Anachronistic Adventures at the Renaissance Festival

Before it stops being All-Ren-Fest-All-The-Time Land around here, it’s time for one last post about it — gather ’round and I shall tell thee the tale of our Renaissance Festival adventures!

As luck would have it, we got absolutely perfect weather to complement our day at the Fest — sunny with a high of 75 (and now you have that one Relient K song in your head…)! When you’re wearing a giant dress, that’s a very welcome forecast. Last time I went to the Fest wearing garb, I spent a goodly portion of the day feeling like I was walking around in a woolen oven.

Peder and I attended the Fest with our friends Ashley and Clint (the same Ashley who was instrumental in my costume-making efforts), both of whom also went in costume. Ashley wore the dress she made for this year’s Fest, a cute blue-and-pink gown based on a traditional style, and Clint went as a buccaneer-type fellow, complete with epic pirate coat.

By pure happenstance, we also ran into our friends Anne and Bill, who walked right past Peder and me as we were parking. We knew they were coming to the Fest at some point, but had never heard when, so it was quite a fun surprise to see them, and great to hang out with them for a bit!

The six of us didn’t end up staying in one group past the morning, however, since Ashley, Clint, Peder, and I had tickets for the Feast of Fantasy, a several-course meal that lasts through the middle of the afternoon, during which you are entertained by various festival performers. Ashley and Clint went to it last year and really enjoyed it, and Peder and I were more than happy to join them for round two. The feast was at 2:00, and since we arrived at the Fest at about 11:00, we had a little bit of wandering-around time beforehand. We used it to watch an escape artist performer, visit the fairy forest, and take in one of my favorite parts of Ren Fest — the joust!

Tiny fairy town!

At the Fairy Forest exit

Sir Marcus preparing to tilt

The last time I went to the joust, we got there a bit late, and I had a hard time seeing much behind all the people in front of us, shorty that I am. This time, we got rather better spots, and we had a decent view of the lists and could hear the heralds — both the one that was encouraging us to heckle the crowd on the other side of the lists and the one doing the same on the opposite side. We could also hear the knight that our part of the crowd was supposed to cheer for as he introduced himself and told us we should chant his name whenever he was about to joust. Or whenever we felt like it, really. Naturally, there was much chanting of “Marcus, Marcus, Marcus!” over the next 20 minutes.

After the joust was done, it was time for the feast! Which we were more than ready for, having eaten very little prior to it in order to save room. The feast was completely worth it, and we loved it — from the super tasty food to the bunches of performers we got to see to the absurdly hilarious emcees, it was a wonderful time all around. We decided that one of the things we liked best about it was getting to see so many different performances in one place; it was like getting a nice little tour of the Fest without having to try to make it to a bunch of different shows.

Outside the feasting hall! Side note: as you can see from the voluminousness of my skirts, I did in fact find time to make a bum roll.

Party hats required, of course

My favorite was the juggler, who juggled with flaming torches, breathed fire, and juggled ping pong balls using only his mouth, you guys. Like…what? How is that even accomplished? It was pretty amazing. I also really liked the singing group that sang us an Irish drinking song called…Irish Drinking Song. Naturally. And I have to admit to kind of, sort of liking the poet — whose poems were so vulgar they made my ears burn…never have I heard such brazen jokes told in such flowery language before.

After the feast, we headed to the free Woodchuck cider tasting…because obviously, we needed to consume more beverages directly after eating all of the things. Like you do. It was lots of fun, and Peder and I particularly liked their newest cider, which we will hopefully be able to track down sometime soon!

At the cider tasting

Though we’d had a great time seeing the performers at the feast, we did want to make it to at least one sit-down show — we ended up going to see the Danger Committee’s last performance of the day. I’ve seen them a couple of times before, and they’ve been so much fun to watch every time. I mean, where else can you see guys juggling tasers and lighting whips on fire and throwing knives that slice through cucumbers being held by someone on a spinning wheel? I ask you. The Danger Committee is one of those things I feel like I have to see in order to feel that I’ve had a complete Ren Fest experience.

