SCA: Goofy Little Tent Flag

 Last month I showed you my new heraldry which was passed in June: 

I used to have a little cloth flag that I would put up in front of my tent to say, "this is my tent," but since I changed my heraldry this summer, I needed a new flag. 

Rather than try to replicate the entire device on a 12x14" flag, I decided to make one of those little "weathervane" style flags like you see on Norse banner poles (like this).  (No, it doesn’t look remotely Norse now that it’s finished). 

There's a blue background and a gold pomegranate on one side: 

And a black raven rising on the other side: 

(If you're curious, the cloth is white cotton sheeting; and the paints I used are plain old artists' acrylic paints mixed with a little bit of Tacky Glue and some liquid matte medium. The glue keeps the colors from running in the rain, and the matte medium is just to water down the paint and make the finish the same across the different colors).  

Just a small fun project which will absolutely NOT make up for the fact that I have a big, blue, modern tent, LOL.  (I would love to build myself a real Viking tent, but I don't have the time or the money, or the space in my workshop to do all that carving!) 

In Which Our Heroine Awakens From Her Post-War Nap

It's been a few weeks, but I finally feel rested.  It always helps me, after an event - especially one I've been working full-time preparing for - to center myself with non-SCA stuff when I get back.  So, I've been gardening, and riding my bike, and sewing some mundane clothing. 

I have a bunch of pics from war this year, and I'm working on getting them all into a Flickr album (or something) that I can share here.  Here are a very few, for now:

Sunday night, after a day of camp setup, I
helped serve feast! I'd never done that before;
and it was SO MUCH FUN.

AND I BURNED THE LIVING CRAP OUT OF MY ARM
ON ONE OF THE OVENS! I took really good care of it all
week, and ever since, and thankfully, it's already mostly
healed, and it looks like there won't even be much of a scar.

So here's a thing: 

I FINALLY got some pictures of the flag ropeline around our campsite, you guys!! You've seen the flags in a couple of posts before. They're made of heavy-weight cotton (originally Ikea RITVA curtain panels, purchased second-hand from my old dance studio when it went out of business a few years ago).  They're each 9x12", double-sided, serged closed on the edges, with a rod-pocket in the top to slip over the ropes.  The fence stakes started life as 8' long 1x2" sleepers from the hardware store - $1.50 each; each cut in half, cut to a point on one end, sanded smooth, and stained/sealed.  There's a 1/2" copper tube strap (5pk/$2 at the hardware store, in the plumbing section) attached to the top of each stake for the rope to go through.  So far the entire fenceline has cost me a whopping $30; and I've got plenty more materials on hand to expand as our camp gets bigger. 

The entrance to our camp.  We often use the ropeline as traffic
control; this year we used it for safety, too, by placing it in
front of a tent-rope trap that kept tripping pople before
we got the whole camp set up.

Looking down the outside of camp, with the silk banners we
all helped to paint in 2012. 

A painted cotton banner I made in 2011.

From the opening ceremonies on Tuesday mornings, all kingdoms lining up to begin negotiating the war treaty. 
This is the most SCA picture ever. 

Me carrying the banner in the procession
to the castle (with my dress falling off my
shoulders and the surcote too low in the
front, because by the time I got to war,
they were too big already! ARGH!)

Caerleon

Just Vikin' around. 

Sadly, I did not manage to get pics of me in that purple men's Viking outfit. I promise you some, though, because...well, because I promised you some, and the entire ensemble looks pretty damned spiffy, if I do say so myself.  (In fact, a friend of mine liked it so much he's commissioned one for himself!) I didn't get to wear most of my cotehardies, because they were all too big again by the time I got to war (ARGH!); nor any of my pretty, fancy court things, because all the fancy court-type stuff was called on account of ...

 

After that was overwith, Caerleon bugged out to a hotel for the night...because hot showers, and because WALLS, y'all.  I admit to being thoroughly unhinged for most of that evening. I've been through several tornadic events in my life - this was actually the least severe of them all, but it brought back some pretty terrible memories, and I was kind of having some epic disaster-flashback issues that evening.   We came back the next morning to clean up and break camp.  I stayed until Saturday to help out the folks I rode with who were working at the merchants' offices.  Friday and Saturday I spent walking around in jeans and a hoodie, because all of my clothes and things were soaked and had been hurriedly crammed into bags into a trailer during a downpour on Friday. I had to laugh - I've made a mask every year for three years now, intending to get to a masked ball at war or some other event, and I never end up making it.  This year I DID make it to the masque at the Known World Party Friday night (which was held inside Beade Hall with donated food and booze from many, many generous people who had such things survive Thursday) - and I showed up wearing jeans, a hoodie, and a generous helping of embarrassment and disappointment.  Oh, well.  Next year?

A flooded pond on site, taken as we GTFO'd on Saturday.
Goodbye, Mississippi.  Please be nicer to us next year.

So, all of that being said, 

I had a FANTASTIC WAR.  Before the tornado I got out and participated in the event in ways I'd never done before.  I met a ton of new people, made some new friends, stepped out of my comfort zone in a constructive way, and had a fabulous time exploring parts of the event I'd always wanted to explore but hadn't.  My health was REALLY nice to me this time around, too, and the freedom was an absolute joy.  I took a HILARIOUS class on ancient-Roman-style swearing that was really interesting and educational as well as lewd and fun - I lost the teacher's card, but if any of you were at the event and know who it was, send me a link to her page! 

