SCA Project Update

Hi everyone!

I'm on a blogging spree this week! :D

I thought you'd like an update on my current SCA projects. This is likely to be quite rambly but I'll do it in sections so that you can skip past the things you don't want to read.

The sections will be 1. College Stuff, 2. Garb, 3. Other Stuff

College Stuff

With second semester underway there are two things that need immediate attention, and that is College Challenge and our OGM.

Roobi is stewarding College Challenge and I've been helping out with logistical stuff - especially since it has become extremely difficult in that aspect due to Official SCA Business such as insurance and GST. I am really trying to encourage Roobi to do most stuff herself though, because getting newbies running things is a crucial part of being in a College.

The Guild requires us to hold an Official Meeting every semester which means that we need an OGM. On Monday I have to advertise our OGM in G-News and put up posters (which is stupid, but that's Guild policy for you). I'm hoping to get some newbies doing bigger jobs this OGM - ideally switching out my beloved executive committee for some fresh faces! Although I will miss referring directly to Dylan&Alana for College business :P

My other big thing for the College at the moment is to make sure that people do useful stuff at training. I'm cool with people studying at training but once last semester I had four or five people playing Minecraft on their laptops. Not cool folks, training is for doing stuff!! So I'm encouraging people to bring projects to work on or to come prepared to work on College Projects (such as the Round Shields project) so that they're actually using training for something worthwhile. I also intend to start a Chair Covers project soon, once I go through the College Fabric (yes, there's College Fabric and yes, the Chair Cover project is primarily designed to use up this fabric so that I don't have to keep it in my house!) Hopefully if we have enough stuff for people to work on and we keep everything busy and interesting then lots of people will still come to training and it will actually be productive.

Garb

Have I blogged about my never-ending hat project? Well, for a while now I've been researching a particular style of hat from the late 15th century (French/English). This project has been just an interest but after learning heaps of cool stuff from people at Rowany Festival I've decided to get more serious about it. Today I collated my documentation, which at the moment consists of a list of different possible constructions (some from books, some from websites and some that people described to me at Festival) and a whole lot of artwork from the period depicting this hat. I came up with a total of 6 possible constructions and I haven't found any evidence from the period that supports any particular construction (there's one that I'm pretty sure is wrong but I want to try to anyway, for the lolz I guess). Now that I'm organised I'm going to make all 6 of my possibilities (probably out of calico or scrap fabric). When I've done that, I'm going to choose the ones that look closest to the examples in the artwork (I'm hoping only a few options turn out looking right) and then I'll make them in linen, which of course is the historically accurate fabric choice, and do my documentation up all pretty and maybe put the hats in a competition. Or something. I don't know yet really but as long as I end up with a cool hat at the end I'm pretty much good with it! :P

I blogged about one (or both?) of my practise kirtles earlier. Now I'm getting started on my real kirtles! I have all the linen I need (must prewash!!) so I have no excuse left. On Thursday at training, Aimee helped me to pattern a bodice to use for my kirtles. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as we'd hoped and although Aimee assures me that the pattern will work fine when I try it in the canvas that I'm going to use as interlining, I'm a little worried about it. Not sure if the problem was the stretchy calico, our patterning skills or my lumpy-bulgy body but whatever the case I'm not feeling confident about this pattern. And I really need to feel confident about it because I'm using my linen for it so it has to be perfect :3 of course, I may have made it trickier by requesting that we pattern the bodice without adjusting down the front of it - I want to focus just on the side-seams so that I can easily convert the pattern to front lacing or side lacing as required. I wish I could remember how we patterned my black Italian... :( anyways, my current plan is to turn the calico pattern that we came up with into a canvas pattern and try it on as best I can, just to see if Aimee is right and it will work perfectly in a more rigid fabric. I think she's right, she's pretty smart about these things! Once I get my pattern working the rest of the project should be fairly simple - I actually enjoyed making my practise kirtles so hopefully I'll enjoy sewing the real thing! I haven't started to work on the documentation for these yet but I am going to try to do some up. I'm not sure how detailed it will be - definitely not as good as my hat documentation because I'm not as obsessed with 16th-century kirtles as I am with 15th-century hats!

