Dragon Finger Puppets and a Tourney!

I’ve made a bunch of little dragon finger puppets!  They are super easy and can be made with little felt scraps.  The tutorial on how to make them is from Vicki Brown Designs.

Why have I made so many dragon finger puppets?  To give away as largesse in my largesse tourney!  For the SCA event Twelfth Night (January 3, 2015), I will be running the Pentamere Dirty Dozen Donation Derby.

For those not familiar with the term “largesse,” in the SCA we use it to mean items that people make that they donate to their Kingdom or local group (Barony, Shire, Canton, etc).  Those groups then use those items as prizes or gifts in tournaments, for people who have done them favors, for people who have won awards, to give out to children who come to big events, and so on.  It’s a really wonderful system in many ways!

The Dirty Dozen Donation Derby was created in An Tir (another SCA Kingdom) as a way to encourage the creation of largesse through friendly competition, and Pentamere (LP Michigan+Windsor) is having one at Twelfth Night 2015!  There is a Facebook Group for this event, where you can post progress, ideas, encouragement, etc!

To Enter: Create 12 items based on a theme, which can be anything, from ‘stuff I made on Monday nights’ to ’13th Century Germanic Ladies Accessories.’ The primary rule of entries is that the items must be tagged (Made by ___, donated to ___ [or similar]) and ready to be given out as largesse immediately. This is not an A&S competition – no documentation necessary! Each entrant will decide where they are donating the largesse (Kingdom, Barony, Shire, etc).

Prizes: 

1. Populace Winner: Entries are voted on in a bean count, and the winner is the entrant with the most beans. The populace winner gets one item from each of the other competitors!  (In an SCA “bean count,” all people at an event are given 3 beans to drop into the cups near each entry as votes of what they like the best.)
2. Baron(ess)/Baron(ess) Choice: Each pair will also get to pick a winner. Those winners get to choose 1 item from 3 other entries.  (And if Kingdom shows up to our event, the Royalty will get to choose winners also.)
3. Over the Top Award: For anyone who does 6 solo entries (that’s 72 items!), you will receive a commission from a volunteer prize maker!

Ideas: Intimidated by the idea of creating 12 of something? Grab 11 other people and do a group entry! Can’t think of something to make? Speak to Royals or your Baron(ess) about what they’d like for largesse!

Another good place to get ideas is from the Dirty Dozen Donation Derby Facebook Group.  This is the FB group that all the DDDD tourneys post their finished photos in, so there are LOTS of ideas from all the times this has been run in other Kingdoms.

I’m looking forward to all the wonderful largesse people are going to make for our Kingdom and regional groups!!!  ~Lady Birke die Jägerin