Once the show was done, it was nearly dusk — in other words, closing time. We wandered around and visited a few of the shops (those that weren’t already closing down, that is). We didn’t find anything we couldn’t live without, but we did enjoy looking at the nice, shiny daggers at the sword shop, and Ashley and I got fairy-dusted (read: had glitter sprinkled all over us) at a fairy-themed shop. I tend to think that when you get the chance to wear purple glitter, you should probably take it.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day, and possibly the best time I’ve had at the Ren Fest so far, made even more fun by the fact that I got to wear a sweet costume that I made myself (well, made half of, more like, but still)!

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Let’s hear from you guys! Did you attend Ren Fest or any other such fests or fairs this year? What was the best part about it/them? What did you run out of time to see that you wished you could have? Let us know in the comments!

Making Garb for Ren Fest: Part Five – Re-Creating Paul Bettany’s Geoffrey Chaucer

Good day to you, lords and ladies! It’s time for the tales of the second component of this costume-making venture — namely, putting together my husband Peder’s Ren Fest costume!

A couple of months ago, Peder decided that he wanted to go to Ren Fest dressed as Paul Bettany’s portrayal of Geoffrey Chaucer, as seen in the absurdly anachronistic and delightful film A Knight’s Tale. Admittedly, Geoff is more of a medieval character than a Renaissance one, but since people often go to Ren Fest dressed as fairies and LOTR characters and etcetera, which don’t exist in any time period whatsoever, we’re valuing enjoyment potential over historical accuracy.

This dude!

One of the best part of this process has been rewatching the movie for “research purposes” — good grief, I love that movie. It’s so ridiculous and wonderful and I can’t get enough of it. Jousting! Improbable outfits! Tansy cakes!

But I digress…on to the costume! For the most part, I opted not to use my newfound sewing skills for this costume, since, unlike my garb, there’s no way I could make it any more cheaply than what we could buy it for. With that added to the fact that time was already running alarmingly short when we started building the costume, using my well-honed Etsy-trawling and thrift-store-hunting skills seemed like the better option.

We decided that this costume needed four main pieces–a plain medieval-style shirt, a pair of simple brown pants, shoe covers (this is the only part I made from scratch), and a long coat to top it off.

With the wealth of skilled costume-makers’ Etsy shops that are out there, it was easy enough to find a good shirt and pants there. Unfortunately, I somehow had my old address hooked up to PayPal, and through some kind of click-happy misfortune, I managed to send the shirt there instead of to my current address. Cue massive rage and anxiety spiral.

After FINALLY getting the apartment staff to respond to my pleas, only to be told that they hadn’t seen the package even though it was supposedly delivered mid-August, we ended up buying a replacement shirt off of Amazon (they have some surprisingly decent ones and I kind of wish I’d gone there in the first place). The original one actually did make it back to the seller, who was kind enough to resend it to me, so naturally, it finally came our way a day after we needed it…sigh. But Peder can use it for a different costume down the line, or possibly even the same costume next year, so at least it won’t go to waste, as we feared it would when we thought it was lost.

In less frustrating news, the pants thankfully came, and in good time considering the lady who made them had to add some length to them (the max size she had listed on the product page was 5’7″…and Peder is 6’4″). They look pretty good, despite the fact that their creator seemed to interpret “pants for a 6’4″ person” as “pants for someone who’s 7 feet tall and about 300 pounds.” I (rather unskillfully) hemmed them, though that didn’t reduce their voluminous-ness, but at that point, we decided they would just have to do.

