12:36 PM Sherwood Forest Faire Opening Weekend 2013

Since the first day Sherwood Forest Faire opened I have been dying to get to take a trip down to the Austin area to attend.  I had heard so many things about what kind of faire it was expected to be and then I heard so many rave reviews once the first season finished.  The only bummer was that half the faire run overlapped Scarborough Renaissance Festival (Scarby).  And March is always a Very busy time for me as there are several cons and festivals I participate in happening all throughout the month.  Not to mention March is my last minute preparations month for Scarby.  I was pretty convinced I would never get to attend Sherwood.  Then they moved the season up so that Sherwood concluded just before Scarby began.  And at that point my only problem was getting over camping in the cold.  I am Not a fan of cold!  And I'm no where Near prepared for it.  Lucky for me, this weekend turned out to be rather moderate.  We were expecting a deluge of rain, so the camp site was light, but we had an Amazing time anyways.  The rain gods smiled upon us and didn't really let us have it until the wee hours of the morning when everyone had pretty much decided to go to bed anyways.  The rain gods were also kind enough to stop the rain just before time for everyone to start waking up, so really the worst part was if you were a light sleeper and then you were probably worried your tent was going to fly to OZ.  I am not a light sleeper.  I didn't hear a thing.  I very well Could have landed in OZ and stayed asleep for all I knew.  Good thing it was just a storm and not an act of magical travel to an alternate dimension via a funnel cloud.

Here I am in my basic wool medieval dress.  I made this years ago for a 12th Night feast I attended with some SCA friends.  It is from the La Fleur de Lyse Woman of Medieval Romanesque Period 1060-1150 pattern.  If I remember correctly I made a bunch of adjustments to the fit as I wanted it to be plain like the peasant dress, but more fitted like the lady dress.  Now that I have worn the dress a few times, I may actually go back and let out some of those seams because I think it would look better.  I also want to go ahead and put some sort of embellishment on it so I feel like wearing it more often.  I have a feeling it will get more wear at Sherwood now, so I just want to make sure I enjoy wearing it.  I prefer plainer, lower class garments to highly embellished fussy ones, but this is a little too plain.  Even for me.  I have to say that I LOVED wearing the turban the whole day!  Holy crap that was incredible not having to worry about what my crazy curly hair was doing in all that damp.  Not to mention it is in a strange short transitional stage right now.  

In another Rennie life I sometimes work with a joust company.  I was a lady rider for New Riders of the Golden Age for a few years.  Two years at Scarby and one year at Norman Medieval Faire.  I also worked the kiddy warhorse rides.  This year the joust troupe contracted to work at Sherwood.  I was really torn between working and making Sherwood a play faire.  In the end I opted to play at Sherwood this season.  I haven't been able to properly play with my Rennie friends in quite some time and so I decided that was more important this time.  But of course I got to chat with my old joust friends and smoosh horsey faces.  And marvel at how the horse I rode last time at Scarby has grown.  The horse in the red and gold above...that's Abraham.  He was just a baby joust horse when I rode him.  He has grown Quite a Bit!  And he's a full time jousting horse now.  I'm so proud!