Pre-Pennsic update on various and sundry

With just over a week until the first wave of people leave for the wilds of Pennsic, we've been busy working on all fronts.

Leatherworking class:
For my October leatherworking class for the Canton, I've completely finished my hand out and its ready to be printed. I've also started to cut out the leather for the class, but I have a long way to go. I have the pouch pieces for five pouches cut but still need to do the draw strings and belt flaps. Plus, I'm going to need a lot more than 5 kits.

I did a quick show of hands for who is interested on the Canton e-mail and Facebook page and so far have about 12 people saying they are tentatively interested in taking the class. I'll probably cap the class at 15, just to keep it manageable, and so that people get some one-on-one help if they need it. Right now, I'm thinking I'll probably need to charge a materials fee of a few dollars, just to recoup some of the leather costs, but I'm trying to use scraps and leather I already have on hand (as much as possible) to reduce costs.

I'll probably do 15 kits and if I don't get that many people, I can always use them if I decide to offer the course at Practicum next year.

Stick-Purse project:
Design-wise, I think I'm about done. I may fiddle a little bit with the waxed linen to see if I can get some thinner threads pulled out (so that I can in-turn use a smaller needle and get the stitches tighter), but otherwise I think its good to go.

This week I started working on my documentation and I'm now about 80 per cent done. Really, the only information I need to add in is stuff from Purses in Pieces that I need to pull out. The content is about six pages, with another 4-ish pages of annexes with pictures of artwork and extant examples, links and bibliography.

Once we're past Pennsic, I'll need to spend a bit of time going back to my period leather dye project so I can figure out at least a few more colours. I've got the yellow for sure. I'd like to try to get a red since I have the brazilwood. Black or dark brown would also work if I can't get the blue or green recipes to work.

Once that's done, I'll actually be ready to work on the final project, which means there's a small chance I'll have it ready for this year's Kingdom A&S.

Armouring:

I did a full inspection of Avelyn's body armour pre-Pennsic and did some minor repairs (some of the stitching had blown). Also did some work on her leg armour to hopefully make it less of a pain to wear.

Added straps to her demi's she bought at Pennsic last year although there's some question if they are usable (may be too short, leaving her wrist not adequately protected).

I tried to rivet the straps onto Avelyn's full gauntlets last week and it was a bit of a failure. Because of the curve of the gauntlets and the size of my anvil (plus the fact I have to work on the floor) I couldn't get the right angle to cleanly rivet the straps on.

We went to the Canton A&S and armouring day this past Monday. I was there for a meeting and Avelyn going to get some help with the gauntlets. Unfortunately she had a bit of an incident and discovered how sharp my leather scissors are, and didn't get much done the rest of the night.

Morag was able to help with some structural ideas and did help her cut out the leather pieces, so I may see how far I can get with assembling it all. We can always go to A&S this coming Monday to get help with the riveting. This may end up having to wait until after Pennsic though since we're running out of time to get projects finished and get everything packed.