My First Complete Ren Faire Outfit

[isabelladangelo]

I need to take you shopping, don't I, Gryffin?    BTW, have you signed up for the Joann's mailers?  Or for any of the Fabric dot com emails?  If not, do so NOW.   You can come back and read in a bit.   The reason is that they almost always include either deals or coupons.  For Joanns, you will get at least a 40% any cut of fabric every couple of weeks.  Most of the time, it's a coupon for 50% off and, often, you'll end up with multiple coupons.  This means that $20 a yard silk that they have?  Is suddenly $10 a yard silk.  It makes the correct fabrics very affordable.  (Or, at least, the closer to correct fabrics)

Most of the superwalmarts around us also have fabric departments again.  Do you know the one up right off of 198 near 295?  That one has a pretty impressive collection of fabrics that are $2 a yard.   Great for mock ups.   There is also a Hobby Lobby just down the street from it.   And, if you go a mile down 198, there is the most awesome thrift store ever.  I've bought stuff from there just to take apart and rework into garb.

I would suggest not wearing the quilting cotton to any SCA events.  If it was a plain - ie no pattern whatsoever- it would probably be okay but even a slight design can scream "modern" to someone far away who has been studying this for a few years.  For the renn fair, I'm sure it's fine.   

[GryffinSong]

HAHAHA, I'm always up for fabric shopping!!! 

Yes, I'm on the Joann's list, and in addition I have their additional discount card because I'm in a quilt guild.

I actually have several pieces of good, period fabric, but I'm afraid to cut into them until I know for certain what I want. I have a gorgeous medium weight 100% linen in teal. I have a huge piece of the really luscious linen that drapes so beautifully ... a soft off-white and taupe stripe. Johanna (A&S guru from SCA Storvik) has seen it and loves it. Even asked if I had extra if I'd be willing to trade some to her. I have a boatload of a linen/cotton blend that I don't care for. Too stiff.

I wanted something inexpensive, but still a good enough quality to wear, to play around with for my first skirt. And, yes, this is for ren, not SCA. I picture it as one of my vending outfits. Light, breezy, less wrinkle-prone than linen. And it looks totally awesome with my hat. 

What I'm a complete noob about is historical accuracy in clothing. I was in Adria for two years, but we had a huge mix of HA folks and very loosy-goosy folks when it came to garb. So I never put in the study to be HA. I focused on heraldry and archery. I bought a wooden, hand-made longbow, and custom arrows with natural fletching, and I painted my arms on a shield for my tent. Stuff like that interested me very much. I also created a rich background for my persona. I've also been in Storvik (SCA) for probably a year or so. I've attended several A&S meetings where folks were doing all their sewing by hand. I can't do that due to tendonitis. So I've been trying to learn, but I haven't been to a lot of events, and was too busy in "real life" to get excited and educated about making garb. Being accepted into the ren faires has pushed garb-making to the top of my list. Comparing Adria to SCA is very interesting. Adria is much more accurate in terms of combat. They do live steel combat, and in archery we always had natural arrows, usually custom made. In the SCA, I see neon colored arrow fletchings and padded swords. But when it comes to garb its the other way around. Much more focus on historical accuracy in the SCA, at least comparing my two groups. Oh, we had plenty of Adrians who were accurate, don't get me wrong. But we also had a huge and active pirate crew, a House of gypsies, and several folks who simply couldn't afford more than one cheap dress. As long as one made an effort, and didn't actually wear blue jeans, we accepted anything. Newbies would often wear black jeans and a tunic and call it a day.