michaelsbagley

So if I use Skittles suggested method, but a dime instead of a quarter I should be be fine... Thanks you Skittles and Kass for both of your advice! And Patrick, please know that I share your pain... button holes are my least favourite part as well... I have been struggling VERY hard to not use the machine for those... After sewing the rest of the jacket by hand, I would just feel like a complete cop-out to surrender to the machine for the button holes...

On one hand, my love of my morning coffee is screaming in hopes that if Kass does not come, that someone does a coffee stand in her place... (I am a real jerk in the morning until I have had coffee) But on the other hand, it would kind of feel like someone was stealing her thunder and her ideas... Either way, has she officially made any decision yet? or has she spoken her own mind on this? Or is this mostly based on speculation at the moment?

I'm about to start on my shirt... So thinking ahead a bit (since the topic has come up anyway)... I'm guessing by the sound of the nature of these fabric buttons that there might not be a standard size for them... But is there an average size? Or an ideal size? Or is it really a matter of feeling each button out, and letting it decide how big it wants to be? On a bit of a tangent... I should be done my common man/sailor's jacket in the next day or so, and since I've worked so hard on it, I'm dieing to show it off... So I will post some pics when I finish lining the last sleeve and then get the buttons and button holes sewn on....

Best to leave the "Lost" thread burried.. Get me started on that whole thing, and there will be no shutting me up. And Kate on "Lost"... now there is a woman! Not sure what you mean by the "who I hang with" bit... But on a whim I will say that I am straight, just quirky enough to be able to rate men without playing for that team ("not that there's anything wrong with that" to bring in a Seinfeld reference)...

I don't do Rev. War (if I did, I'd be a Loyalist.....) The Browncoat stuff is from a Sci-Fi movie.... Serenity...... (same with the Reavers) Didn't most of the loyalists flee to Canada? Are you saying that you want to be a Canadian? So when are you going to post updated pictures of the goblin outfit? Labyrinth was (and still kind of is) one of my all time favourite movies.... If I lived on the West coast, I would be all over that goblin ball. Although with my long hair and my girlfriend obsession with Bowie, i would probably wind up going in tights with big teased up hair and lots of eye makeup...

Saffron... Was she the traitoress red haired chick? the one that was married to the Captain for a bit? It's been while since I watched the series, and I'm not remembering some of the more minor characters. And if we are going to rate the guys, I'de have to say Mal over Jayne (Jayne just reminds me of any random Baldwin brother for some reason)... And any actor that does an appearance on "Lost" (another addiction of mine) is cooler in my books (it seems I am one to talk when it comes to the why's of someone's appeal )... And the professor is the man on Gilligan's Island.. There is no question there... I guess I can see your point on "medicated" River being a cool and interesting girl though...

I dunno BlackJohn, I think I am gonna have to disagree with you on this on... River (the character) even without a gun or a knife is still one creepy little lady... Kaylee, coward as she may be, is certainly more attractive than River... If we were talking about going into a battle, i would choose to have River by my side over Kaylee, or even Inara any day.... But I thought this thread was more about who was the most attractive... There does seem to be quite a strong leaning towards Inara... So all of you back away, she'e mine...

After giving this some serious thought, I've come to the following "realizations".... My attending anything that weekend is and will be in serious doubt until probably October... But given the choice, I will still prefer to go to PiP. I'd rather be out doing the re-enacting rather than at a conference discussing it. The RF conferences sound great, and I do very much want and plan to attend one some day, but given the choice between getting out and re-enacting, and going to a conference about re-enacting... I am a doer... It is nice to know that if I am unable to travel far that weekend, there is something close to home that will be very enjoyable that I will be able to go to. I guess it is win/win for me..

Hey GoF, Don't feel bad.... I just got into Firefly (and the accompanying movie "Serenity") just a few months ago, and I have had access to the show since it's release however long ago... But your right about how the show scratches so many itches at the same time... Good analogy! I was turned to the show by a friend who was turned onto the show a few months before me, who was turned onto the show by a friend of his that .... You get the point.... That's usually how it is with "Cult" classics as Firefly has definately become.... I only regret that more people didn;t watch it during it's air time so the series could have made it to additional seasons.... The movie did tie up most of the story threads, but I just get this "feeling" that had it been left on TV, the story would have been dragged out a lot more, and been more interesting for it... Not that I am bashing the movie, it was great... I just think more would have been better.

Okay, I'll bite on this one... Despite the fact that my answer may seem inconsistant to some.... From Firefly/Serenity I would so choose Inara over Kaylee.... It is a tough call, but Inara is the clear winner in my books... From Gilligan's Island I would choose Mary Anne over Ginger in a heartbeat, not that I would kick Ginger (as she looked at the time of the airing of the show) out of bed for eating crackers, but Mary Anne, just has a "Je ne sais quoi" to her. So, why is this inconsitant? Well I chose the sex-kitten from one show, and the "girl next door" from the other.... Or at least that is how my brain is translating this....

