SCA: New Winter Cloak

I spent the past few days weaving my butt off. Needed something to do while I wait for fabric to come in the mail. 

I had a bunch of that diamond weave blue wool left over from my smokkr project; it wasn’t enough to make into a coat, so I decided to make it into a large rectangular cloak instead: 

The woven trim is pretty simple - in fact, it’s the first pattern I ever learned to weave, one of the Ladoga designs. I made ten yards of it in three sections, most of it on a “new” loom that someone gave to me recently. (More on that in another post).  

I’m pretty happy with this. It was a fast, fun project which will look great and keep me warm at BAM this year. 

My next post will probably be about more hand sewing, as I’m about to start adding to the blue wool smokkr project to bring the whole outfit up a level. I’m also going to be doing LOTS of weaving the next few months, and I’m planning on building at least one new loom for sure, maybe a pair of them. We’ll see.  

SCA: The Hand-Sewn Viking Project, Part II

The second part of my hand sewn Viking outfit project is the smokkr, or apron dress: 

I searched high and low for the right wool, learned a lot about fabrics I almost never use - and then I learned that it was going to be prohibitively expensive to use the wool I wanted for this dress.  So I ended up using a wool "stuff" fabric I had in my stash instead: it's a lightweight diagonal twill, and very smooth, almost like a suiting but not as slick or thin.  On the suggestion of a friend, I ran it through my washer and dryer a couple of times to felt the fabric a bit, which made it thicker and softer, and got rid of the little bit of sheen it started out with.  It’s not perfect, but it’s just fine for this project, which is basically a test-run for a more serious version of this dress that I might make next year. 

Anyway, the pattern for this  dress is the basic three-panel-and-three-gore pattern that the entire SCA uses, which, as near as I can tell, the pattern we use was designed by Carolyn Priest-Dorman (SCA name M. Thora Sharptooth, East Kingdom) in 1993 as a 9th-century Danish apron dress.  FWIU the pattern is based on a combination of viking artwork and on archeologists’ renderings of proposed designs for the garment which were based on grave evidence. 

I went a step further and created a pleated front for this dress, in the style of pieces found at sites like Køstrup and Kaupang.   The exact method the original owners of these garments used to pleat the fabric is not known; I had never pleated anything before so I used the simplest method I found, which was to baste the fabric, draw it together, and then whipstitch over the pleats to hold them in place.  It’s a little uneven, but I think not bad for a first try. 

I finished the top of the dress in two ways. Firstly, because I forgot to hem the top of the dress before I pleated the front, I ended up using a binding strip made of herringbone linen scraps that I had in my stash, which I dyed green.  I then applied a thin tablet woven band to the top edge of the dress between the two brooch loops over the bust. There is evidently some confusion over exactly how this was accomplished on the original Køstrup dress; the band was either suspended between the loops or it was attached to a vegetable diver fabric backing which has since rotted away leaving only the wool band in place. I opted to attach my band to the loops at the top, and whip stitched it to the top edge to help keep it in place. The band itself is cotton and was woven specifically for this project. 

For the shoulder straps and front loops, I used the same fabric as the body of the dress to create a thin double-folded tube, whipstitched closed on the side, following Inga Hagg's sketches of the loops found within the tortoise brooches at Birka: 

Hagg, 1974

I used period stitching methods on this whole dress, like I did for my serk. I used a backstitch for the primary construction seams, a running stitch to attach the linen binding at the top, flat-felled the seams and whip-stitched them in place, and then folded the lower hem and stitched it in place with a herringbone stitch (Inga Hagg's "Osenstitch"): 

Hagg, 1984

This dress has its problems, to be sure. I deviated from my inspiration pieces in areas like fabric choice, and in the use of an edge binding at the top. This was my first time hand sewing an apron dress, hand sewing on wool, and creating pleats/smocking.  Overall, though, I’m pretty happy with the way this turned out, and I can’t wait to wear it with my new serk when the weather cools off a bit! The whole dress took approximately 21 hours to make, including the weaving. 

Whew! Next project! 

SCA: Updated 9th Century Norse "Viking" Kit (female)

I know I've been posting a LOT of tablet weaving lately - the tunic and the coat and the bag - but I thought I'd show you my full [female] "Viking" kit all decked out with the jewelry and the other tablet weaving I've been doing.  This is my nicest, and my favorite, Viking outfit at the moment: 

The entire outfit is made from linen - the serk, smokkr, and the herringbone weave cloak/shawl.  Yes, wool would be more historically accurate for some of these pieces, but it's HOT here in central Ansteorra, and wool just isn't practical in this heat unless it's the middle of January.  

