GULFNADO

As I'm sure you've heard by now, Gulf Wars was a little more natural-disaster-y than is usual.   From what we can gather, an EF-1 tornado touched down very near to site on the afternoon of Thursday, March 18th.  There have been rumors of a second one that afternoon in a different location (still near, but off site), but I don't know if that's been confirmed or not. What I can tell you for sure was that it was pretty damned scary.  This was my fifth tornado, although it's not exactly something you get used to, ever - and I've never been camping when it happened until last week. Microbursts, straightline winds, CTG lightning, falling trees, hail,  and flooding are even less fun when you're waiting out the storm in what amounts to a giant Ziploc baggie.

The back half of war was pretty much effectively canceled, and 3,000 people came together as one big family to help each other clean up, salvage, remove trash, feed each other, shelter each other, and just generally make sure everyone was okay.  There was a lot of chaos right after the storm - there was a bit of a meat-grinder of frightened, stampeding humans trying to GTFO for a while - but for the most part people took care of each other, and that was really wonderful to see.   Barring a few concussions and a couple of broken feet, I don't think we had any very serious injuries, and no one was lost or killed.  All of the animals - horses, hounds, falcons and birds, and all the pets and service animals - made it out just fine, thank goodness.

Up until then, war was SO much fun. I have pics of the ravine battle, the campsite, the feast, and a couple of other things that I'll share later as soon as I get organized and finish unpacking and doing laundry.  (By the way, my new tent held up like a champ!)  For now, though:

(Reportedly a photo of the actual storm that hit GWXXV from the local media,
though I have no idea if it really is. This is just what's going around Facebook).

Shelter From the Storm

I think everyone who's ever been to Gulf Wars in Gleann Abhann knows about the little white canvas parasols.  It seems every lady has one - they're affordable, pretty, not too modern-looking, and paintable.  I bought one a few years ago myself, and I painted it...and did a terrible job.  I knew I'd either need to replace it, or just re-cover it, but in the interim, I decided to see what it would look like if I spray-painted it to cover up the silliness that I had made:

WOW NO. 

Just...no. 

Since BAM was going to be rainy (scratch that: it's always rainy at BAm), I went ahead and stripped the cover off the frame, cut out one of the sections, and copied it.  I made two adjustments to the pattern:  I straightened out the curve in the panel edge (see the yellow arrows in the first picture?), and I lengthened each panel so that my new parasol would have a bit of an apron to hang down, like the one in this painting: 

Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Cataneo,
Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1623

And this is my finished parasol:  

Just the little bit of change in the shape of the panels makes the thing feel HUGE.  There are tension issues with two of the struts (center picture, arrow), which are easily fixed by undoing the little keeper at the end of the strut and loosening the fabric.  

I spray painted the finial gold, and tacked down a green velvet ribbon to cover the raw edges of the fabric at the top.  The fabric itself is from an Ikea RITVA curtain panel - cotton, with a linen-esque weave.  I bought a big pile of them from my old dance studio in town when it shut down last month, and have been using the fabric for many things, from tablecloths to bags to flags (which we'll talk about later this week, tee-hee). 

And did it keep the rain off me?  You bet your ass it did. I used an entire can of Camp-Dry on this thing before I left for the event:  seams, then panels, then the whole thing again once it was dry, inside and out.  100% waterproof.  Yay!  It'll wear off over time, and when it does, I might try painting my device on it.  Or stars.  We'll see. 

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A Wild Unemployment Appears! It Is Very Effective!*

Mmmmyeah, remember the hiatus?  Not so much!  It would seem that I have won the "free time" lottery - and boy am I already rocking out the backed up projects! (I still have a lot of house stuff to do, but now I don't have to prioritize so severely, and I'm working on the run-up to Bordermarch Autumn Melees/War of the Rams, which is in four days!)

Friday afternoon I went straight from the [ex]-office to my friend Star's house to work on stuff and help her do the same.  I spent the entire weekend just steamrolling through the pile, and, well, I haven't stopped since.  (And yeah, since I was halfway into moving my craft room, it's been a huge pain in the butt working across three rooms!)

While thinking about the weather this coming weekend for the event, and what clothing I already had that would keep me warm and reasonably dry, I decided to go full Italian for the entire event.  You never go full Italian!  Yes.  Yes, you do.  I find it exciting - this is the first time I've ever stayed in one "mode" for an entire event. Usually I'm all over the place (last event I had a Viking day, a 14th century day, a bliaut day, and then pretty much just wore all my clothes at once for an unexpected cold snap, lol).

And so, although I won't have many pics for you until after the event itself, here's a list of what I've gotten done since Friday so far: 

• Removed the silver ribbon trim from my black gamurra and replaced it with couched gold satin ribbon, and 
• Created a pair of simple early 1500s-era bag sleeves in gold linen with black ribbon ties, and a machine-embroidered motto along the edges (these two things because (a) I didn't have an Italian Caerleon livery, and because my 14th century CL livery is all too small for me!  D:  ) 
• created another pair of bag sleeves in a lovely deep blue swirly damask, to be worn with my brown gamurra
• finished one and created a second long, fabric sash to be worn over my belt
• cut and finished two new, very simple pouches to carry my things in, one of a lovely embroidered silk that I can't wait to show you
• made an exrta-long flannel chemise with extra-long sleeves, to be worn as a nightgown n the frigid eastern Ansteorra winter nights...which was a godawful beige color, so I also bleached it...and instead of simply whitening, it turned bright bubble-gum pink!!!  Dafuq??  Whatever . It's warm, that's all I care about. It's not like anyone is going to see it. 
• Assembled eight simple, canvas "pilgrim bags"/flat satchels, and that'll get its own blog entry next week after I've given them to their intended recipients 
• Figured out how to achieve a hair covering like this one out of veils and ribbons that I already possess

And finally, because I just cannot wait to show these off: 

!!!

Inspired by this photo, I drafted my own version, did a loooot of cutting out pieces ( I got to use a friend's rotary cutter, and I'd never used one before, and that is DEFINITELY going on my christmas list!), a loooot of edge-serging, and at one point in the assembly process made a really pretty squid.  And I finally got to use my gold (plastic) knot buttons that I bought at Gulf Wars three years ago!

I really wanted to get a photo of these over my silk chemise sleeves...but I can't find my silk chemise!  NOOOOOO!   I must locate it before the weekend. While this picture is just over a t-shirt, I did try it on over a cotton chemise, and the sleeve boofs (technical term??) blouse up nicely like they're supposed to over the proper undergarments.












So what's next this week?  A great-coat-thing like this one, of heavy embroidered cotton and fuzzy blanket lining, for warmth.  A whole bunch of small flags, already cut out, that need to be painted and them assembled.  A woodworking project (a simple and quick one, thankfully), for the event.

Once I'm finished there'll be a LOT of sorting and packing and loading of SUVs.

And in between is my BFF's birthday, and a celebratory movie and dinner.  Yay! :D







* For the record, I was laid off from my job, which is not doing so well in the present economy.  This is a GREAT thing for me, though - I've been stagnating there and have often thought of moving on.  Now I get to!


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