Generally busy

I'm juggling a number of projects with a variety of goals and the last couple of weeks have been a bit of progress on everything.

Here I am modeling the latest in my armor. My leg armor is coming along and is in a wearable state, although it still needs more work to be truly finished. I also have a new helm from Master Max and a new aventail that Sir Ysfael hung for me. After a long hiatus, I am finally back in the fight.

Here are six pairs of little hanger loops ready for the assembly line as I attempt to finish up the populace banners.

Three banners finished stitching with hanger loops attached! I'm currently finishing up the last one and then I will have two full sets of three. Next I need to come up with a hanging pole arrangement that is slightly nicer than the yardstick I had hanging around the sewing area.

I knocked out a quick linen fighting surcoat for a friend. It's another project in my continued theme of reducing the fabric stash.

And last, but not least, I have a preview of my next outfit. The dress and under dress are assembled but still need finishing on the neckline and hem. It's kind of hard to see in the picture, but the dress is dark blue, the under dress is light blue, and the eyelets+lacing are in light green.

Rachel's armor

Rachel got me a quick turn around on her plates. She finished sanding and drilling them and got them back to me before the weekend was over. I've been adding a few plates everyday and today I finished! Hooray! She now has functional torso armor. Next time she comes by I'll size the buckles and then she'll be ready for action.

Her coat of plates is basically the same pattern as mine, sized down just a bit. Check a major item off my to-do list :)

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.

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.

Coat of Plates

This weekend there was an armor open house! Our gracious host helped my friend and I get started on our armor. We are making a coat of plates using plastic barrels. We made significant progress (with lots of help from the expert): plates cut, fabric cut, some fabric sewn, and one beautiful riveted plate.



Its been a very long time since I was in a shop and I was a bit of a klutz *sigh*. I think I was a little nervous and I'm still a little physically unsure after my troubles this summer. I'm starting to get the hang of it though. We have a plan, so hopefully my friend and I will be able to finish the coat of plates relatively soon. It hard to be patient, because putting together an armor kit is slow going. The current kit goal is to get on the field, but then there are so many long term decisions on armor - I have a lot of reading to do.