sewing!

The sewing project, because every Ren Faire must involve a sewing project. I was actually all excited that this Ren Faire wouldn't involve making anything (besides a bit of handwork on my shirt), but then it did. Inevitable, I think. (Feel free to skip if you aren't the sewing sort of person.) It took me most of Monday, which was a holiday, although I wasn't really rushed about it.

Joel's shirt turned out rather well for starting out life as a collared shirt, and I only had one weekend to work on it. First off, I took off all the buttons and the pocket. I slit the sleeves and added an extra panel in, so that it could be gathered and a proper pirate-y look (I was planning on adding black, but that would have involved going to Walmart because mom wouldn't let me cut up a sheet, so I just added a bit of gold fabric that I had as a scrap) adding extra gathering threads and leaving them in (in order to help the shoulder lay properly flat). I turned up the cuffs and tacked them, and cut a slit opposite the buttonhole for a sort of cufflink effect, only tied it with a bit of leather. Then I turned the collar under and topstitched it (I wanted to leave it as a plain collar, but it wasn't really a large enough collar to look good). I sewed the front of the shirt closed, treating the edges like raw edges up to about nine inches down from the collar, and then turned the plackets under and topstitched them for a nice, clean edge. Then it was grommet time. Sadly, I didn't have enough grommets. I went to Walmart in search of grommets, but they only had the little eyelet sized ones, which did me no good (I was quite miffed, actually, because what good is Walmart if they don't have grommets?) and then to the craft store, which closed early because of the holiday. I really wanted to finish it that day, too. So instead I put in the pleats in the front (this was my first time sewing pleats, and they were kind of tricky, although not as much as I expected, and they turned out quite nicely).

Tuesday I bought grommets during my lunch break, and Tuesday night I put them in (I really like how grommets look, but they are a bit of a pain to put in, although I'm getting *really* good at it, having had so much practice between two bodices and now a shirt). It turned out quite well, and you can hardly tell it used to be a plain collared shirt.

I had a bit of work left on my shirt, which I had barely finished in time for last Halloween, and then there were bits I didn't quite finish, like the cuffs. I had the buttons, but hadn't gotten that far, so while the sewing machine was still out I put the buttonholes in (having to take out a bit of one because I sewed one side of the buttonhole way too large because I wasn't paying attention), and the buttons, which are gorgeous little brass looking flowers. Then I tacked down the front of the facing, so it would help it lay correctly, but I ran out of time and didn't get the last bit done along the back. Oh, well, perhaps next Ren Faire.

During the whole project, I never dropped all the pins on the floor, which is unprecedented. I *always* seem to drop all the pins on the floor and end up hunting them up and hoping I don't miss anything. The cats got in the way all the time, though, to make up for it, because there is no proper table in the house to lay everything out on, so I set the cutting board on the living room floor. This works well, until the cats lay on the shirt, or start walking all over things (I worry that they will step on a pin), or start attacking invisible things under the cardboard. All in all, though, a successful sewing project (with much help from my mother, who is invaluable at figuring out how to alter things, but I did every stitch of it myself).

If Joel continues this Ren Faire thing, then I think I shall have to make him a *proper* pirate shirt (with rouching on the sleeves, which will be something new, but rouching is just so cool that it will be worth it).

Koroneburg Ren Faire

So, the Ren Faire was great fun. The Koroneburg Ren Faire is somewhat smaller than the Nor Cal or So Cal Ren Faires, which means that it has a much larger selection of cheap weapons (instead of really expensive ones that you could really hurt someone with), but a much smaller selection of hats. Overall, it's a nice Ren Faire, but I'm glad we alternate.

In our usual glorious tradition, we got all costumed up (Maggie, Liz, Irene and I) in our proper pirate costumes (Liz pulled together a fabulous costume, including a $7 corset (!) and Irene borrowed a sort of medieval dress from a friend), and then went to MacDonalds for breakfast. I'm not sure how MacDonalds for breakfast became a tradition, but it is now firmly entrenched in our Ren Faire tradition. We were more or less running on time (no mean feat) but by time we stopped by to add Joel and Nathan to our number and all that, we ended up at the Ren Faire at twelve instead of eleven (when it opens and the time we were aiming for). This is also one of our Ren Faire traditions. We never get there when we say that we want to, but because we aim for fairly early it's alright.

We remembered this time right as we got to the Ren Faire to take a group picture (second time now, we're breaking our tradition of taking it at the end when everyone's hair has fallen down and things are lost and people are sunburned). But for some reason the battery on my camera was really low (I'd checked it the night before, I'm sure, and it was *completely* full, so I'm not sure what happened, unless it was deceptively high because I hadn't turned the camera on for a while), so I had to go right back out and back to the car for my spare camera battery (this was annoying because the exact same thing happened at the previous Ren Faire in Nor Cal, and I had checked the battery this time). But the battery was switched and many pictures taken without fear of running out of battery.