Life was really scary and chaotic Thursday; but Friday and Saturday I saw 3,000+ of my fellow SCAdians banding together to help one another in the aftermath of the storms.  Some people lost everything they had, but every single one of us that I could see pitched in to spend the last two days of the event cleaning up, helping each other break down camp and get cars out of the mud in the parking area and on the saturated roads, and make sure that everyone had shelter and food and a way off site.  Everywhere I went those two days, people were full of care and concern for people they didn't even know - and many of us got to know each other through swapping stories of how we all fared during the worst of the storm (shout-out to some of Calontir's heralds, whose names escape me, but whose stories of holding their main pavilion that evening, and whose tale of "How John the Tall Saved the Children" at another event, really made my day on Friday!) 

This is the reason I love the SCA, even when the occasional drama and politics get me down - our love of this game makes us family, and when the chips are down, we are all there for each other, whether we know each other or not.  And whether you, Dear Reader, were at the event or not, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for being family to me and to each other.  If you were there, or if you've had an event that went similarly (I hear Lilies War gets pretty interesting), thank you for caring and helping each other.  Thank you so much.

Gulf Wars!

Only four days left before Gulf Wars, you guys!  And guess what?  I finally got to quit my night job!!!  *DANCES AROUND IN CIRCLES**   I've had time to actually get all of my chores and prep for war done on time, and I'll be taking commissions again once we all get home.  YAY!  So excited.  (In case you couldn't tell).

Completed in the last two weeks:

1.  A man's Viking tunic, embroidered.  There are pants and cloth winingas to go with it;  I'll have pics of the finished outfit after war.

2.  A new Caerleon company surcote, which I made from a black linen cotehardie that I made back in 2012 (I don't have pics of it, sorry).  I closed up the front and cut out the sides, over-dyed the whole thing with a fresh coat of black to spruce up the color; then added the gold binding at the top (cut from some lightweight damask from my scrap pile), the white faux-fur on the sides, and three appliqué'd lions down the front of the skirt.

3.  HOLY CRAP I FIT INTO THIS DRESS FROM 2012 AGAIN:

4.  Seven new flags for the Caerleon campsite ropeline (five pictured) and a new canvas banner/flag to hang outside of my tent (that's the big one on the left):

5.  More canvas bags, this time made from a blue, heavy cotton with a decorative weave and stitch, from which I removed a TON of orange thread in January:

L-R:  finished bag; fabric before thread removal; fabric after

6.  Fixed up this mask for the  Known World Party next Friday night - this year's theme is that of a Venetian-style masque:

L: finished, painted with teal/black nail polish, with dark flowers, star-shaped
spangles, and "raven" feathers (dyed turkey feathers from the craft store);
R:  The mask as purchased in NOLA before Gulf Wars (aside from a bit of nail
polish on the nose - I almost forgot to take a "before" picture), where a few of
us spent a day before heading to the war last year.

I've also done a million small alterations on my older cotehardies; the green Burgundian dress which I made last summer and then never wore; re-painted a small wooden chest I made last that had a horrible finish on it; and completed a Sekrit!Projekt! about which I'll post after I'm back from war.

I'll have pics of everything when I'm back. This week I've got to run a thousand errands, and finish packing - which just seems a Danaidean task, at this point, but I'll get there - and then I'm on the road Friday afternoon. Whee!

TO WAR!   

Heraldic Flags For Camp

This is a catch-up post from BAM - from November.  I promise, I'm trying to be better about posting follow-ups and finished project pictures. :)

So, we at Caerleon have been trying to figure out some camp-fencing ideas.  Nobody wants to keep people out, but you don't really want people just randomly walking through your campsite at events, either, you know?  Rather than going to the expense and trouble of building an actual fence, and having to pack, tote, assemble, and disassemble it at every event; or putting together a sheet wall, which IS useful if you're camped by a roadside, for controlling dust and traffic noise,  but walls you off from the rest of the world pretty effectively, I put a ropeline together to stake out around the camp.

First, I took a couple of white, cotton curtains, cut them into 12x14" blocks and painted the heraldic devices of some of our members onto them:

I used the same fabric-painting method I use for my other linen and cotton projects: a 3:1 mixture of acrylic craft paint and craft or fabric glue, with a few drops of water mixed in to make the paint flow and soak into the fabric better.  

I sewed each one to a blank backing of the same fabric, and left a rod pocket at the top of each one, like a curtain panel.  I also made up a bunch of plain flags in other colors.  All of them were then strung onto a plain hemp rope, which was strung from 36" wire plant stakes (spray painted gold) around our campsite at BAM: 

Yay, most of us! :D 

It was a pretty decent trial-run of the idea, and people liked the way it looked. It's definitely not a completed project, though: 

1. 36" stakes are WAY too short, considering that nearly a foot of each stake is pushed into the ground, leaving not much to work with.  The ropeline ended up so low that it was almost more of a trip-hazard than anything.  The wire stakes were a stopgap measure, though - all of them will be replaced with taller, sturdier, wooden stakes before we go to Gulf Wars this year. 
2. I only managed to get about a third of our devices painted onto flags by the time BAM rolled around.  By Gulf Wars I intend to have ALL of our devices going, as well as some bearing the actual Caerleon company device, to space in between each personal device. 

I'll be talking more about Gulf Wars preparations in the next couple of months.  I have a LOT of plans for the company campsite, some of them are even already in progress.  

Just have to get through Candlemas first.  :) 

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