The dark blue smokkr was a lighter teal color, but I dyed it to a darker indigo shade to make it look nicer and more accurate (ish).  

Tablet weaving on this outfit consists of: 

• The blue and yellow band at the top of the smokkr underneath the blue silk trim fabric
• The ivory/white woven band at the neckline of the serk, which is meant to mimic the look of a woven-on edge, though it's actually just sewn in place
• The blue and white belt
• The thin strap that hangs the metal key from the right brooch (left in the picture)

Here's a better shot of the weaving and the jewelry on the front of the dress: 

The jewelry consists of

• a pair of bronze brooches purchased online
• a silver round brooch to close the serk neckline which I made from a metal button
• three strands of glass beads suspended from the bronze brooches, which I made myself (it turns out I'm awful at making beads, but I managed to get enough made to wear with my kit at least)
• a strand of tiny blue glass beads around the neck
• a strand of amber chips around the neck
• three silver raven pendants which hang from the lowest strand of beads between the brooches - two of them are period replicas, and the third is a modern knotwork design

The only thing missing from these photos is the hair and the shoes, and I'll post more about both of those things later.  

SCA: New Tablet Woven Trim For An Old Tunic

 My men’s tunic needed a little extra fiber bling. (Is “fiber bling” a thing? It is now).  This tunic is like seven years old - it’s been dyed three times and been through four different iterations of trim and edging details. This is the latest: 

The trim is the Oseberg narrow band design (double sided, not that it matters for this application), in cotton crochet thread and 8/2 cotton rug warp, which are almost exactly the same size (the crochet thread is just the tiniest bit thicker, but it ends up not mattering). 

I had a blue thread that was an exact match for the blue of this tunic, but it just looked too homogenous and bland. I wanted something that would pop against the blue and the rust colored edge banding, and I really love the way this dark red and gold look against the tunic colors. 

PARDON the wrinkles. You know how linen is. I applied the woven trim to the neckline, sleeve cuffs, and the lower hem of the tunic - about 6 yards in total. 

Now when I dress as a dude in the SCA, I shall be a fancier dude than I was before. I have some alterations to make to my new boots; soon as I’m done il get some photos of my entire Viking dude kit and show them to you. 

SCA: Sprucing Up An Old Viking Coat

before

A before picture: 

This is an old gray coat that I made approximately one billion years ago.  The outer shell is a "linen weave"cotton canvas; the lining and the blue edge banding are linen.  Once upon a time it was covered with inappropriate decorative embroidery and really, really ugly faux-fur trim - all of which I removed, and the end result is as you see here. 

Over the weekend I wove a whole lot of new trim - originally to use on my male viking tunic, but, when I saw all the colors together, I decided the trim would look MUCH better on this coat. So I wove about two more yards so I'd have enough - a total of 9y - and grabbed some 1/2" red silk ribbon from my ribbon box which I had been saving for a rainy day. 

Here's what the coat looks like now: 

The red silk ribbon only goes along the lower hem, and the sleeves cuffs.  I didn't have enough to use for the entire border around the front opening and neckline; but I think it looks neat on just the hem and sleeves. Gives it a little pop of color without being overwhelming, I think. 

The weave is the "Oseberg Narrow Band" design (12L1), to which I added some extra width in the blue background, and a red and navy border stripe on the edges.  

I'm super happy with the way this came out!  I still need to do something about the lack of trim on my male tunic; but now I have TWO coats (the green one got new trim last month) that I can wear in the colder months.  

Of course, now I still don't have trim to put on my male tunic - I guess that's what's next! 

SCA: A Tablet-Woven Edge Detail

 So, I read about this NEAT thing where you can weave a band directly onto the edge of a piece of fabric or a garment, which adds a bit of decorative detail and also protects the fabric's edge.  There's a great picture of the technique on this page, if you can read Swedish (or use Google translate, which is what I did). 

I decided to try it out...sort of.  I didn't have a flat piece of wool fabric to use; but I wanted to try the look on the neckline of a serk, and I wasn't sure how to get the round neckline aligned with the loom - and also, I didn't think the linen of the serk would lend itself well to the stress of weaving. 

