as the text I received for the scroll I thought would frame the piece better. Unfortunately, I learned after working through some particularly difficult cuts that this would cause problems, especially after knife skips. I did run into a couple of issues when I did the initial layout. One, due to the size of this iteration and the general complicated nature of this particular design was that it was quite easy to cut more than what was intended. The other issue I ran into was because I got the idea to tape it down to keep it steady (perg does not play nicely with a lot of humidity), I found that any tips of my blades that broke off in my self-healing mat would cause breakages with newer blades. I also ran into problems in cutting curves smoothly in this case, as well. By this point, there was already a ton of artisanal confetti.

Unfortunately, I eventually lost the first iteration (after about a week and a half of work) to a knife skip, and had to start over with about a week of time left before I had to send it in the mail. The pressure was on. It did, however also mean a redesign.

The extant is pretty open and lacy and a lot more delicate than I could do as it stands right now. (maybe with a bit more practice.) I ended up scaling up a little larger, though I kept going because time frames are a thing.

The thing with doing canivet is that blades have to be replaced often. I’m not sure how many blades I went through doing all of the intricate cuts, but I do know that the number was well over thirty. There may even be forty. I don’t know. I lost track after the first ten. Point is, this kind of precision cutting, especially through a thicker paper like pergamenata means a lot of blades get used, The thing about doing this kind of canivet is that it is sometimes easier to keep the blade more stationary and to move the page, so things such as taping down the piece onto a self-healing mat might actually slow progress down. The first thing I did after the redesign was to make sure that I could turn the paper on the self-healing mat.

One of the things about doing repetitive work like this is that it gives a person like me time to think ahead for the next steps and how to accomplish that. I knew that the relative delicate nature of canivet and that I’d have to mail the entire thing to Atlantia from Calontir meant that I needed to make sure that it got onto another piece of pergamenata, preferably glued down. I also knew that I wanted to make the piece I was doing look more like the extant, so I would also have to paint the pergamenata before I glued everything down.

Once everything was cut out, which took about three days (and yes, I collected most of the artisanal confetti I made from my cutouts and put it in a little vial, so there’s that if there needs to be a reliquary), I took my handmade paint palettes and painted the cutout portions using watered down indigo to replicate the grey of the extant, azurite for the two Spikes (Atlantia’s populace badge, which is a seahorse with a unicorn horn), and while the extant did not use green, I used a paint comprising of stil de grain and indigo for the laurel wreath to really make this pop.

I also took another piece of perg, painted a rough square on it (the extant version likewise is pretty rough, so, hey, it’s period!). I could have displayed this with just the painted cutouts, but I liked the red pop of the second page in the extant. Just to be sure, though, I did a preliminary layout after painting the red square with the painted cutout to make absolutely sure I liked them before I glued everything together. It’s times like these that the full project really starts to go from hot mess express to fully-formed project.

These would eventually get glued together. Since perg tends to cockle when it gets wet, I used a less period method to glue everything down: a disappearing purple glue stick. The nice thing about using this kind of glue stick is that it doesn’t take much glue, and the lightest touch still gets enough glue on the smaller pieces to make sure it adheres. That said, for future canivet projects I may consider getting an actual glue pen or a precision paper glue to use to lay down the super delicate portions, because I did struggle with making sure the glue stick didn’t cause too much of a mess. Even then, the moisture of the glue stick was enough to make the cut piece of perg start to roll, so the entire thing after it got pasted together went under a heavy book with a piece of glassine paper between the scroll and book to protect the paint. This was enough to flatten it out, though there were a few places where it cockled. Alas. I was able to lessen the look by burnishing them, but the downside of working with perg is that any kind of moisture does this. (Being able to know that your materials will do this helps with anticipating what to do to counteract it.)

While the glue was drying, I started work on the calligraphy. As the extant had sort of a handwritten look (which makes sense given the relative intimate nature of alba amicorum), I went with a cancelleresca corsiva hand, as it was used in a lot of 15th century correspondence, though forms varied depending on location. I tended towards a more Italianate look given Marguerite’s choices towards Italian Renaissance clothing, however, there were similarities to the writing in the extant piece.