That is not going to be an easy choice to make... But I'm thinking that Florida in late November early December will be much nicer than Pennsivlania...

Captain Midnight, You can find Chapman's plans for longboats online (I beleive there are 3 different plans) Here is the link.... Complete list of Chapman's Ship Plans The longboats are on Plate 48. Chapman's plans are slightly post GAoP period (I think 1760's-ish), but seriously, but 30 or 40 years off is not bad.... Of course to use those plans one would need to know how to construct boats/ships from those types of plans.... Which is do-able (or so I think/guess), it would just require a lot of research and probably a fair amount of experience/technical aptitude...

Okay, as promised here is the contact info for the micro firing cannons for anyone interested... The company is called "GMRHTC" (Great Miami River Highbanks Trading Company).... The business card contact info reads as follows... Randy F. Albright 10160 N Hetzler Rd Piqua, OH 45356-955 (937)773-1437 gmrhtc1 at earthlink.net (I didn't type the email correctly to try and prevent internet spy-bots from harvesting the address)

That's interesting... I can totally see your point on the machine knit not being correct... As to yarn thickness, I thought the opposite was true as modern wool yarns tend to be thicker and chunkier than period hand spun yarns. Or am I way off track here? Or are my thoughts based on a generalization that doesn't apply to stockings? Thanks for sharing your knowledge! It has been a great help! I'm still curious as to what most GAoP re-enactors are currently using... and I'd love some feedback as to whether using the machine knit 100% wool stockings is a typical convention or whether there is another not too difficult alternative available.

Lucky you! Do you have any hints on how to win Skittles undieing gratitude?

I just looked into the "Clothing index" Patrick Hand put together and had stickied to the top of the Twill channel forum.... Clothing Index And didn't see anything, but I am certain that I have done searches either in the Twill channel or possibly the Plunder channell and found a reasonable amount of information.... Maybe it was another forum and I am just confusing the two... From memory (and i am sure someone more in the know will speak up) both knit and fabric stockings were used in the time.... I remember reading something about a seam on the knit stockings which makes any knit stickings available to buy incorrect, but most people will live with the descrepancy, or at least I hope so because I bought some wool stockings last week for the purpose.... I don't remember if both knit and fabric are were worn both on men and women, or if one was more appropriate for one and the other for the other... When/if we get some good answers would it be possible to add this thread to Patricks previous efforts in the stickied thread?

Well Lady Barbossa... I forget the name of the company, but I do have the gent's business card at home.... so I will post what info I have later... What I can say from memory, is the guy does not have a web site... He does have email and is willing to take orders via email..... As for children.... I don't know how little your chillens are, but I wouldn't recomend this for the very young as the mini-cannon uses black powder, and the envelopes that the powder come in possibly contain as much black powder as a bullet would, and cuold be mildly dangerous... But an older kid, or a well mannered child under parental supervision could have a TON of fun with these things... Oh, the guy makes three models of cannons... The mortar that I bought, a rev-war cannon in a similar scale to the mortar (similar diameter, but much llonger barrel, about 2 1/2 inches), and a civil war cannon that is slightly bigger than the rev-war cannon (about a 3 inch barrel)... He seels all three unassembled, assembled but plain, and assembled and painted.... The costs vary between $15 and up (I think the Civil War cannon painted is around $35).. Anyway, I think I've rambled enough... I'll post the email and contact info later....

Last weekend while some were off at Re-enactor Fest 2, which I was supposed to go to (but couldn't, oh, woe is me... ) I did go to a Living History Trade Fair in North-East Ohio as my placebo... And while there I found this little toy. It is a copy of a more Rev-War type of canon (mortar), but I thought it's amusement value would out-weigh it's slightly out of period character.... Anyway, here is a link of a mySpace video I made of this toy in action. Hope you enjoy! Firing of the canon! I managed to pick up some other items while there, some that might pertain to this period, others for my other period of interest... The trade fair as a whole had a fairly strong late 18th and early 19th century focus (F&I war, American Rev-War, North American War of 1812, and American Civil War etc.)

In case there are any Pirate in the great white north itching for a night out on the town... http://thepiratefestival.com/adultnight.html I am conveniently going to be in Toronto for a visit that weekend, so I will likely drop by with me lass and a few mates... Hope to meet some of you there!

