Sometimes no matter how much you do, how much you give, how much you bleed, it just does not matter. You may try to do what is right and try to be a part of the greater good, it does not matter. You give everything you have to make it all better. It just does not fucking matter. Nothing changes. The joy gets sucked out of you and then you are painted as just being a bitter jealous person. How much are you supposed to give before you are worthy? How many people keep just having more glory added to them? Is it about the work at all or who you rub elbows with? The focus is not where it needs to be. We will not continue to grow in numbers if things do not change. Our message will be lost if things do not change. If we do not make peers who will actively seek to make things better we will not continue to exist. We are chasing people away, we have to change. We have to remember why we are here, to begin with.
The cool kids table at the geek school
So most of us in the SCA were total geeks when we were in school. A lot of us were bullied or picked on for our oddness. Then we came into ourselves and learned to embrace and love our geekdom. Fast forward so many years, and we find this awesome society within a society of utter and total unabashed geekdom! Our happy place in the world has been discovered! We all start out somewhere in the SCA, usually with funky makeshift garb but all full of excitement and enthusiasm! Some of us start out in the outside or the drum and dance community or just camping with our baronies because they are very friendly and don’t bat an eye at how bad your garb is. They usually are the first to talk to you and ask your names and share a drink and show you around. You fall madly in love with how awesome everything and everyone is and are hooked! Then you start to meet more and more people and decide you want to attempt better garb, or jump in and help volunteer. Then you meet more folks. You start to hearing things, people talking about stuff you are not aware of. People seem pretty passionate about whatever it all is so you decide you want to know more. The more, is what us involved players refer to as the “sausage making” Sooner or later you find that in your happy place with-in the geeks, there is a cool kids table. You eventually start noticing a social structure in which those first nice people you met are not treated the same as others. They are not taken as seriously and referred to as “fringies” or other nick names. You start becoming encouraged to steer away from them. They are not cool kids.
So how did this happen? A group of people having fun and bonding with other geeks end up with a cool kids table? Who decides what kind of geekdom or what level of geekdom makes another more cooler than the next? We got picked on and tortured in school, now we are going to turn on each other? SERIOUSLY?!?! This is why so many people pack up their toys and go home.
But none of us have to allow this mentality to win. We stand and we fight for what is right. We don’t pack up and go, we make our own table. The cool kids collective is a small bunch and are largely out numbered by the rest of us who just came here to have a good time and bond with other geeks. We stand our ground and don’t let them push us around. We stay and we have fun in spite of them. We stay and do what we love in spite of them. We never waiver or become something we are not just to fit in with them. That is how we fight.
How To: Posament
I get a lot of questions about how to create the knots used for posament. I created a handout showing step by step instructions on each of the common knots used. I’ve included a printable ver…
Source: How To: Posament
My newest project…piece number one for my Viking Pimpin coat!
A while back I made myself a magenta wool coat, lined with yellow polar fleece. My plan was to make it a pimp ass viking coat! Thus far it is unadorned and looks like a bath robe! So I have started on my first applique piece to go on it. This coat is amazingly warm, so I will still wear it even as a work in progress. I plan to take pictures of all the different stages it goes through. But for right now all I have is the first piece that I just started. 
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I want to do ALL OF THE THINGS!
The SCA can be an all-consuming hobby. Well it starts out as a hobby, and ends up a life style. There is so much to do in the SCA that it is hard not to be completely submerged in it. We love this thing we do and want to help it continue to grow. Then on top of that there are a lot of really cool hobbies within the hobby, people that become your family, social standards we lack in the modern age, and stories we could never share with our non SCAdian friends with the same impact as if we were telling to our SCAdian friends! Just last night I was laughing my ass off at work over pictures from Gulf Wars of a dinosaur storming the castle. Tried to explain how incredibly funny this was and it just does not quite translate. We all do all of the things we do for our stardust. Those magic moments that make your soul smile, those crazy stories we love to retell the “no shit there I was…” stories. Anyways I have digressed and it is time to get the actual point of this blog back on track.
