One of my current goals as a largesse producer is to make more medieval largesse. I always love receiving items that I can use with my outfits or at events. And even better, I get very excited when I can use scraps or throw-away items to make my donated pieces! When you are donating large amounts of items, money is an important factor. The Prince and Princess of Cynagua have asked for more medieval largess, too, so I am further inspired.
When I was 13, I received a “Viking swag” beaded pendant from the Queen of the West and shrugged it off. At the time I had an Irish persona and no use for Viking/Norse items, but it had cool beads so I kept it in my jewelry box. When I came back to the SCA as an adult four days after I turned 21, I decided to be Norse and based my whole persona around that one pendant that I had no use for initially. Quality largesse can really affect people. I also received linen socks a few years back as largesse and wear them with multiple outfits very often. They are one of my favorite items I have received as largess, to be honest. Socks. I am head over heels in love with my SOCKS. I want to produce largesse that makes people that excited.
I had some free time on Saturday and was already cutting out fabric for another project, so I grabbed my scrap box and started cutting out 2×8 inch rectangles of linen to fold into Norse bone needle holders. I received one years ago as largesse and it’s a staple on my Norse clothes and always hangs from my brooches. I have not been able to document this particular style, but have found extant bone needle cases dating to the Viking Age of a similar design.
The bone needle holders are super simple to make, too. You take a 2×8 inch piece of linen or light wool scrap and iron it in half length-wise. Open it back up, then fold the long sides to meet the center crease line and fold in half again, as if you were making bias tape. Pin in place. I find it easier to hand sew with a whip or ladder stitch the side seam, but you could machine sew it. But then the machine sewing stitches would show. It’s up to you. I don’t find that aesthetically pleasing, so I prefer to hand sew the seam and make the stitches invisible.
I save up all of my usable bones from dinners in a bag in the refrigerator. I use turkey drumstick bones for the needle holders. Some chicken bones can be thick enough to be used, but they are more hit and miss. Clean the bones using your preferred method then, with a handsaw, cut off the ends. I used different sizes of rasps to clean and sand the inside of the bone, plus gun cleaning supplies to really make sure they were clean. Sand the edges so they are smooth and make sure there is no more grease residue or marrow left behind. Slide the sewn linen strips into the bone and secure them to metal rings on another end by whip stitching the ends of the linen around the rings. Ta-da! You just used up scrap linen and bone that would have been thrown away. Cheap and easy largesse.
Examples of the bone needle holders I made for the West Coast Culinary Symposium
I am also making Birka 6-panel Norse hats because they are another great scrap buster and easy to make. With that being said, apparently, I like sewing the hats together, but not actually finishing the brim hem. I have approximately four (and probably more…) hats that just need the brim hem done. I should finish those and get them out of my hair. I also use excess tablet woven trim around the brim as an accent.
Other medieval largesse in the works: Hat pins, hair pins, hats (Norse and German), beeswax candles/salves (we have bees), bone rings, linen socks, Norse wood-carved idols, aprons, jam, metal notions, feastocrat spice selection, tablet woven garters, tablet woven bands, beer/mead/wine, Roman dolls, and whatever else strikes my fancy!
The Trials and Tribulations of Toka 