Cotehardie! This project is still quite a way off because I want to finish my kirtles before I start the cotehardie project. At Festival I bought some beautiful blue linen. It's quite light so it won't do for a supportive garment but it will be pretty good for an overdress. When I saw it I immediately decided that I wanted a blue cotehardie, so I quickly asked Erin how much I'd need and that's how much I bought! I'm planning to order some heavier linen when it comes time to do this project - I'll do a long-sleeved proper supportive cotehardie in some kind of yellowy-goldy-browny colour I think and then a short-sleeved over-cote-thingy in the blue, with gold buttons. I'm planning to ask Erin and/or Catherine for some help finding pictures as evidence. I don't necessarily want to do up proper documentations but I want to have the resources available, and I'll feel better about making it if I know for sure that it can be documented. Also I'll have a look at hat options because hats are cool. I need more hats.

Other Stuff

So, I'm planning to run Bal D'Aneala this year. I technically can't say that I'm running it yet because it has to get all approved by council and that sort of thing, and someone might put in a better bid and then they would be running it. But I am really super hoping that I will get to run it. Heck, I'm even going to council to make it happen so surely I get points for that. I wish council was still at Tex's place :( I have heaps of ideas already for a theme and competitions and how I want to set up the hall. I have a date picked out for it but I haven't booked the hall yet; I plan to do that in the week before council so that all the hall stuff gets sorted out in a short time, rather than dragging out the stress-times for longer. The only thing that I haven't decided is how to do the food... :S food is pretty important at an event and I really want to run a good event. ... if you're reading this and you feel like running a kitchen at the ball (mostly heating stuff and serving it at appropriate times) please let me know! :P I do have some ideas (thank you thank you thank you to Catherine who let me know what's been done in the past, it was very helpful) so hopefully I can make a proper decision soon. It's funny, as I type about this I'm adding more to-dos to my list (check date with B&B, check date with Alanarama because she needs to run a Bardic competition, etc.) Anyways, I'm quite excited about the idea of running it (if I run it) but in the end it's going to be the Best Event Ever no matter who runs it because, you know, it's the ball. I love to dance :D

A while ago I had an idea for a tourney. I'm definitely not going to run it anytime soon but the idea is rattling around in my head so I might start planning it anyway... I want to run a Canterbury Tales themed tourney. I thought it would be fun because lots of people have beautiful 14th-century garb so everyone would look cool, and because Chaucer rocks. Some ideas I have is to have the actual tourney part themed in some way around the Knight's Tale, like your consort for the day is your personal "Emily" and maybe something about Arcite and Palamon and their fight to win her love. Hmm... anyway, during the day people could read out bits from the Canterbury Tales and every little bit of the event would have a different Tale as its theme, like a Wife of Bath A&S competition, or a Prioress Pot-Luck or something. I don't know. Like I said, it's all just rattling in my brain. Hopefully one day it will take form coz I think it would be really fun and a little bit of literature at a tourney is always a good thing. I hope it won't be too much for the minuscule brains of the armoured combatants! :P

Also, I'd like to learn embroidery. Maybe I'll have a talk to Branwen or Tex and see if they might start giving me lessons. I would really practise it like a good student, I triple promise!! It would be so cool to learn all that stuff and then I could do blackwork on my 16th-century shirts and that sort of thing. I wonder what type of embroidery they did in the 15th century...? Anyway, that's another thing.

Done!

I think that is pretty much everything that is going on in my SCA life. Quite a lot of stuff but some of it is super easy and lots of it is still just conceptual or in the not-really-started part of the project.

One thing that I didn't mention is my dyeing project. I have bowls and alum and onion skins and wool - basically everything that I need to do some dyeing. But, I've been putting it off and putting it off so I'm going to be realistic and say that my dyeing project is on hiatus. I will get back to it eventually, that is for certain. But I'm not going to get back to it anytime soon so I don't want to write about it as a project on-the-go. I've lost interest and while I realise that it's important to finish every project that I start, I don't want to stop enjoying myself while trying to stick to that. The dyeing project is now no longer on a back-burner, it is off the stove entirely (but maybe still waiting on the bench to be put back on to cook at a later date). Analogy win!

Hope this was interesting for someone :) I'll try to update again soon - maybe when I've actually made some progress on any or all of these things!

♥Nancy♬