SCA: BAM Shenanigans & Updating my Roman Outfit

War of the Rams ended up being a total bust for me. I hurt my back on the first day, and was basically stuck in a chair at camp the entire weekend - I didn’t get to go anywhere or do any of the activities, or even see people I’d been looking forward to seeing. I was pretty bummed about that. I didn’t even get any pictures. 

However, I did wear a blue jean  “cowboy viking” outfit on Friday that I made as a joke, and got a bunch of good laughs out of it. I don’t have a pic of me in it, but here it is on my mannequin: 

Isn’t that ridiculous? I wore it with cowboy boots and a red bandana over my hair. There were several double-takes, and a few people busted out laughing when they saw me, hehe. Silliness. 

I also bought this gorgeous new mug for myself while I was there. It’s a hand made and hand painted pottery in a loosely Greco-Roman design, and one of a kind - I couldn’t pass it up! 

Speaking of Roman, I found out that the Bjornsborg spring event this coming year will be Roman-themed, hooray! I love wearing Roman, and the weather then should be perfect for it.  I decided to upgrade my kit a bit this month, starting with a new sash to tie around my body (it's blue; the old one was dark gray and I didn’t like the way it went with the light blue chiton). 

This week I treated myself to a pdf booklet of Greek- and Roman- inspired tablet weaving patterns from Etsy (some traditional “Greek key” designs, and some patterns inspired by the geometric designs in floor mosaics and frescoes), and I made up this one in blue and white cotton: 

Once it was done, I sewed it onto the top edges of my linen chiton, to dress it up some. (Decorative trim on these things IS period,  but tablet weaving itself is NOT…but I’m not worried about that, I’m not going for exacting historical accuracy with my Roman, I just want something approximate and *pretty* to bang around in at the event).  

That’s all for now.  At the moment I’m working on two pieces: a new palla for my Roman outfit, and a hand-sewn Norse smokkr for an event in January. More on that soon! 

SCA: Shiny New Viking Stuff!

Yes, I was responsible with most of my tax refund this year, but I also treated myself to a couple of new shiny things for the SCA: 

Birka Cup

I think my favorite thing in the world, at the moment, is this little glass cup in the foreground of this photo.  

It's a replica of a glass cup found at Birka (this cup was from grave 750, exc. by Hjalmar Stolpe in 1897), and it just makes my heart glad.  I love glassware, especially period glassware - and this is the first piece of period glassware I've ever owned.   

Key

I also got this lovely little bronze Viking key from Raymond's Quiet Press.  It's a replica of an extant key from Lund in Sweden, and it's a great little addition to my set of "jewelry".  I wove a very thin band to use to hang it from my brooches.  

Yay, shiny Viking stuff!  

What's Next? 

I'm working on a BUNCH of things right now, so there'll be posts a-plenty coming up soon.  This weekend is the spring Bjornsborg event, from which there will be pictures (I hope).  I'm weaving my butt off right now making trim to go on my linen Viking coat, I'm working on a new Hedeby bag, I built a new loom and am trying it out, and I'm working on a Roman outfit for the hot weather this coming season.  Whew!  More soon! 

Company Table Linens for Feast

A quick fabric-painting project to spiff up company dinners:

One 96x48" white, cotton, Ikea RITVA curtain panel (linen-weave, cotton fiber), with 8" black linen border, painted with eight trios of Caerleon lions;  two 12x48" gold linen table runners with linen borders, Ansteorran star and Caerleon company motto (ut simus invicti: "together we are undefeated").  

The lions and star were first stamped, then painted in and detailed by hand.  The motto was written by hand with a large, flat paintbrush, over a chalk grid drawn in the center of each table runner.  (And no, I don't know what hand/font the text is.  I'm not a calligrapher or a scribe, hehe. This is the hand I know how to do. ☺ ) 

Paints are all artist's acrylics mixed 1:1 with fabric glue, and kept fluid by painting with a wet brush.  (I like working with regular acrylics much better than pre-fab fabric paints. The glue keeps the paint elastic and prevents cracking with wear, the glue and the water both make the paint soft and liquid enough to soak into the fabric on the first coat, rather than just sitting on top of the fabric where it might chip and peel with age).  

All pieces were finished with a silicone water-repellant spray treatment to protect the paint and to give the fabric some stain resistance. 

(Pic taken on my cutting table in the sewing room, with all of my feast gear, since I'm not at all certain of being able to take pics of the feast table at Candlemas this weekend - feast is usually lit by candlelight only, so, any pics of feast will likely be a big dark blur with a bunch of flames floating in it, hehe. (Well, fake flames, this year - the event site doesn't allowe open flames, which: booo!  But we'll make due).  

Tada! 

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Feastnesses

Work on Vasilii's opashen proceeds apace.  And by "apace" I mean I'm about to burn the damned sleeves. But that's okay.

LOOK FEAST GEAR.

Before: 

A set of things I threw together out of stuff I already had lying around the house. Except for the wooden bowl (of which there are two).  Not bad for a random box of stuff.


After:

New set largely courtesy of World Market, which is just about my favorite store, hehe.  Their Rajasthani tablecloth and red napkins, and a pair of $1 spoons I found there on clearance the other day.  (Yes, the tablecloth is Indian.  Vasilii lives in the southeast of Russia, and ...brought it back from his travels. Yeah, that's it!)

there is, in fact, a spoon. two of them. 

Gold chargers (thrift store), the same silver candlesticks, and different goblets (thrift store).  And a red glass footed bowl and decanter, which I got from Etsy - it's Avon's "1895 Cape Cod" collection from 1982.  Totally not period.  But pretty, sparkly, and RED, which is what I wanted.  I heart them like burning.

plain glass water goblets, until I find something I adore

I do need new candles, though - that one in the picture is my only one left, LOL.  Also, with the terrible drought we had this year (the worst in 100 years!), and the resulting burn ban, we couldn't have candles at most event sites all year.  While certain situations call for real wax and flame, I've seen some really lovely battery-powered fakes this year during the burn ban. I'm thinking about getting some of those, too.

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