Download Awesomness

Download was fucking immense! It was a bit of a weird one, starting off with an awesome Friday & then kind of tapering off, there wasn't much to see on the Sunday, but I had a bloody good time anyway.

Highlights of the weekend would have to be DevilDriver who fucking slayed & set the world record for the world's biggest circle pit! Faith No More were predictably amazing & Slipknot were pretty damn good too! They had this crazy extending rotating drum platform & lots of hitting each other with baseball bats & stuff.

I started off in the crowd for Marilyn Manson but I ended up going to the back cause it was a load of shit! He barely said a word & no one was cheering hardly at all. It was kind of eerie really. Then he just got led off stage halfway through the encore & never came back on. Bloody drug addicts...

Pretty much though it was just the usual Download awesomeness. The new site is pretty sick. Apart from being able to hear both stages if you're sitting in the middle, the layout works really well cause you can actually switch between stages & see some of the staggered bands which has never been possible before. I did spend nearly an hour looking for a water tap though, only to find I had walked past it like 10 times & completely missed it cause people were crowded around it & only half the taps were working. Rubbish!

I kind of missed having an awesome headliner on the Sunday. It kind of faded out a bit pathetically. The choice was Trivium or Def Leppard & I opted for Trivium. They were pretty good, but nothing compares to Maiden on the main stage. What happened?!!

Aaaaanyway... it was proper sunny all weekend, & there was a really good atmosphere. I had a bloody awesome time. Bonus!

Fucking Bloodstock!!!!

Basically BisonHammer fucking kick your ass! All of you! They're playing at Bloodtock wooooooo!!!!! I can't even put in to words how much I know they deserve it & all you Boodstock goers better be there to see them play or I'll kick your asses too :D

I'm currently ASMing on The Meek at Arden. It's not going to badly, just one annoying-ass desk to find really & some other bits & bobs. I'm feeling really left out of rehearsals though, it's their last show & I'm missing all the fun :( At least I'll get to be down on the deck when it's all going on. I haven't been on stage for a looooong long time hehe. Having said that, I might be elbow deep in live video feeds so whether there'll be a sneaky green-haired cameo remains to be seen.

DOWNLOAD NEXT WEEKEND!!!! Our tickets still haven't arrived though, I'm properly biting my nails. If they don't get here soon I'm really really going to cry. I mean it.

Anyhoo, that's all for now. Anyone fancy seeing the show I don't really know what it's like but it promises to be very weird & contains at least 4 dead bodies so there you go. Opens next wednesday, call 0161 279 7357 for tickets :)

Woo BisonHammer!

I've been buried deep in horse clothes still for the past few days, although I'm hitting walls all over the place till more fabric arrives. I've nearly finished Malory's stuff bar sewing it all together & I've made up the panels of Pembroke's which is red & blue & looks just like those blow up beds that everyone has.

Last night was the semi-final of the battle for Bloodstock at GC. It was a fucking sick night, I only saw the last 3 but they all slayed. Obviously BisonHammer fucking kicked ass as usual & Facebook tells me this morning that they won & they're through to the final. Woop! Last night was one of the best times I've seen them play, it was fucking awesome!

2 more days of being medieval & then I start back at Arden on Friday as ASM so I can have the Download weekend off. I'm so excited. I'm holding it back however as me & Ad still have to get 1 ticket & they're all sold out. It's making me so nervous! Just keep trawling through the address book I guess...

That's all the news for now. Hopefully I'll have some finished caparison pictures soon :D

Ermine stencilling....

Tomorrow is the final day on this caparison. I spent all day stencilling ermine patterns & the border thing which I forget the name of. It came on pretty well except in a moment of being a total fucktard I stencilled the pattern upside down on 2 sections. Gah! One of them I managed to unpick it, turn it over & re-sew the chevron on the other way up. After re-touching the paint I don't think anyone would ever know. Unfortunately the other piece was an odd shape so we've put it to one side for the moment & I'll have to sort it out later. What a fool!