For the shoe covers, I used a pattern I found on Pinterest. Since we made them from felt, and since my sewing machine was already threaded with some nice heavy-duty brown thread, this was the perfect job for Ol’ Reliable. Peder helped me figure out the best way to construct the covers since he’s got a much better head for spatial stuff like that, and I put them together based on a method that someone had used to make boot covers for a kid’s Halloween costume. I’m pretty happy with how they turned out, and Peder likes them, so that’s what counts! At least one part of his costume turned out as planned…

As for the coat, we started by looking at Savers, the obvious place to go for such things. Except…not. We set out with great hope of finding something flamboyant (and large) enough to suit this costume, but despite the fact that Savers already has their Halloween costume stuff out, we didn’t find anything in that section, and there wasn’t a single coat of any kind to be found in the place, costume-y or no. We thought it was a bit strange that they don’t have any of their coats out yet (this is Minnesota, after all…), but so it goes. So in the end, we hit up Party City and found a long jacket-y/vest-y/vaguely pirate-y thing that works pretty well. It gives a fair approximation of the look we’re going for, and kept Peder from roasting all day in a heavy coat.

And here we are at the Fest in full costume! When all was said and done, Peder looks reasonably Chaucer-y and definitely very swashbuckle-y, so I’m counting this one a success.

Phew…we made it, you guys! After a fair bit of travail and a lot of ingenuity, we were officially ready for some good ol’ fashioned Ren Fest shenanigans! More on that to come very soon.

Making Garb for Ren Fest: Part Four

The costume is officially done, folks!  For this last sewing session, I went back to Ashley’s, where we put the finishing touches on my outfit.

We ran short on both time and bias tape last session, so I didn’t quite get that part of the vest done — this time, however, I finished it up, and I’m really proud of it! I was expecting this part to be a lot harder than it turned out to be, and while it’s not perfect, I’d say it’s pretty darn good for a first-timer.

There was a small crisis when I realized that I’d somehow picked the wrong shade of brown when I bought my second package of bias tape, even though the number on the package was exactly the same…grumblegrumblegrumble. So I took off the bias tape I’d sewn onto one of the arm holes (I knew I wouldn’t get out of this without a little seam-ripping…) and sewed the lighter colored bias tape to both armholes, so that at least the parts with the other shade match each other and I don’t have one rogue armhole that’s two shades lighter than everything else. The end result looks a tiny bit goofy, but thankfully it’s not very noticeable when the vest is worn, so I’m over it.

While I was finishing up the vest, Ashley took care of hemming the two skirts — the underskirt actually ended up being the perfect length and not too short at all, despite my fabric-cutting goofs! There’s even room for a bum roll, if I ever get to that…we shall see.

Ashley also finished up the sleeves of the tunic, and it looks fantastic! Though I’ve been learning a lot, I was happy to leave this piece in Ashley’s capable hands, since I wasn’t yet feeling quite prepared to create the cinch-y neckline and sleeve closures for it.

The last order of business was to add a little boning to the vest and create the holes to thread the cording through. Per Ashley’s advice (and partially due to our dwindling time), we decided to just put boning along the front edges of the vest to stabilize it — in Ashley’s experience, stays have a tendency to become stabby and uncomfortable very quickly, and they’d have been awfully putzy to put in at this stage, so since the fabric is already pretty stiff, we figured that less is more in this case.

After putting the boning in the front of the vest, we decided we’d use the buttonhole method for the cording. Under the circumstances, this was the most expedient and hopefully the most durable option. Ashley created some beautiful buttonholes with the fancy buttonhole foot on her sewing machine (again, I left this part to the expert, but it was pretty fascinating to watch!), and after threading the cording through them, the costume was complete!

And here I am in my finished garb (ignore the fact that you can see my shirt underneath…and the horrendous hair day I seem to be having…it was a leeeeeetle humid that day)! I’m really happy with how it turned out, and I can’t wait to wear it at the Ren Fest! Next time you see me in this outfit, it’ll be against a backdrop of jousts, mead stands, mermaid lagoons, and lots of anachronistically dressed Minnesotans. Huzzah!