A lot of us have the overwhelming need to do all of the things! We want to do all of the arts things, the fighting, organizing events, holding offices, taking on arts projects for others, offering services to the crown on their courts. As you can see this is quite the rabbit hole! Sometimes people take on so much that it becomes a chore more than a fun time. This is where balance comes into play! Yes! It is possible to balance in this world where so much needs to get done. There is a valuable 2 letter word that will save your life! It is the word NO. When you already have a lot on your plate, do not take on more projects! At first you have all of the best intentions of doing All The Things, but you forget that there is also real world issues with jobs, children, families, deaths, illness, car troubles, appliance malfunctions. All of those things can throw a real wrench into all of your best intentions. Also not having down time from all of the things you said you would do, sucks the fun out of this and makes it a really long hours job. I find where I get myself in the most trouble is with arts for other people. I forget how much time it takes to make said thing, then have a lot going on and then the deadline starts approaching and you start gasping like a fish out of water! Balance! I see people fall in it all of the time. They say they can do all of these things, then they can not do all of these things and the shut down due to being overwhelmed and do not do all of the things, then everyone else is left scrambling to save the day at the last minute! Don’t be that guy! Learn your own limits before taking on all of the things. Take on one thing, do it and just it for a while and learn what it takes to do that thing then decide if you can actually take on another thing with it. Never take on a bunch of things at once and see if you can do it that way. Pace your responsibilities. If you sign up to run an event, do not sign up to run an event directly following a major war where you held some sort of job on that event! The three month rule works well for me. I usually run hospitality at Southern Crusades in November, my next job after that is Hospitality at Estrella in February, then maybe run an event in the spring or summer. This gives me time to properly devote all of my attention to the project at hand. I have an officer job too, but it is one I can work in between all of them, I am social media for my barony. Then I coordinate largesse for our current crown, and will co-coordinate for the next crown. That is my stop point. That is a full plate. One I know with my own limits I can handle, but I know from experience this is where my line in the sand has to go. But I work a job 3 nights a week at 12.5 hours a night for my full-time hours, so I have more time to devote to these things. My limits are not going to be the same as someone else’s. That does not make anyone more or less awesome. Contribute what you can and as much as you want. This should always be fun and never feel like a burden. all depending on what office you are in or what position on a war you have, you may not have time for anything else at all. The exchequer and seneschal jobs are extreme amounts of work. Being a main for Estrella, is a huge job that takes nearly 1 year of hard work. Those are all-consuming jobs, do not pile on top of those! Make sure you still have time to hang out with your friends at events in between. Have specific events you go to and designate as work free events. And the golden rule is, if you have bit off more than you can chew, ASK FOR HELP! Not at the last minute! Asking folks to help you is not a sign of defeat, it is a sign of responsibility. Do not let your office, event, or position on a war staff fail because you were too proud to ask for help when you first realized you were in too deep. Don’t let it steam roll in to a train wreck then throw up your hands at the last minute or roll over and play dead and leave a huge mess for someone to have to panic and fix with no real time left to fix it. This is what is known as a jerk move. And it is pretty much a guarantee no one will ever trust you enough again to take on any responsibility, and this will be your reputation. It will take you years to overcome that rep. Don’t do it! Hopefully someone finds this useful.
10th Century Posament Based on Finds at Birka
This weekend I entered my posament work in the single entry competition at An Tir Kingdom Arts and Sciences and Bardic Championships. I had wonderful feedback and want to share my research and work…
A Bat Man inspired Viking
I think part of my fun now-a-days is making my pelican a little crazy! I told her I wanted to make a Bat Man Viking and she gave me that Mom look. You see my Ma is also a Laurel! She brings new challenges to the table for me outside of my service. For instance, I have this love of bright abnoxious colours. She challenged me and said if I want to wear Hot Pink then I need to prove it could be made in the middle ages and with what. So I did that. Dicovered you could make a bright pink like color with a cochineal dye bath after it had been used a few times because the color begins to fade after so many uses which would leave you with more of a pink instead of red. I won that one so it was time to make bat man a thing! I decided if I was going to do this it was gonna have to be perfectly period! I bought black linen, I used a period pattern for construction of the dress. I used couching for the seam treatments with silk embroidery floss. I cut my bats out of wool felt and appliqued them to the dress with period stitch! OK for those of you at home, do not get your knickers in a twist! I know there is no evidence that Vikings used applique designs on their garments. I also know there is very little information on viking garments as they were made mostly from wool and linen and they broke down over time. I took a few creative liberties with this little project! I know people always refrence the “anachraism” or “ten foot rule” when saying I should not worry that much about it. I honestly don’t worry that much about it, I just find projects like this fun, and also researching and learning what would have been done. Stretching the limits is fun, so are challenges. Anyone can make any super hero inspired outfit, but fitting it within the realm of period materials and stitches makes it even more fun. I have a friend that made a completely period Tardis Viking! The “police box” part was written out in norse runes! She appliqued the windows like blocks under the runes1 It was amazing.
So one day I decided to hand sew an entire apron dress
One day I decided I had to make a dress by hand. It is not pretty! Yes that means seriously with no sewing machine what so ever. I did not have a proper pattern so I made one off a dress I already had. I did no real research because I am artistically impulsive (see my first embroidery project on a hoop made from a butter dish lid and safety pins) I figured “I got this” “how hard can this be?” Well believe it or not after 6 months (I took my time on this project) I actually had a wearable garment. If anyone with an inkling of a clue about proper hand sewing were to examine it closely they would need a drink, however it is a dress damn it and I hand sewed it! That counts for something right? All in all it was a major teaching lesson. I learned this mystical thing called muscle memory by the end of it. I can now evenly sew stitches (for the most part) without marks or tiger tape. I learned a lot about strap length meets festoon weight, and I learned that the main stitch I used to sew the pieces together was not the best choice. I do not believe in just sharing the nifty things one has made, I believe you should share it all! Everyone starts somewhere, fails somewhere, is at one point proud of something then later with more experience embarrassed by it. The linen was on a super sale so I only invested about $18 on the whole thing! Now for some pictures!
The unevenness of the stitches makes me twitch…. Gotta get it sorted out somewhere!
Not the best put it together stitch!
I gave myself quite the seam allowance! And it sure is ugly underneath!
Please disregard the underpants on my head! This was a Mardis Gras Themed Mimosa Thursday at Estrella War!
Seam treatments are your friends!
You can jazz up any garment with simple seam treatments. Even a simple running stitch along a hem can totally change your outfit and give it more pop
my first go with fly stitch. At this point I did not know this stitch had a name, I thought I made it up because it seemed like a cool idea.
Fly Stitch
Chain stitch on the neckline, little X’s on the sleeves
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I am not sure if this stitch has a name. I kinda made it up because I thought it looked nice. It is basically a running stitch in brown, then I took the cream color and wrapped it through the running stitches.
Please excuse the wrinkles on the hubby’s tunic! Herringbone stitch.
Berkedei's rants, ramblings and musings 