The topic of writing documentation came up recently in my local group’s chat, and so I thought I would take a moment to write about my process for writing my own documentation, with the hope that it will help others on their journey!
The first, and most important part of documentation is: photographs. Take pictures of your ENTIRE process, from raw materials to finished product. People love to see this and it helps answer a lot of questions by itself. When I am doing embroidery for example, I stop about every 2 hours or so, or if I’ve started a new color/section, and snap a quick picture. I don’t always use them all, but they’re nice to have! Another plus of doing photos is that you can easily fill up PAGES of documentation with them, especially if you write a little caption for each one explaining what you’ve done in that part (highly recommend doing this).
Once I have my project finished and all my photos taken, only then do I get off my rear and organize my research, so please feel free to do this earlier in the process, I’m just lazy!
You’ll want to have as much information as seems reasonable for a person to be able to read within a few minutes about the original piece that inspired your work (if applicable), and how they would have created this piece in period. After that, I find supporting evidence that shows the techniques used in other places (such as for embroidery, finding a certain stitch used in other places than the exact piece I’m referencing) and add that information (and photos!) in. Once I’ve covered the big questions (Who made it, How did they make it, Why did they make it, How was it used) I write a little about my own process and what materials I chose to use for the item, and why I picked what I picked if I deviated from the extant piece.
There is really no one “right” format to do this. Honestly just write from the heart and put what you did every step in there and show it nicely, and you’ll have great documentation!
So, that being said, the most important things to remember for building your documentation is:
What inspired your work of art (extant piece? recipe?)
How was it done in period?
Notes about what you changed
Speak about why you changed it
Talk about your process while crafting/creating
MANY PHOTOS
I really can not stress the photos enough. If you do anything, put photos of your process into your documentation. Most people won’t have time to stand there and read your documentation – heck, I’ve had judges not read my documentation and only look at the photos I’ve included – something I know because all their questions were answered in my text!
As a working example, here is the documentation for the “A Catte” embroidery I did last year:
https://sca.eldclaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/a-catte-2.pdf
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