Instead, I decided to try to simulate the look by attaching a thin tablet-woven band to an existing garment by sewing it on.  I sewed it on edge-to-edge (as opposed to applying the band flat on top of the surface of the fabric) so that it looks like it's woven in place. 

the band was sewn to the neckline and 
sleeve ends

I really like the look of this.  I'm always trying to find more ways to make my viking kit look fancier and nicer without resorting to non-period "reenactorisms." I like the way this came out. It's a simple detail, but it looks finished and polished without screaming WOVEN TRIM ON ALL THE THINGS!! 

a closer shot of the neckline and stitching

What do you think?  I think I'll definitely try this again, and, of course, I DO plan to learn to weave directly onto a piece of fabric, as soon as I get some fabric that will support the weaving properly.  

Neat! 

1/4" 6-card single-color woven band
in cotton thread

What's Next? 

Right now I'm working on several things which I plan to blog about in the coming weeks: 

• a fully hand-sewn linen serk and smokkr set
• a new set of woven bands to decorate my male viking tunic
• a Regency ballgown (?)

Oh! And also, I just finished a belt which I really love and can't wait to wear: 

More soon! 

SCA: Oseberg Loom, Take II

After showing my Oseberg loom at the A&S competition at Bjornsborg in February and getting some really great feedback on the project, I decided to enter it again at the Hellsgate Commanders' Crucible event in March, after making some changes to the project based on the feedback I received: 

• I made some changes to the documentation - mostly formatting stuff, but also some changes to the writing to make it flow better, and I included some new information that I've learned since I started the project
• Someone at Bjornsborg in February showed me a new way to warp up this loom which solves almost all of the problems I had had with weaving on the loom on my first try

Initially I had warped up the loom the way you would warp up an inkle loom, with the warp thread ends tied to themselves, forming a big loop that wraps around the whole loom.  This limits the length of the weaving, and, I found, makes it so that the tension becomes too tight to continue weaving about halfway through, since the loom has no tensioner apparatus the way an inkle loom does.  

Instead, according to the input I got from a laurel who talked to me about it at length, I've warped it more like you would do with a backstrap loom, with a long warp which is lashed to the loom frame with a strip of leather thong which can easily be moved when you need to advance the warp or adjust the tension.  This way makes it easier to weave, easier to adjust the weaving, and removes all limits to the length of the weave - you can literally weave as long a thing as you want this way, woohoo! 

Also, since now it's so easy to remove the weaving project from the loom and put it back on again with the leather thongs, you can remove the weaving, take the loom apart to pack flat for transport, and then just put the weaving back on the loom when you get where you're going. My Oseberg loom is small enough to fit in my car fully assembled, so it's not an issue for me right now; but if I ever build a full-sized model of this loom I'll definitely need to take it apart to take it to an event. 

Something else new this time around is the thread I'm weaving with.  I'm using a 2-ply wool thread in three shades of indigo blue  - I've never woven with wool fiber before, and the feel of it is quite interesting. The band I'm weaving is coming out very nicely, but the fiber is really fuzzy and sticks to itself a LOT, which is making weaving slow and kind of a pain in the ass.  

The pattern on the loom right now is the "Oseberg narrow band" (the design with the rhomboids/diamonds on one side and the squared-off zigzag on the back (band 12L1, Nockert 2006). It's a 10-card pattern, and the finished width is only about 1/4" (the warp is four yards, so I'll get three-and-some when it's finished).  I'm not sure yet what I'll do with this piece when it's done. 

Here's my display from Hellsgate.  The wind was wreaking all sorts of havoc with the tablcloth, and knocking the loom and the spools of thread all over the place, but it mostly looked nice.  I got a ton of great feedback on the projects from lots of people, and once again I got the opportunity to sit down with a couple of laurels and really discuss the project in-depth, which was a LOT of fun.  I get super nervous when talking to judges about my work, but I'm getting better at handling it without falling all over myself and coming apart at the mental seams afterwards, hehe.  

So what's next for this project?  Honestly, I don't know.  I think I've done all I can do with this little prototype Oseberg loom - I think the next step for me, if I want to continue in the weaving vein*, is to either switch my focus to the weaving itself, or to go bigger and build a full-sized Oseberg loom to work on and display at the next A&S event (it was suggested to me by two people that this would be a fantastic project for Kingdom A&S in September, but yikes, that's high-stakes!)  

*And of course, I DO want to continue to weave - I love weaving.  But I also have a new Viking outfit I want to get to work on which will be as near to "completely" historically accurate as I can make it, all hand-sewn, hand-dyed, etc.  I've been planning that project with the idea in mind that I would take it to LPT next year; but I could just as easily do both the sewing project and the big loom if I wanted to.  Right now, I just don't know.  