Tomorrow the lions go on. Exciting!

Here is a photographic journey through my day...

1. First I finished off the front part that goes over the horses neck. I actually made this yesterday. After much agonising over the size of a horses neck, me & Mum nipped over to the riding school with a tape measure where a friendly yocal let us measure her horse :D



2. I masked off the crimped edge (there really is an actual name for it but I can't bloody remember it) using masking tape shaped by stabbing it repeatedly with a gouge. Today I discovered that peeling masking tape off to reveal a pattern underneath is one of the most satisfying feelings ever!



3. Next I stencilled on the ermine pattern using acrylic paint & marking it out with pins. Saying that hardly does it justice, it took me fucking hours!



4. A days work! All that's left to do is put the lions on & sew the lot together. Woop!

Caparisons

Today I have been making horse clothes. They're in the heraldry of Thomas Malary for Alan's horse. Eventually they'll be a front & back piece, divided in to quarters & half horizontally respectively. The white squares have a red chevron & some pattern based on squirral fur that I can't remember the name of. The yellow squares will have 3 crawling lions in black. They're not quite there yet though, here's the bum part in the making...

The Continuing Story of My First Doublet!

Well the doublet's been coming along nicely. I fitted the first toile which looked like this...



As you can see I had to pin some more at the front & also the shoulders were too narrow. Alan also requested for the front waist seam to be higher & the whole thing shorter. This is because he's taking the part of Sir Thomas Malory for the tournament, who was a rather outrageous man & so certainly would have shown his 'privy parts' as they put it! Incidentally, only nobility were allowed by law to do this, so if you were a rakish peasant you just had to make do with personality & good looks to get the ladies...

The trouble I found with fitting Alan is that he changes shape by a good 5 or 6 inches depending on if it's before dinner of after! So in the end we compromised on more space over a tightly fitting waist seam.

The second toile incorporated all those changes & looked like this...



And it fits! Woooo! So last night I was sat in bed making up the final one. It all has to be hand sewn of course - no sewing machines in 1470, so I'll have the final pictures eventually. Anyway, yesterday Alan bought masses & masses of coloured canvas so this mornings job is horse caparisons. Exciting!

Making A Doublet...

The past 2 days have been spent making a doublet for Alan. It's not finished yet, I'm just on the 2nd toile but it's already looking pretty good.

Someone asked me the other day how much they cost & seemed surprised at the amount. Thing is they take a bloody long time to make! This one should already have cost £140 in labour alone & I haven't even started on the actual thing yet! Luckily I'm nice & don't charge that much. If you don't believe me, here's how you make a doublet...

1. BLOCK: First of all you make a block of the person by pinning fabric tightly over their body, drawing over the lines & then cutting the pieces out. You lay them flat & draw round them to make a pattern of that persons body. Rather like a second skin I guess. When I did this on Alan he looked like a teddy bear about to have surgery! wish I'd taken a picture...

2. DRAFT: Trace off the block & draw on how the pattern pieces will fit against the persons measurements. Add a collar, re-shape the back to make a diagonal seam below the neck. Draft a sleeve pattern by measuring their arm.

3. TOILE: Make a tester using the drafted pattern. Make the sleeves in to puff sleeves, sew it all together, put it on them & pin it closed down the front. Here's a picture of my tester puff sleeves (first time I ever did them!)



Not bad eh? I made one massive one & it was too big so I made a smaller one & put them both on the toile to see. He looked rather like one of those crabs with one massive claw hehe.

After that it's the arduous process of pinning fabric on where needed & taking darts where needed & making alterations & toiles until it fits. Then you go for the real thing! So as you can see it's not quick.

I'm also down to make caparisons or barding if you like, which is the decorative stuff that horses wear like this:



I'm starting that on Monday. I've never made horse clothes before! Awesome!