SCA: Events: Bjornsborg Fall Faire

I haven't had a lot of luck with events this fall at all.  First of all, it was still in the 90s here until like a week ago, so I really didn't want to be outside all that much.  One of the events I was going to go to in September was canceled at the last minute; another one at the beginning of October I managed to go to, but I couldn't camp, and it was so hot and so much walking around a very BIG and extremely dusty event site, and between the heat and my allergies I didn't stay long.  

Last weekend, however, was the Barony of Bjornsborg's Fall Faire, which I wouldn't have missed for the world.  The weather has finally cooled off, and Bjornsborg really knows how to put on an awesome event.  There were classes, competitions (no A&S, sadly), games, a couple of great bardic circles, a tavern with food and drink for lunch, and a feast on Saturday evening.  Court that night was long, but hilarious; and it rained like crazy and even hailed a bit during the first half of court, which made it kind of hard to hear what was going on at the front, but it was still a great court. 

                                 Me and Hersir Ivar 🫶

I also got to try out my new campsite this event, which was kind of exciting for me.  I got a new tent which is bigger than my old one, and sets up "instantly" (seriously, it takes me like 5 minutes to put it up all by myself, and I LOVE that!) I also got a new air bed which is wider than the twin sized one I was using before (that I kept falling out of!), and a new rocking camp chair which is SUPER comfortable.  

                        Big tent! 

This tent is big enough that I can bring my rolling garment rack for War of the Rams next month, too.  It's a five-day event, and it's going to be COLD and there are tons of parties and other activities which may or may not require costume changes - and it's SO nice at WotR to be able to just hang up all my clothes instead of rooting through a plastic tote bin for them like I do at short events, especially for when I need to duck into my tent quickly in the evenings to grab a coat or other outerwear.  

 

For my next trick, I'm going to be making a Norse klappenrock, (a short coat with a wrap-over front) for Master Ivar, complete with tablet-woven trim.  He brought the fabric to me at the event, and we sat down and took some measurements and talked about styles and colors; and I'm going to be working on this between now and WotR.  I'll show you when I'm done.  

Belated Event Follow-Up

The good news is that I DID find my box of 14th-century stuff, so I did not go to Lions naked. The event was fabulously fun, exciting, and beautiful, though a bit on the chilly side at night.  My poor tent, which was brand new in January, caught in a tornado in March, and has been breaking down bit by bit ever since that event, finally gave up the ghost when I tried to set it up at the event, so I slept in my friend's car the first night we were there.  As much as we wanted to stick around for the post-court party the next night, we opted to drive the hour-and-a-half home and luxuriate in hot showers and warm beds instead of weathering another frigid night outdoors.

me and my shabby parasol

Since then, I've been hard at work whipping my new fixer-upper house into shape.  I'm pleased to report that I have - mostly - got the sewing room together, although it's not remotely decorated or even within earshot of "done".  But I can work in it, which is fortunate, because I have a commission coming up in the next week or so (more Caerleon company livery, nothing terribly out of the ordinary - which is good. I don't think I could handle anything majorly complicated right now, with all the other work I still have to do). Updates on both the room and the commission coming soon.

It's That Time of Year Again

Boo!  Welcome back, me.  

Well, it's nearing the end of June.  This is the time of year when I always say, "I should really get x, y, and z finished this Summer at a nice, leisurely pace, so that it's all ready for event season this fall," but then I don't do a damned thing until two weeks before Fall Baronial.  Where did you say that path paved with good intentions was headed?  Oh, right. 

Still, hope is never a bad thing to have.  I don't actually have a whole lot on my plate this summer; it's just that all the projects I have are BIG ones.  The SCA projects, the home/DIY projects, landscaping projects, even a bunch of mundane sewing that I really should get to.  For the purposes of this blog, however, here's a short list of some of the stuff I'm actually excited about getting done this summer: 

