Gulf Wars Preparations

I haven't had a lot of time for SCA stuff, but the time I've used has been on preparations for Gulf War. Rachel and I have made a garb generation plan, divided up fabric piles, taken measurements, picked patterns, and even begun making stuff. A whole week is a lot of garb!

We need to get Rachel's coat of plates finished, so I've been working on that. Its going to be just like mine, only shorter and in brown. This weekend, I finished cutting a pile of plastic plates for it and marked all the drill holes and grinding points. I handed them off to Rachel and she's going to do the next bit.

Cutting out the rest of Rachel's plates pretty much finished off our second plastic barrel. I picked up two more for a friend who is also trying to get her armor going. I've gotten a couple of questions about the plastic barrels, so here's the scoop. They are trash for the local car wash, so they let me pick them up for free. This picture below shows one of the barrels with a 6 inch x 24 inch quilting ruler, so you can see that they are quite big. Always check the labels on your barrel and make sure you don't pick up one that held anything toxic, and clean them out well just to be safe. We cut ours up with a jig saw, and the plastic sands and drills nicely. As the barrel gets cut down it starts to vibrate with the saw. I solved this problem by nailing it to the workbench, which worked really well. The curve to the barrel works well for the coat of plates (but you do end up looking a little barrel-like).



With all the busy at work and armor projects, I haven't stopped making pretty things, I've just slowed the rate. The picture below shows some German white work that is currently on my frame. Its a yummy linen thread on linen that I picked up on an impulse at Christmas. The texture on the white work is turning out very nice, but the linen thread is a bit temperamental. I have to use short lengths of it because it tires easily and ends up fuzzy. The pattern is Pattern #14.

Centurion War College

I went to Centurion's College last week and it was awesome! The first part of the day was classes and the second half was group fighting. The teachers were very patient and well prepared. I also got some good aside time with various folks as I had questions. I particularly like that the classes were mostly "hats-off" (not full armor) which left me with enough endurance to fight most of the afternoon. I took some photos and have posted them here.I fought in the field maneuvers and the bridge battles in the afternoon and had a great time! The bridge battles were crazy :) After the fighting there was a short court and then lots of social time. It was an very entertaining night to end a really fun day :)

The armor improvements have worked well, but I still have some tweaks to do. Rachel is working on making some pells for us to practice on and I'm hoping to finish up her torso armor some time soon. Here is a picture of my armor kit so far; it's now more mine than loaner. I've still got a good list of armor projects though, along with the need to make more garb before Gulf Wars. All of that depends on how much free time life grants me.

Nalbinding

I've been doing some knitting lately and it got me thinking about nalbinding. After a bit of research on the internet, I found some good instructions. I made a nalbinding needle using my Dremel tool and a small piece of spruce wood from the hobby shop. I then did a couple of test swatches and started on this pouch. Its very different from knitting and I think that I'm beginning to like it.



I used these two videos to get started:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McX84c67ny0&feature=related
  
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gBknsoqi8U
  

Armor progress

I've posted some pictures of my armor progress at http://www.flickr.com/photos/helene83/sets/72157623078074633/. You can see the coat of plates in its finished form.

I'm pretty happy with the coat of plates. Its light, comfortable, and provides good protection. I need to add some straps to the back to hold in place. I'm currently just belting it, which has to be adjusted periodically.

The legs were some I got at a steep "I'm quitting fighting" discount from a very nice lady. They needed some love and had to be re-strapped, but they work quite well. I added little plastic wrap flaps for the backs of my thighs, but they were a quick hack, so I need to pretty them up and rivet them in. They are currently held together with leather strap and duct tape :)

I got some elbows from a friends "random stuff" bin and finally finished the leather work on them this week. I hardened the leather with water and then lightly waxed it and I am very pleased with the results. They are lightweight, hard, and very durable. I test drove them last night and they worked fairly well. They are slipping some towards the wrist. I got some great feedback from folks on how to fix them, and I think that I will add some shoulders and strapping to hold them up.

Cool pictures

I don't have any finished crafts to post, but I saw these pictures of the Ansteorra crown tournament today and I thought that I would pass them on. They are beautiful and some of the best combat pictures I've seen.

http://www.jmtimeless.com/SCA-Events/January-2010-Crown-Tournament

I've been sick a lot lately, so I haven't made a lot of progress on my projects. I generally set up my projects so that I can work on them in very small time increments (5-15 minutes) and make progress. My life is such that I often only have small time chunks, but I've found with a little organization I can do quite well with projects this way.

One of my great challenges has been how to get my armoring projects done. I do quite well if I have an afternoon or a day, but organizing armoring into small time chunks has been a daunting task.
I am finally starting to get the hang of it and am making some good progress. Now the challenge is finding non-baby-nap times to do the loud riveting, but the spouse is helpful on that front. I'm almost finished with my arms, so there will be pictures soon :)

Finished Scissor Case

I finally have finished the gold word scissor case that I started a while back. I recently picked it up out of my UFO stash and set about finishing it. I've been sick so it took a while. The case is stitched on white linen and lined with black linene. I made a little button for the catch by wrapping silk threads around a wooden bead. Then I made a tassle with the gold and silk for the bottom. I finished it off with some braids for the handle and latch.

I was a bit nervous with the finishing work, since I just haven't done much of it before, but once I got going I just forged ahead. I'm was pleasantly surprised at how nice it turned out. I think that I like the back side with the button catch far more than the front!

Handsewing to finish

I put my recent embroidery in a pile the other day and realized that I am woefully in need of finishing some of the pieces. I like the embroidery part and then when I get to the hand-sewing part things end up in a box somewhere. So, I've made myself a queue and am going to finish the pieces in my UFO (UnFinished Object) box.

First step was the little notebook that I've been working on. Instructions for a tidy rolled hem came across one of the lists the other day, so I pulled out the printout for "Eithni's Magic Veil Stitch" (at http://eithni.com/Library.htm) and gave it a try.

I was pleasantly surprised :) The stitch was easy to do and the results are a tidy, tight rolled hem. I've needed such a stitch for the small objects that I'm working on, so this is an exciting discovery. I believe that I will forge on ahead with the hand sewing and see what kind of other skills I can acquire.

Here's a (bad) picture of the hem (front on left, back on right) for two inside panels of a tiny notebook cover. There's an American penny in the middle for scale. I looked for Euro coins for scale, but all I could find was Nederlandish guilders, which are probably less than helpful at this point in history. I think with a little practice, I could easily get the hem even smaller.