Right now, I'm very happy with the way the last two competitions have gone; and I'm excited about moving forward - but I'm also ready to take a break and work on something else for a minute.  Steppes' Warlord is coming up, and it's going to be HOT, so I'm working on a new Roman outfit that I have to finish in the next couple of weeks, so that's what I'll be doing with  my April.  Show you when it's done.  :) 

SCA: Tablet Weaving Stuff & Upcoming Projects

Just a quick update on what I've been doing lately:  I recently updated my linen coat (2020) with some new trim.  A few years ago I trimmed it with bands of blue and green linen, wishing, at the time, that I knew how to tablet weave so I could make something cool for it.  Well, I do now, so I did! 

old linen trim bands

new herringbone trim in blue,
white, and navy

What's Next? 

I'm currently weaving a belt on my inkle loom, working on the Oseberg loom A&S project for another entry at an upcoming event, making a new Hedeby/Birka bag for myself, and making a new Roman outfit for myself for the hot weather we have coming in the next month or two.  

More soon!  

SCA: Oseberg Loom: An Experiment

What Is It?

Photo from the Oseberg Textile book (Nockert 2006, p. 144).

The Oseberg loom is a wooden loom found in the Oseberg ship burial (Tonsberg, Norway, excavated in 1905, dating from the 9th century).  It was partially destroyed by the weight of the ground above it, but a  woven band and weaving tablets were still attached to it.  The loom consisted of a base, two upright sides, and a crossbeam in the center for support; the whole thing measured about 2 meters wide by about a meter high and is made of beech wood.  

I've found LOTS of information online about the woven bands that were found at Oseberg; but very little information about the loom itself - mostly what I've found are people's recreations of the loom in various sizes (which I found very helpful for construction ideas, but not documentable research). 

 

How I Built It

I decided in late January that I wanted to build myself a smallish version of the Oseberg loom as an experiment -  just to see if I could do it, and to see how weaving on an actual period loom would be (I normally use an inkle loom, which was invented in I believe the 1700s). 

 I used only scrap wood I had laying around in my shop for this, because I wanted to get this done on the cheap.  The original Oseberg ship burial loom is made of birch; mine is made of pine 1x2" furring strips. Each piece that I had on hand was about 3.5' long, which was the perfect size for this project. 

(ignore the table legs, that's a different project)

My loom is approximately 3' wide and about 18" high.  It's a little big for a "tabletop"loom - but I planned to use this on my low coffee table in my living room at home, and it's exactly the right size and height to work with there while sitting on the couch.  

The uprights are pegged into the holes in the base with dowels that are glued into the uprights, but can be removed from the base. The crossbar in the middle of the loom is also pegged in place in the same way - glued in the crossbar but not into the sides.  The whole thing breaks down into 3 sticks and the base/foot piece for travel and storage. 

The base is also made of a 1x2" furring strip, with crossbars attached to the ends to stabilize the loom and stand it up.  The crossbars are pegged in place permanently.  

How the Heck Do You Warp This Thing??

Honestly, I went into this with zero idea how to warp this loom.  I'd seen pictures of recreations of this loom with weaving already on them, but never found any description of how it was accomplished, so I just decided to wing it and see how it worked.  After all, this IS an experiment, right?  

welcome to my dining room

I'd seen two ways of warping this loom online: one, where the length of the thread is wrapped around the post and the finished part of the woven band was wrapped around the other post, with the weaving happening in between;  or two, where the length of the thread was wrapped around the whole loom from one post to the other, and tied together like you would do on an inkle loom.  I decided to try the second method: 

Weaving on this loom is…interesting. I had intended to use this loom on my coffee table, sitting next to it, but I have to twist my back so much to weave that it hurts me (I have a bad back).  The next thing I tried was putting it on my dining table and standing next to it, which worked great - except that the loom is so lightweight that it walks around while I’m trying to weave, so I had to clamp it to the table top to get it to stay still. Once I did that, though, weaving was super easy, and fast.  

Advancing the warp is easy enough: I achieved proper tension by tying the lower warp to the crossbar, so to move the weaving I just untied it, shifted the warp around, and then re-tied it. 