Hmmm.... I would guess yes to pirates having some kind of whip... Flogging seems to be mentioned often with regards to punishment on board a ship.... I don't think a modern cowboy style bullwhip (like an Indiana Jones style whip) would be appropriate, but some kind of short leather whip would probably be around... BUT, I highly doubt a whip would be a first, second or even third choice of weapon under any circumstances (it takes a lot of space to effectively use even a short whip. Rigging etc. would get in the way), so it would probably be used almost exclusively for punishment, or possibly for herding livestock onto or off of the ship.... That would be my best guess based on my pretty limited reading so far....

Saltypots' question also ties into another question I have in this vein. Linen (the most common material for shirts/chemises) is naturally oatmeal in colour, would they "Average" working class person of the time have his/her shirt/chemise in natural linen? Or would bleacehed linen be used even by the common masses? And assuming bleached linen was a common material, how white was the average "bleached linen" of the time? Snow white? Ivory? Paler Oatmeal?

Hawkyns, I admire your passion, and idealism... And I have no doubt that you maintain a high level of personal standards, and I fully appreciate your desire to see the SCA's guidelines/rules/mandate or whatever it actually is adhered to... But the SCA by it's nature needs to be equally tolerant, or uniformly hard-fisted about things that fall outside of it's status quo. The SCA and those speaking on behalf of the org needs to try to be more consistant with their acceptance of all things, or shift gears and try to be a more living history focussed society and start to equally eliminate all things that fall outside of their guidelines. Tuchux and other fantasy oriented barbarians, nuff said there Belly Dancers while have provenance in history, I would say that more than 90% of the middle eastern dance types that I see at SCA events are "Tribal", "Fusion", or "Caberet" style dancers and are dressed as such... All of these dance and like garb styles are 20th century conventions. Do you feel as strongly against their presence as you seem to a potentially reasonably accurate sailor depiction 80(ish) years out of the timeframe? As many pirates as there seems to be in the SCA these days, they are easily outnumbered 10 to 1 by middle eastern dancers. Quoting the first line of the official SCA web site " The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. - The SCA is an international organization dedicated to researching and re-creating the arts and skills of pre-17th-century Europe. " Does the disdain I seem to see in your post extend to far eastern asian personas? (Please note the word Europe in the above quote) Please believe me when I tell you that I'm not trying to thumb my nose at your passions or what I am perceiving your beliefs or idealism to be... But there is so much more blatantly wrong stuff prevelant in the SCA that expressing any displeasure at GAoP within the SCA really just comes off as a little bit of a personal bugaboo rather than a real problem. As for the Sparrow clones, I too can't wait for that trend to blow over (no offence meant to anyone), and as for the wandering drunkards.... I've seen equally as many of those who would most likely fall within the status quo of the SCA's guidelines at Pennsic as I've seen wandering drunken pirates... Respectfully yours, The devils advocate.

As promised, here is a photo of the new trousers... I might replace this photo with a picture of me in the pants later (when I have access to someone to take the picture of me)... But that will happen on another day... So I updated the photo.. Please ignore the shirt, it was the best thing I have to go with the pants (for the moment)... It is made from 100% natural linen, but the shirt was made from the simplicity pirate costume pattern.

I just finished making my first pair of GAoP leg wear... I made the "early trousers" from RH706. I used a brown denim-like fabric (100% cotton), as these were to be my test pair, and some buttons I bought at a JoAnn's that I feel are perfect based on some images I saw on a link posted on another thread about period accurate buttons. The buttons are plain circular brass buttons with post type holes for attachment, and are about 5/8 inch (maybe even closer to 1/2 inch). I hand stitched the entire thing (including button holes), in fact I hand stitched the entire pair of pants twice, as the first pair I made, I made too small (aparently I have gained some weight) Conveniently, the pair that turned out too small (I also think I stitched the seams to wide) fit my girfriend fairly well (they are a bit loose, but not horribly so), so they won't go to waste. I too had to pester Kass with a question, which I will post here incase anyone else needs to know: Question -> Is the "eyelet" in the back of the waist band a metal eyelet, or a sewn "round buttonhole" style eyelet. Kass's Answer -> The stitched round buttonhole style of eyelet. I wasn't sure at what point in history metal eyelet began to be used... Other than that one item,, the rest was pretty easy and self explanatory. I'll post a pic later... then I will begin my test jacket also in cotton, then I will be making "the real deals" in wool... I'm considering making breeches next time rather than trousers, but that does mean i am going to have to find/make/buy some stockings to make sure it looks right...

Just to throw my two cents into the fray.. I'm not terribly keen on the date on the flag... It just seems off to me... So far Version 12 seems to be my favourite... Simple enough, but still unique and with it's own charms. Although Version 13 is a close runner up in my books... You guys and gals are really all doing a great job with this. I really , really like the touch of white Silkie added to the hour glass (giving the impression of sand at the bottom)...