The thing is, I’m left handed, so cancelleresca’s deep right slant meant that I needed to really turn my paper. What helped me out was doing the initial layout in pencil, which I would then trace the letterforms when it came time to ink them. This helped me with two things: spacing (both vertical and horizontal) and the actual letterforms themselves, which were going to be more difficult to follow given the aforementioned deep slant.

Typically, when I do calligraphy, I don’t hook my pen too much, which is useful for when I do more vertical letterforms such as quadrata or even uncial. The slant here, though, meant that I had to really rethink how everything was going to go. The extant had calligraphy on the actual cut portion, and while that had been my initial plan, I knew that I didn’t have the time to recut another piece if something catastrophic happened in calligraphy (which, historically is where my mistakes tend to happen). Given the short working time, I opted to go with a second piece of paper. Like the extant, I oriented the text in a way where it could be in landscape if she chooses to frame it that way, however, for readability, it could also be placed in an portrait orientation. I kept the size of the piece the same for visual similarity, so yet another piece of 5″x7″ precut perg was used for this.

When I started the project, I knew it was going to be bonkers. What I didn’t realize at the time was how bonkers it was going to be. I knew I wanted to use handmade paint (it’s kind of one of my things at this point), but I waffled on the type of ink I wanted to use. Thankfully, Her Excellency Nadya gifted me some of her iron gall ink, and I made the choice to use it on this scroll. My experience with iron gall ink is fairly limited, though I knew I’d have to clean the dickens out of my metal nib for it. The last time I used iron gall ink on pergamenata, the formulation did not oxidize in a way I particularly liked (it was a sad brown), and I switched it out for a different ink. Nadya’s formulation, for some reason, though, turns a lovely black colour, which I liked for this project.

By this point, the paint, the glue, and the ink had dried, and it was time to get things together. Unfortunately, I forgot one tiny thing. When doing scrolls for other kingdoms, it’s important to make sure that scrolls follow those kingdom standards. When I did a scroll for Northshield, I was given complete carte blanche as I was working directly with their kingdom signet on the text and other things. If I had questions, I asked her directly. Things, though, are different for Atlantia. (This is why it’s important to look at kingdom scribal handbooks if you’re doing pieces for kingdoms not your own.) Since this is Marguerite’s first peerage (and Atlantia does this for each recipient’s first Award, Grant, and Patent of Arms), the blazon would need to be included somewhere in the scroll. With that, their Principal Herald would also need to sign, attesting that the blazon was correct. (This is not something Calontir does.) I didn’t have room on the page with the sonnet, so I went back to the cutwork piece. I didn’t have a lot of working room, so I opted to use a Micron pen to replicate the calligraphy that I used on the sonnet page in a much smaller size. Am I thrilled that I had to use a Micron on an otherwise mostly period scroll? Not entirely. But necessity sometimes outweighs a lot of things, and using the Micron took a lot of the stress off if I blobbed ink on the cutwork page, which I also definitely didn’t want to do. I also made sure that there were pencil lines for all signatures, and with that, I called the piece done. (Learning to self-edit but also not to edit too far takes practice. I’m not entirely sure I’m there, but I’m certainly better than I was. It’s a super-important skill to learn as an artist.)

I packaged it up in between layers of glassine paper and cardboard and mailed it out, and Beatriz happily let me know when it arrived. (mailing scrolls is incredibly nervewracking. Always make sure to protect your scrolls. Glassine paper is one of my favourite ways to do so.

One of the hardest things to do is to wait patiently to show off the cool thing you did, especially as a scribe. On the other hand, when surprises are a must, it is worth revealing everything in due time, thus the veil of secrecy must always be preserved in this case.

Marguerite, congratulations, and I hope we do have a chance to meet. Please enjoy your new station (and your new art), and thank you for the opportunity to do something absolutely freakin’ bonkers. I absolutely loved every moment of creating this.