“Welcome Home”: Pennsic 2012

Land ho!

My hubby and I have just returned from our summer vacation at war.  For weeks leading up to our departure, my head was buried in my sewing machine trying to finish all my new camp garb.  I didn’t get it all done, but I made a good dent.

We did the eight hour trek to Pennsic in Pennsylvania to immerse ourselves in as close to a full-on medieval experience as you can get in North America.  After all the preparation I was so excited to get there and get into garb.  Nothing is quite as sweet as rolling into registration and having the first person there smile at me and say “Welcome home!”. 

And it really is like going home.  I had a wonderful time visiting with my Talfryn kin.  It was like being at a cottage with great friends.  The weather made for some rough patches, but with customary Canadian (Ealdormerian!) stoicism we laughed in the face of the storms.

The shopping at Pennsic this year was really my highlight.  I spent a small fortune on linen garb basics from Neverland Designs. Again.  I love it because I can trim and customize the pieces at home.  I also finally found some gauntlets I liked and ordered beautiful new hardened leather demi-gauntlets.  No helm though, once again.  It is my nemesis!  I also bought two new small baskets from The Basket Man.  I’m so pleased with my booty!

I’ve returned from Pennsic inspired to do so many camp-beautification projects, with a focus on silk and fabric painting.  We invested in some paints and supplies already so I am looking forward to getting those rolling.  We discovered first-hand how important good rain garb is too so we’ve bought some rip-stop coated fabric to work on over the winter too.

Sadly, I didn’t get to fight as much as I would have liked.  Partly due to my choice.  I didn’t want to overtax myself with so much fighting I couldn’t get out to the rest of Pennsic. So I skipped some battles and did the Bridge Battle.  Unfortunately I died often and quickly so I ended up watching most of it from the sidelines.  I also missed the Field Battle due to an early camp tear down.  I was a bit crestfallen about that.  I’m closer than ever to getting to the point where I can debut my lamellar though so maybe by our next Pennsic I will be a much more comfy fighter out there.  Oh, and the armour pants worked beautifully!  Woot!

With all the shopping and visiting I still didn’t get as many classes in as I wanted.  I just can’t get out of camp early enough.  But I did enjoy my Combat Archery Tactics and Knots classes.

All in all, it was more of a sedate Pennsic than I was hoping for, but for every low point there was an up point too.  And as I said packing out, Pennsic is weird because “it’s the only place you can travel to and say ‘I’m going home’ when you leave and ‘I’m going home’ when you leave.’”  }-)

This picture is one of my favourite war wagons this year.  The Lord Mayor’s Pub is a land-ship!  :-D

Fighter Pants – Background (Part I)

Oh God I love this pic!

**Warning. This post may have TMI for some.*

Epic two-plus-years of struggle.  That’s how I sum up my battle to design engineer some armour pants for myself.  But I finally got them done right in time for Pennsic.  Achievement unlocked!!!!

It’s sometimes really hard for a girl like me to answer the call of the list field.  Nothing ever fits right.  While most fighters can start with bits and pieces bought off the shelf (Under Armour clothing, hockey/lacrosse gear, padding, etc.) it’s just not an option for a girl of my shape/size. 

Take my jill for example.  When I first started fighting I had to shop for a jill (that’s a jock for ladies…) and it was damn difficult. Even in the biggest size I could find the waist wouldn’t fit me.  So for the last two years I have been improvising with a jill where the straps have been cut away and I pin it to a few layers of long underwear so it stays in place.  It’s warm to wear, and bulky.  It’s also a pain because it means it takes longer for me to get dressed for combat, and if I’m going to practice I have to drive there with it in place.

Knee and elbow pads were similarly difficult.  Even men’s XL didn’t fit me. Or at least, not the way they should.  I’m using men’s XL knee pads on my elbows.  For my knees, I use another set of volleyball pads in that size that I literally have to tape onto me before each session with shin tape.  What a mess.  And I have to have someone help me too, each time, so they are positioned correctly. Basically a HUGE PAIN IN THE ASS.  I really see why squires were so important in the day.  Nothing in my armour I can do myself without difficulty.  It’s so frustrating, and hard when I have to rely on the charity of others to put my stuff on. 

My armour legs are like that too.  Most of the straps I can’t reach myself so someone has to do the lower ones for me.  GRUMBLE.

Well, not being the type of person to take all that without wanting to improve, I set out to design a better system for myself.  And there are so many questions to ask yourself.  Should the pads/armour show or should they go under outer pants?  How to suspend the pieces?  What fabric?  Colour?  What components will I need?  Argh!

I decided to wear only one layer of pants. I also decided the only solution was to create armour pants with built-in pockets to hold the jill and pads.  My original design intended to be hybrid pants-cuisses (armoured legs).  Inspired by a fellow lady fighter, I was going to build in slat pockets to hold strips of armour for my thighs.  The hardened strips could be removed so the pants could be washed.

The first step was doing research and talking to other fighters about the various systems they used.  I was trying to get ideas to build on my original slat-concept. I also spent time online scouring armour archives. But you know, it’s all a very frustrating process because although there are lots of posts out there on different approaches, none of them really worked for my body shape or my skill to make these things.  I hate it when I feel like I’m reinventing the wheel all the time.

Getting back into the spring of things...

(My loom looks a lot like this one.)

It's been quite a while since I posted here... but then, it's been quite a while since I've worked on some A&S.

In the last few weeks, when I've been able to sneak in the time, I've started revisiting my fighter pants FINALLY.  Also, I've been working on improving the simple inkle loom that Emelote picked up for me at Pennsic.  It looks a lot like this:

It was roughly made, so I've been sanding it down and smoothing out the lines.  I also picked up some stains to experiment with and I intend on staining the wood and protecting it.  I got some good advice on which products to use so that helps.  I hope it will look great when I'm done, and be infinitely nicer to work with.  Of course, I don't really have an inkle loom project in mind, but I'm still learning so I'll probably just experiment.  I aim to have it finished for the weekend's trek to Late Winter Shoot.

In other news, hooray for spring and shaking off the yoke of winter once again.  I can feel the earth coming alive, and I think it's giving me energy.  (More on that on my LiveJournal).