The A&S Display

This project was intended from the beginning to be an A&S entry at the Bjornsborg "Battle of the Beasts" event this past weekend.  Here's what my display ended up looking like: 

The entry consists of the loom with weaving in progress already on it that I could demo for people who wanted to see it in action (of which there were actually quite a few!), my documentation, a page of photos showing the process of building the loom and some related things (patterns, examples of woven goods), a couple of woven pieces to show what you can do with a loom like this, some threads I've used to weave with, and some tools like shuttles, cards, and period-replica scissors.  

I warped up my inkle loom with a new project before I went to the event, and sat nearby and sewed for most of the day so that I would (a) have something to occupy me at the event since I wasn't doing anything else (I didn't have any "jobs" this time around and I don't fight or compete in any of the other activities that were going on) and (b) so that I would be available to answer questions and demo the Oseberg loom for people, which was a lot of fun. 

I got a lot of really great feedback on my project and my documentation.  I didn't win, but I'm told I was one of the finalists, which pleases me.  The best part, though, was that I got to sit down and chat with a couple of my favorite Laurels about the project and about weaving in general, and I have lots of great ideas for warping up the Oseberg loom and some adjustments to my documentation which will make it even better for the next time I enter this project (which might be in March, not sure yet).  I'm excited about trying out a new method of warping this loom - I need to finish the weave that's on it now and figure out what pattern and colors to use for the next round.  

More about this project in the next couple of weeks, I hope!  

SCA: Just Some Viking Stuff

In addition to spending two months whomping up a new Italian outfit for Candlemas, which was this past weekend, I also, in that space of time, made a TON of largesse items for a largesse competition that was supposed to be held at the event. 

I started working just before Thanksgiving, and finished about the middle of January; and I made the following items: 

thirteen Hedeby bags

1.  Hedeby bags!  

I love making these things, and I had plenty of supplies on hand, so I went for it. The handles are a simple, curvy Hedeby-style similar to the ones I usually make (based on the handles found at Hedeby and Birka), and they are made from 1/4" red oak flooring pieces that someone gave to me a few years ago. The handles were cut on my table saw and shaped with a hacksaw and electric sander; then stained with a walnut Minwax stain.  It took me about a week to produce all thirteen pairs of handles.  

The bags are hand sewn out of linen, because I had a lot of linen scraps on hand that were perfectly sized for this project. Some are lined, some are not, depending on the weight of the linen used. Each bag has a hand-stitched trim in a braided/herringbone stitch, examples of which were found on an apron dress fragment from Hedeby and on a hat from Denmark; some are bands across the front of the bag, some are stitched around the top edge, and some are covering the side seams. The handles are sewn onto the bag with matching thread (cotton embroidery floss).  Each bag, from sewing to decorating to handle attachment, took me about three hours.  

The bags's carrying straps are a combination of flat card-woven bands, and tubular card-woven cord bands made after a method I found described in this paper by L. Elena Hylton.  You use 4-6 cards with 4 holes threaded, and pass the weft thread/shuttle through one side of the warp only, looping under the warp to get back to the first side (instead of going right-to-left and then left-to-right as you do in "regular" card weaving).  This causes the weave to pull itself into a hollow round tube when you pull the weft tight, instead of creating a flat band. This method of weaving tubular cording is documentable to as early as the 1100s, according to Elena's research. I used 6 cards for my tubular straps, after I found 4 to make a square-profile band and I really wanted a rounder profile.  I also found that it's harder to weave this tubular band after switching the card's direction in order to untwist the threads - for some reason it just works better going "fowards" than going "backwards".  I'll have to practice it more. 

tubular strap

thirteen woven bands

2.  Tablet-woven trim

Something else I really, really enjoy doing.  I had a number of spools of cotton crochet thread on hand from another project, and so I used up my excess on thirteen 1.5-2 yard pieces of trim.  

There are five different designs, each very simple and no more than 10 cards each, and all are either period designs or based on period designs. Each one took me about 3 hours to make from warping to finishing. 

3. Lampworked glass beads 

I hadn't made glass beads for several months (due to it being summer, and about 120ºF inside my garage where my glass workshop is set up), and I needed the practice badly. I'm not very good at doing this - I'm still VERY much a beginner, so my beads aren't, like, awesome or anything - but they'll make nice additions to someone's Viking kit, I'm hoping.  

I made thirteen sets of 8 beads.  All of them are about 8mm in size; some are round, some drum-shaped with flat sides, and some are kind of round/oval with little bumps or dots on them - there are 2 of these "fancy" beads in each set, and 6 plain ones.  It took me about a month to make all the beads, working in 20-minute sessions of about 7 beads per session (not all of which turned out right).  

