Monday, July 25, 2011

Pushing It

Pennsic is two weeks away.  And my Pennsic sewing is done.  DONE! 

Well, if I was going to be 100% honest, I have one hook and eye to sew on yet, but since that could technically be done in the car on the way (or at Pennsic, if one was really desperate) I'm counting it as finished.

Which means that that tally of clothing sewn for this year's trip includes:

6 tunics and one pair of pants for a friend
6 Greek dresses for another friend
3 Greek dresses for me
2 early 14th century cotes for me

I'm hoping to get some pictures of the stuff at some point.  Maybe at Pennsic?  Surely not.  Remembering to bring a camera like a normal, prepared person would just make too much sense.

The problem is that since I got that stuff done, I have done exactly nothing on the competition for the last month.  I already know I'm going to have to downsize if I want to finish at all, so now the question is whether to finish a doublet gown, skirt and caul for the my project or finish the couching, piping, slashwork and doublet, hose, codpiece, shirt and cape for Adam's. 

Put that way, I think the my gown will be an easier bet.  I hope.  Or I could be a complete nutter.  Either way, I have two weeks until Pennsic to bust my butt and see how much stuff I can get done.  Fingers crossed. 

Sunday, July 10, 2011

In which we are confused...and a little scared

For a lot of Scadians, July is Pennsic prep season.  We dig out our tents, check waterproofing, polish up the armour and go through the garb to get it ready.  Which is exactly what Adam and I have been doing.  Except there was a small problem.

Some of our garb was missing.

This would seem strange to people who know us because we have a lot of clothes.  A LOT of clothes.  I make a lot of stuff and give away a lot of stuff (to make yet more stuff) and Adam is just a garb whore.  We have closets full.  We have rubbermaid bins full.  So the fact that we even noticed stuff missing was a surprise in itself.  However, one of the things I was missing was something I had spent a lot of time embroidering and when you swear that much at a piece of fabric, you tend to grow attached to it. 

Specifically, this dress:

It was, strangely, one of the only Greek dresses I was missing, but there were clothes from other time periods, as well as some of Adam's things gone as well, so we were thinking there was a bin somewhere that had gone astray.

So I waited for a not-brain-melting hot day to ask Morwin to untape the attic eaves and crawl in.  Eave 1- no bin.  Eave 2- no bin.  Now dirty, sweating, and  more than a tad disgruntled, Morwin was bribed to venture out to the garage, the no man's land of stuff that hasn't been unpacked since we moved last year.  I prepped him with a picture of the dress, so he knew exactly what he was looking for. 

A short time later he came back, a little stricken.


This is all that's left of the dress.  We have absolutely no clue what happened to it.  Other stuff was stored in the garage and left untouched.  Other fabric things, including fighting garb, mere feet away.  Totally unscathed.  

Morwin is blaming fabric-eating chupacabras. 

I refuse to believe that any god exists so cruel as to make such a creature. 

However, I am locking up the stash from now on.