Pennsic LI East Kingdom State Dinner gifts — customized messenger bags

In Spring 2024, Aife put out the call for artisans to contribute to the custom messengers bags that Their Majesties Tindal and Emerson wished to give to the Known World Crowns at Pennsic LI. With the encouragement of friends, I signed up to make one bag from beginning to end — embroidery/applique of the recipient’s arms and making the entire bag.

When a member of my Haus, Duchy Von Drachenklaue, and her partner became Crown of the Kingdom of An Tir, a fit of madness and extreme confidence overtook me. I asked to do their bags, too.

And then I looked up Brynhildr’s arms: a heraldic floofy lioness, counterchanged, in purple & gold. Oh dear, what had I agreed to?

I made the bag for Trimaris’s Consort first because it was the simplest heraldry: a shield, clover, and star – easy shapes. Due to the brilliance of Simona bat Leon, we used a Cricut to punch out the shapes, making nice sharp edges for applique work.

Bag construction was QUITE a learning experience. I’m not a skilled sewist, though I do have a terrific sewing machine. Aife had sent the tutorial for bag construction, as well as one for adjustable straps. Step by step, very slowly and carefully, I put the first bag together.

• The smartest thing I did for this entire project was to send 6 yards of duck cotton to the dry cleaner for washing & pressing. There’s no way I could have effectively wrangled that much material.
• Measure twice, cut once — a lesson I learned multiple times over throughout this project.
• Whip stitching the fabric edges was definitely worth the time. A few pieces went all the way to the edge that would have been lost had it raveled.
• Turning the lining right-side out, after attaching it to the exterior, is like giving birth — squeezing a large body through a space seemingly too small for the task. Patience and repeated small efforts eventually result in a properly-turned bag.

Everything was going well until the last step, when I discovered a critical measurement mistake. Thankfully, some sturdy whip stitching tucked the excess firmly out of the way.

Next, the bags for the An Tir Crown. Alas, despite much effort, the Cricut had been utterly unable to deal with Brynhildr’s floofy lioness.

Simona was able to make a paper template for both of the An Tir arms, and an applique project became an embroidery project.

The Sovereign’s arms were simpler, so I did those first. The base is applique, the bulls are embroidered. I ran out of white embroidery floss and discovered how many shades of “white” there are.

Finally, I had to face the consequences of my impulsive decision: it was time to embroider Brynhildr’s lioness, which I named Peanut Butter & Jelly. Alas, my tension was too tight, and the ground fabric puckered all around the edges. And so, an applique project that had become an embroidery project became an applique project again. I cut the embroidery from its ground and appliqued it onto a new ground fabric.

The bags were relatively straightforward to construct after I’d done the first one. Their bag linings are in complementary colors. Since Brynhildr is a member of the Duchy Von Drachenklaue, I added a strip of our Duchy trim to the inside of her bag.

Finally, a photo of everything I used for this project (from back to front):

This challenge really stretched my skills, and I’m so glad I took it on. Know that if I make another one of these bags, I really, REALLY love the recipient.