Leather Jerkin: Taking It Out for a Spin

In a Washington summer, when you look out your door and see this, you know that your day is going to end in a hot and sweaty place. By the end of Saturday, I believe it was 95 down by Lake Union, and according to thermometers on the faire site were hitting 105.

Fear the morning fog.

The local wildlife loves their Lord Mayor!

For the record, I want to take this opportunity to officially deny that I use illegal Parrot Labor in the creation of any of my costumes. It never happened. I wasn't there. You haven't seen me.

Garb in action: The demands of a high-pressure task like being a music stand on a sunny day are easily met by my leather jerkin.  ACTION GARB!!!

Oppressing villagers is taxing work. It's a good thing I have my Action Garb to wear!

I WILL OPPRESS ALL THE VILLAGERS!

If you can't invest in infrastructure because you pillaged the road-building 
fund, the least you can do is invest in a few signs...

With these people behind me, how can I not attain a dukedom?

Honestly. It was a million degrees out there and I managed to keep doublet and jerkin on almost all day.

More later after I've recovered... in a week or two.

Get thee to faire!

There are exciting things afoot! I have a new project cooking which will debut in earnest as soon as I've finished being a disreputable politician (because none of us have enough of those in our lives) as the Lord Mayor of Merrywick at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire!

The first three weekends of August in Bonney Lake, Washington.
http://www.washingtonfaire.com/

Won't you come out and play with us?

Occasionally I get to go out and play...

Instead of sewing, today I got to go over to a friend's house in my overalls and build stuff and get messy and play with their dogs. (Ren faire is AWESOME!) Which is to say, I've been building sets for the local ren faire again.


After spending most of the week sick with the flu (sadly too sick to really get any sewing done either) I got to get out in the fresh air today in time for a building party.


We're building an inn! Kristin was there to take pictures.

"Then the go-kart track should go over here, and the pin ball machines go along this wall..."

We can't call it an 'inn raising' if we don't stand some of it up at some point...

This building isn't for my guild, I'm labor on this outing, though my guildies certainly turned out to help. The Hearth of St Brigid (my guild) has always carried an ethos of being the cross-guild players, taking the "All for one and one for all" aspect of being a faire player beyond our guildyard, to include the whole of the faire.

We were helping out a new crew that has risen at WMRF called the Guild of Saint Julian that will be portraying an inkeeper and his staff, plus various guests and regulars. The inn will be created like theater flats, decorated and painted and assembled as a modular set that they can add onto over time. 

It's a bit exciting for us since the guilds in our faire have historically operated mostly out of tents. This is the first time our faire and thus our guilds have grown and prospered sufficiently that it's feasible to start assembling real sets.

Fair is in August and there's a lot to do between now and then, but we made great headway today. This is going to be great!

The Toymaker's First Weekend

Last weekend was my first full weekend as the toymaker. My friend Christa snapped this picture of me using a small trim plane to shape my new marionette.

Photo by Christa Smiley

I set up my table and tools on the edge of the main path, not far inside the main gates.  Just sat down and started making wood shavings.

It's been a long time since I sat still at faire. I'm reveling in the opportunity to really talk to the patrons rather than just making a quick joke or teasing them as I fly past on my way to the next place where the queen will need me.

It's a lower-key experience, to be sure, but I am enjoying it immensely.  And it tickles me a bit how many people tell me that they didn't know anyone knew how to make things with hand tools anymore!

And when I get bored sitting still, I grab that cage you see on the ground next to me and shoulder my large net and go looking for all of my many escaped marionettes.  (Bloody fairies never ask permission before turning them into real boys.  Like I need another mouth to feed...)

BONUS!
A trip to our faire inspired a series of renaissance faire related comics over on Scott Kurtz's PVP webcomic.  Check them out over at PVPonline.

Yes, we really are that close to Target.  Well... almost.

This weekend is the final weekend of faire!  Come one, come all!

The Clown and the Toymaker :: Exit stage left, pursued by bear.

As I mentioned, I've been having back problems. Between May 5th and July 3rd, my spine went into meltdown until I was walking with a cane. Since then, the cane and the pain both went away, but it was an eye-opening experience.

I can no longer keep up the level of physicality that my role as fool requires of me.  Or -- more to the point -- that I require of me. I cannot meet my own standards and that means it's time to hang up the mask.


This year, my fool will play his usual role of Master of Ceremonies atop the castle gate for the opening ceremonies at the Washington Midsummer's Renaissance Faire, but that will be it for me.  

Next year, Calabash the fool will be retired completely.

That is not to say I'm going anywhere, but I just can't caper like I used to or rely on my body to carry me through the run of a faire without crapping out on me.

In the immortal words of William Shakespeare, "Exit stage left, pursued by bear."

What's next?

I needed something to allow me to keep doing the stuff I love, but also to take my time about it. To be able to entertain and interact as I always have, but at a rate and level that will accept whatever is happening to me at that moment. And I also wanted the flexibility to take my inner Davinci out and take him for a walk.

I toyed with the idea of doing a potter or carpenter/joiner sort of thing, but those involved hauling too much crap out of the faire every weekend. But I still wanted to do something artistic, or at least artisinal. Something that incorporated all the stuff I really love to do...

Enter the Village Toymaker.

Forget Davinci, I'm about to let my inner Jim Henson out to play.


How it impacts this blog...

This is to your benefit, dear reader, because this blog is about to get active again. The next series of posts (beginning with the long-promised leather-working tutorials, I promise) will be about creating the toys and oddments that will sell the role of toymaker to the crowds.

I need to make shoes, toy drums, little leather masks, and a boatload of period encampment stuff that I've never really worried about because Calabash was a mobile character. He didn't need a work table, a leather bottel, or a marionette...

Well, maybe the marionette.

So coming soon will be costuming for me and for dolls. (Shoemaking post coming soon!) Discussions of period toys, marionettes, and the clothing of the merchant and artisan class of the renaissance.

I hope you will join me.

Scott

Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire - Promo Video Released!

The bouncy, loudmouthed fool in the leather mask atop the parapet (and elsewhere) is my humble alter-ego Calabash.