We wandered around the Ren Faire and looked at shinies (daggers, swords, various other weapons and occasionally jewelry, but mostly sharp things), and tried on hats and masks (of course). Part of the point of going to a Ren Faire is to look at all the shinies (it's up there with watching the joust and having a reasons to wear a costume). The Ren Faire was surprisingly empty; there seemed to be hardly anyone there (this might be because we often go to Ren Faires on the very last weekend). Because it was so empty, more of the vendors interacted with us (always fun) and gave Nathan a hard time because he was the only one not in costume. Since it is a relatively small fair, we went back and forth the length of the fair a couple of times (this was also due to the lousiness of the map, which didn't list the names of stages).

We watched two people who payed to race the rats, which was amusing because there was an entire commentary and story before the actual race (starting at the pub, mentioning the damsels in distress, and all the villains).

Maggie bought a dagger, which is nifty and straight with a neat hilt and a smallish design on the blade (and it was only $10). It came with a sheath, but because she didn't have a belt I ended up wearing it as the easiest way of carrying it. I went back and forth on a similar dagger (I am notoriously indecisive when it comes to costume things) but finally went back and bought it because even if it wasn't the exact dagger that I really wanted, it was still nifty and so much better than my plastic one. Metal daggers are so much more fun to play with that it's a bit scary. So much more solid, and a bit of an edge (although not that sharp, but also not of the plastic sword dullness). This meant that for most of the Ren Faire I was wearing three daggers (my plastic one, my metal one, and Maggie's).

The joust was very good this time. This was the other reason (besides cheap shinies) that we came back to Koroneburg. The joust the last time was excellent, but it was traumatizing because the evil knight won and killed all the squires. This time was much better. There was none of this nonsense about being hit with a lance and jumping off the horse five seconds later. There was the usual bit of trying to catch rings on the end of the lances, and then the actual joust. The black knight killed the blue knight (who we were cheering for because according to Maggie and Irene he is the cutest knight of any of the jousts), and Maggie and I had a sort of sinking moment where we thought 'not again', but then the green knight who had been presiding over everything stepped up and although he didn't have any armour, soundly killed the black knight (huzzah!). Also, the banter back and forth was highly amusing. But the crowd was ridiculously not into things (you're supposed to cheer, people).

Irene and Maggie took pictures with the knights and horses. Maggie was trying to find her sunglasses (she never did) and I had to drag her over to take a picture with the blue knight, but apparently the last time we were at Koroneburg she really wanted a picture with him, and *didn't tell me* so this time I was determined that she should get that picture.

After the joust there was supposed to be an archery tournament, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be (a similar thing happened with the trebuchet demonstration; it wasn't where it was before and we missed it) and by time we found it we didn't actually see any of it because the show we wanted to see was starting soon and the archery was running late.

The final reason we went back to Koroneburg was for the Queen's Swordsmen (which were Maggie's favorite show, pretty much ever. Liz missed out because she was watching the juggler (I am against jugglers at Ren Faires because of several bad experiences; they always have the same horrible style and the same really lame jokes)). The Queen's Swordsmen were tucked into a back corner, and not nearly as funny (also, I don't remember that they were nearly as bawdy before. I expect a certain level of bawdiness at a Ren Faire, because that's just the way things are, but we try to avoid the worse shows, and I certainly would have remembered the mangled scene from Taming of the Shrew (if you are thinking that there is no sword scene in Taming of the Shrew, you're right; there isn't but that didn't stop them from doing the scene with Petruchio and Kat), although I think the mangled scene with Romeo and Paris was pretty much the same. It would have been so much better without mangling Shakespeare). Maggie was amused that at one point when one of the actors came down and was making insinuations about me (it was a v. small crowd) I had unbuckled my new dagger and was just pulling it out when he stopped (I'm not sure what I was about to do, but it would have been interesting because the actor had left his sword on the stage). The audience, in spite of being small, was quite into things, though (a good audience really improves a show).

I think that what would make Ren Faires really brilliant would be actual Shakespeare (not just mangled bits in shows). I would go to two hours of a decently done comedy, and quite enjoy it (this might be managed if it was produced by a local junior college; we have a Shakespeare festival every fall), and it would be quite appropriate to the Renaissance. Sadly, this seems quite unlikely, because Ren Faires really aren't geared towards the sort of people who usually watch Shakespeare.

It was a good Ren Faire, because the weather was quite nice (only a bit warm, but not too bad), we had a good size group (more people really do improve the experience), the joust was excellent and I bought my dagger (also, I avoided getting sunburned, which is always a good thing). Introducing people to the whole Ren Faire thing is fun.

After, we bought fast food (Ren Faire food is exhorbent). Either people didn't give us as strange looks this time, or I'm immune, because I didn't notice it at all (either for breakfast or dinner). Then Maggie, Liz, Irene and I went back to Irene's house and crashed. We ate watermelon and watched Princess Bride and all our favorite bits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.