 

Guess What? 

For some reason, the competition didn’t happen at the event. I don’t know why it got scrubbed - I KNOW I read a whole post about it on the event page two months ago, but no one knew anything about it when I got there and asked about where to set up. Shoot! All that work...!  Not "for nothing" - after all, I'm now prepared to enter the next largesse competition, whenever that happens.  

Meanwhile, I learned a lot, and got a lot of good practice with woodworking and weaving. And glass bead making, although I'm kind of burnt out on glass beads for the time being and probably won't be doing any of that any time soon.  We'll see.  

dry run of display at home

SCA: Some Pictures of Me and Some Random Bits and Pieces

 So, I realized recently that I've never really posted pics of me in any of my Viking outfits - I hate the way I look in photos most of the time, and so I almost always just post stuff on my dress dummy in the craft room.  Of course, the dummy pictures don't really show you what an entire outfit looks like put together, so I thought I'd get dressed up and share pics of ME in my actual Viking clothing. 

Hrefna Hrokrsdottir

Here's me in my favorite (female) Viking outfit.

That's a white linen serk and blue herringbone linen smokkr; with brass brooches from Raymond's, beads and beaded jewelry, leather turnshoes from Bohemond, inkle-woven belt, and Hedeby bag.  Everything except the brooches and shoes was made by me (including the woven shoelaces). 

(The white serk is all caught up underneath my smokkr in this picture, so it looks like the hem is wonky, but it's not.  I just wasn't paying attention when I was getting dressed. Oops!)

(I really need new socks, these turquoise ones are just too loud). 

Hrefn (?)

And here's me as a dude.  I originally developed this outfit because I wanted pants to set up/break down camp in, because skirts get in the way too much; but the more I wear this kit the more I just love dressing as a guy.  It's comfy and workable, and I love the way it looks on me: 

This is my blue linen pants, green-and-blue tunic with inkle woven trim and black top-stitching, blue winingas, the same leather turnshoes, hammered brass arm rings, beaded necklace, Jorvik hood, inkle woven belt, wool cloak, brass cloak brooch, and Hedeby bag.  The winingas, shoes, tablet-woven trim, and brooch were purchased; all the rest was made by me.  

I did just alter these pants, also.  The waistband was sitting too low on me and my pants were falling down, so I added a panel at the top to make the waistband taller - I didn't have any more of the blue linen so I used another color, which thankfully doesn't show under my tunic. 

(I should also note that this whole outfit is about to get a major overhaul, stay tuned). 

Card Weaving!! 

A dear friend of mine recently taught me how to do card/tablet weaving!  I am SO STOKED!  Here's my very first project, done in #3 cotton crochet thread. 

This is so much fun!  Of course, I screwed everything up on my first warp and had to take the whole thing apart and re-do it, but not only did Kate teach me to weave, she taught me how to deal with my mistakes, too, so I was able to get it all sorted out and then create this gorgeous trim.  It's about 3 yards long, which is about as much as my loom can do (either inkle or card).

I can't wait to try new colors and patterns! 

Other Stuff

In addition to the pants alteration and the card weaving, I've been making some minor repairs and alterations to my Viking kit(s) the past few weeks, including: 

•  cut a slit in the neckline of my white serk (above) so that it's a keyhole neckline instead of a round one, because I like the ease and look of a keyhole neckline better, and I love wearing my little silver brooch to close the neckline
• wove (inkle) a striped trim to put onto the male Viking tunic (above) to replace the ratty trim that was on it before, which was falling apart and was too big for the tunic anyway
• I covered my cooler in wood grain duct tape to make it look like a little wooden chest!  Except I'm about to take it all off, because it looks like country-fried ass, LOL
• I made a new necklace to wear with my male Viking kit (above), which is just 9 glass beads (made by me) on a length of blue string - nothing major, I just wanted some bling 

New plans, which I'm hoping to get done by October: 

1. I'm working on refinishing a table I found on the curb into a nice table we can all gather around at Sprezzatra camp - I'm about 85% done with sanding it and am about to start staining it
2. I'll also be making a heraldic table runner to go on the table, with Sprezzatura's device on it
3. I have a blue linen Skjoldehamn hood which needs a lining - I have the fabric, I just haven't made the lining yet
4. I'm hoping to replace the queen-sized air mattress that I use in my tent with a smaller one, so that I can have more walking space in my tent for getting dressed and stuff

Whew!  Lots going on to get ready for the fall event season. Let's go!