• a 6-panel wooden chest.  Two, actually: one I'd like to build from scratch, and one is a wooden toy box makeover that I'm actually halfway through.  Well begun is half done! 
• a sun shade from a pretty tablecloth and some salvaged bunk leg legs 
• a medieval market stall to replace my EZ-Up pavilion.  Remember all that work I did making a canvas cover for it?  The second time I set it up after that, one of the metal struts broke, and I can't get a replacement part for it - I would have to buy a new one.  So why bother, when I can just build a period one?  
• A small leather-seated tripod stool, like this one, because I like it. 
• A new, wooden bed for my tent, made out of the old wooden bed that I built for my bedroom at home several years ago
• Some upgrades for my modern-almost-period pointy tent:  new guide ropes, mosquito netting for the inside, a curtain/drape to cover up the zippered door, and possibly 
• A new cooler cover for a cube cooler 
• A beautiful new 12th-century outfit for a couple of very cool, early medieval-themed events coming up in October and December

Not, mind you, that a thing being ON this list means that it's going to get done.  These are just things that have been on my mind since last year, mostly geared towards having a more period-feeling presence at events.  

I've got a list about this same size for the house - painting walls, repairing flooring joints, hanging light fixtures, etc. -  as well as a mundane mending pile as high as my hip, a roommate moving out, a 10-year checkup and repair list on my home...yeesh.  Suffice to say, it will either be a very busy summer for me, or a summer in which I say F* it to everything and just play video games for three months. 

See you soon...

Nope.

Oh, dear.  The new tent didn't work out as I'd hoped.

What worked: 

• It's cute
• It's small
• It's easy to put up - so easy a caveman could do it one person can do it alone
• It held up really well in some fairly high winds (nothing horribly scary, but a front blew through, and nearly flattened our neighbor's tent while doing no damage to our tent at all!)
• I was right about the height estimate in the picture above - the door is actually an inch or two taller than me, so the height on the tent was great. 
• It does indeed pass the "ten foot rule" - across the field, in amongst all the actual period tents, it blended right in.  

What did totally and spectacularly NOT work: 

• First of all, this tent is not as big as advertised.  I didn't measure the height; but the floor was supposed to be 12x12', according to the website - which I assumed meant a 12' diameter circle, since the floor is practically round (hexagonal, actually).   It's not either of those things.  My queen-sized air mattress is 5x6.5', just like a queen-sized regular mattress.  We managed to wedge it in between the center pole and one of the walls, sideways, meaning that from the center pole to one wall was less than five feet (the mattress was actually pushing the wall out several inches), making the diameter of the tent floor less than ten feet.  NOT COOL.  
• The side walls are nearly two feet high, which was great for storage, but with such a small floor, it meant that only one person at a time could stand up, and only directly in the center, without bending over or performing various acrobatics to get around each other - more often than one, Kress and I took turns changing in the tent, or one of us would lay on the bed while the other one changed.  
• Also because of this, the amount of stooping and bending to negotiate the storage around the perimeter of the circle and the slant of the tent walls being so low around the sides meant that I threw my back out this weekend.  So THAT was awesome.  I can barely move.  
• What color is that tent in the picture above?  White, with a dark gray floor?   Nope.  It's gray with a darker gray floor.  Wasn't expecting that one.  The website didn't say what color the tent was, so, silly me, I figured it would be what it looked like in the picture. 
• There could definitely be more ventilation in this thing.  We're headed into Fall and then Winter, so it's not a huge deal, but I could definitely not camp in this in the Summer. 

All of that said,  I still think this would be a fantastic tent for one person, for small, weekend events.  In fact, a friend of mine recently bought this same tent, and she used it for the first time this past weekend, too, and loved it.  So when I go to events by myself this season, if I do, I'll be taking it.  But for Kress and I, we absolutely cannot camp in this thing together again.  We're back to kicking around ideas for making our own pavilion, and have decided that once we get that done, we'll use this pointy tent as an arming pavilion for him.  For now, though, we'll be using our big blue Coleman again. 

* 

Meanwhile, we used our EZ Up as a shaded common area for our household throughout the weekend, and it worked out really well.  We have a couple of card tables that we shove together and drape with a tapestry which is long enough to hide non-period things shoved underneath the tables (cases of bottled water, coolers), and everyone either has period-looking chairs or cloth drop-covers for their nylon camp chairs.  It actually looked pretty decent!   I can't wait to get a nice cover made for that EZ Up to make it look better, though.  :) 

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