War Company surcoats

Sometimes projects take on a life of their own in crazy ways. A number of years back, I ran a sewing day to assembly line surcoats for the Bryn Gwlad War Company. We finished off a decent number of surcoats (maybe 6 or 7?) with a team of five people. That kind of efficiency is possible with a well-run assembly line because you have lots of unskilled labor doing the time consuming things like ironing and cutting. This leaves your skilled sewing folks to do their work.  

 So.... it became clear recently that we needed another batch of surcoats and I volunteered to host and run the assembly line. I decided that this time I would teach a few people how to run one of these things so that we could replicate institutional memory. ISO compliance maybe? Anyway, as I started putting together checklists and spreadsheets, this thing kept getting bigger. It turned out that we really, really needed surcoats.

With two deputies, we hosted 24 people over two days of non-stop work.  People showed up and worked hard.  I took deep breaths and trusted my skilled labor and leaned heavily on my deputies and a couple of other logistics helpers.  There were 6 ironing boards, 2 sergers, and 6 sewing machines in action, along with lots of people tracing designs and cutting pieces. The charts and checklists appear to be working.

 

This is twenty surcoats in progress on a hanging rack. They are labeled and filed according to their position in the pipeline. It's like a cross between filing cabinet and a wardrobe. This sewing day turned into a weekend worth of baronial barn raising. We had two days of madness and accomplished a ridiculous amount of work.

 

 The surcoats are all appliqued, so there are a lot of pieces. We have yellow halberds on black stripes that go on one side and black stars that go on the other side. The picture above is our piles of cut applique pieces in progress. These are all pieces that are waiting to go on surcoats next weekend.

Next weekend, we should have surcoats coming out the assembly line finished, so more pictures to come.  For now, my logistics team will spend the week trying to figure out how to most efficiently keep the line moving as we roll along.  Also, we will be appliqueing a lot of halberds.....

Heraldic surcoat in action

Master Caelin took was kind enough to share his photos of the Ansteorran Crown Tournament on Flickr.    As a result, I can share some action shots of the finished heraldic surcoat!  The pictures are linked in from his Flickr feed.


Sir Ysfael vs. Lord Ragnarr



Centurion Rose and Sir Ysfael


Previous posts on surcoat construction:
http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2014/12/heraldic-surcoat.html
http://helenestuff.blogspot.com/2015/01/finished-heraldic-surcoat.html

Laurel's Prize Tournament

In Ansteorra, the Laurel's Prize Tournament isn't really a tournament. It's more of a mentored art show. Participants set up displays of their art for the event and then hang around to chat and demonstrate their craft. You pre-register for the event and the coordinators schedule several Laurel's who best match your area and goals to come by and visit you. It's a lovely, high energy event that has people exchanging technique, research, and general project planning. I like to call it the shiny, happy nerd fest. It's a very popular event for a lot of good reasons - it's fun for everyone. It's also very tiring since the whole day is busy.

Mistress Amata was kind enough to take a picture of my display this year. I brought Giant Sparkly Banner, the populace banners, one of the mouse hats, the German brickwork bag I am working on, and a few sundry fiber arts bits. I also brought my research binders and got some excellent feedback on them. I finished up my new dark blue dress and light blue under dress for the event, which I am wearing in the picture.

I took quite a few photos this year, but my camera is dying so many of them didn't turn out well. I did manage to get some good pictures and they are posted on Flickr in this album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/helene83/sets/72157647188468460/

Sca Weekend

I had a busy SCA weekend :) On Saturday, I went to the Ansteorra Laurel's Prize Tourney in the Stronghold of Hellsgate. It was a short road trip from home with good companionship along the way. The event was lovely and there were so many amazing displays and helpful Laurels. I had a display on my embroidery work and it was a great chance to meet the folks working on embroidery around the kingdom. I took lots of pictures of all the pretty stuff. The displays were very inspiring and I have a long wish list of cool projects that I'd like to try. I will try to control myself and limit the project pile to something managable. Also, I received a Sable Thistle in Embroidery, which means that I am now Lady Helene. Spiffy!

On Sunday we had another War Company sewing day at Rachel's. I was hoping to finish up some fighting surcoats, but we made excellent progress. We're close to finishing, so will start rolling finished finished surcoats off the assembly line on the next session. They are looking really sharp!

SCA Census

SCA is conducting a census / survey of current and past members. Log in and tell them what you think :)

From the website:
The SCA Board of Directors is asking past and present SCA participants to answer some questions about who you are, how and why you got involved in the SCA, and what you think about the issues we are currently facing in the SCA. These questions will help us to better understand where the SCA is today and help us to plan for the future. Your answers to the questions on this survey are important to us and will ensure that your voice is heard.

http://www.sca.org/scacensus2010/

Gulf Wars!

I had a really fantastic time at Gulf Wars and have posted some pictures on Flickr . I fought in the town battle, the bridge battle, the ravine and the castle battle. I'm still a little amazed that I managed to fight that much :)

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.

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 :)

Event: Bryn Gwlad 30th Year

I actually got to go out to SCA! Hooray! Rachel and I day tripped the Bryn Gwlad 30th year event and it was lots of fun :) Life is finally settling down a little, and this is the first SCA anything I've made it out to in a long while. It was my first camping event since I've moved to Ansteorra and I'm glad I got to go. The site was wonderful, the people friendly, and the event smoothly run.

I'm at a strange point on projects where I have several in the pipes, but none finished recently. On the bright side, I'm making progress on several fronts and will have some stuff done soon. Some random things I'm working on
Armor:

• Coat of plates: Front and back finished, side plates cut. I need to rivet the side plates and finish the buckles.
  
• Helm: My $10 helm is starting to look like a $20 helm ;) I've ground off the worst of the crud and need to work on the finishing.
  

Embroidery:

• Finished pattern for next critters and need to transfer it to fabric.
  
• Nearly finished with brickwork for a small notebook cover.
  
• Nearly finished with stitching up the next pattern.
  
• Need to finish sewing up gold work scissors case.
  

All of which only leaves you with the promises of pretty pictures in the future, but no pretty pictures today.