Making Garb for Ren Fest: Part Three

Onward and upward we go! It’s time for Part Three of what has been an extremely fun costume-making process. This time, we set up shop at Ashley’s place, since it was time to start on some of the more delicate work. As wonderfully sturdy and reliable as my sewing machine is, using it for some of this fussier stuff/thinner fabrics would be a little like using a car wash to do your dishes…definitely not ideal.

Ashley’s sewing room and the lovely Ashley herself, teaching me how to sew on bias tape!

As we got started, Ashley took care of the next steps for the underskirt–I was definitely in need of her help, since all manner of wonky things happened when I was cutting the pieces for the skirt. I got as far as serging the three main panels together on my own, but in addition to my earlier crookedy-cutting mishap, the hem turned out to be fairly crooked overall after the panels had all been put together, so Ashley evened it up with her serger.

Nearly completed skirts!

When all’s said and done, it will probably be a tad shorter than originally planned, but this will be okay, since, while it’s historically accurate to have your skirts skimming the ground, it’s not very practical at Ren Fest, where the ground is always either absurdly dusty or really muddy, depending on the weather. This way, I’ll hopefully keep from having a hem so dirty it would scandalize Caroline Bingley beyond all reason (wrong time period, I know…moving on…).

Another hang-up with the skirt was that I cut the panels out according to the extra seam allowance Ashley had left when she made her skirt, but I then forgot to add length to the waistband, so it was of course too small. Smart me…a side effect of this project is learning how to plan ahead, I’m finding. Still, this kind of stuff is bound to happen to a first-timer, so I don’t feel too bad about it (even as I try valiantly to quash my raging perfectionist streak…). Ashley solved the problem by adding a couple of gathers to the back of the skirt — the perfect fix, since the gathers won’t even show, and will add some extra oomph to the skirt, which is kind of what you want for skirts like these anyway.

As Ashley worked on the skirts and started on the tunic, I worked on attaching the bias tape to the vest. A little daunting at first, since it’s pretty delicate work, but it turned out pretty well if I do say so! There’s a little bit more to do, and we ran out of time to start putting in the stays, but I was able to get the majority of the bias tape put on, even though I sewed at a tentative, rather glacial pace (which was MUCH easier to do on Ashley’s machine than mine).

Here’s how it’s looking so far (sorry for the extremely blurry picture…usually my phone camera isn’t quite this bad)! After finishing up the bias tape and putting in the boning, the last thing to do will be to add grommets somehow and thread the laces through them so the vest can be pulled tight.

I’m not sure how I’m going to do this yet…the lady who helped me at JoAnn’s strongly recommended not using the grommets they sell there (or any grommets at all, if I can help it), since they’re not great quality and apparently aren’t really meant for clothing. She said that, over time, the grommets will start to tear the fabric a bit and come out due to the pressure from the laces. Which they will indeed do, as demonstrated by Ashley’s version of this costume — hers has held up very well overall since the time she made it a few years ago, but the grommets are definitely starting to come un-sewed from her vest.

To hopefully avoid this, I’m either going to see if a woodworker acquaintance of mine will put the grommets in for me so I’m not making any cuts in the fabric, since doing so would speed up the raveling process (this would both save me some time and be super hardcore) or come up with a workaround, most likely by hand-sewing button holes of some kind…more to come on that later once I finally decide.

And here’s the tunic, the product of Ashley’s fine handiwork — all that’s left is to finish up the sleeves, which will have drawstrings like the neckline does. Ashley’s dress form is modeling it very fetchingly here!

I’m so excited that we have this much done already! Things are shaping up very nicely, I must say. I’ll do one more post about the finishing touches, and later, a post about the costume my husband and I are putting together for him — he’ll be going as (the wildly historically inaccurate yet delightful version of) Geoffrey Chaucer from A Knight’s Tale! I’m still trying to convince him to go around the Fest saying things like “We walk in the garden of his turbulence!!” We’ll see if I succeed…

And of course, I’ll plan to do a post about the glorious time we shall most definitely have at the Ren Fest — I can’t wait!!