Your clothes looks so used! They look authentic worn, stained and patched like that! How do you get your clothes patinated that good?
I have no events to use my clothes at! No one makes events with my focus/timesegment.
You recognise these questions? We have gotten them and similar many times. People like to use the things they make but there is no place to do it at. Its the same for us. But it don’t have to be that fancy and difficult. We are what can be described as quite active. That’s how our clothes get ‘that used and tarnished look” (dirty and decript is also terms that has been applied…)
Why is it good to get out?
While some are perfectly happy to just make clothes and watch them hang on a rack, many want to feel how they work. To get a real feel for how they work, what works and in which way, you need to actually use them. Sitting at a table at a banquet you can do in almost any clothing. But walking, running, climbing and working in the clothes will make you feel what works and what doesn’t. It might also give you some revelations about why the clothes are cut, or the gear positioned, as it is. This is to slowly move into experimental archaeology…
Organising an event?
Now, all things we do might look very planned when it is digested and pooped out in blogform. But mostly they are about as planned as this:
Me: Hey, its supposed to be nice weather tomorrow, forest?
Emil: Yeah, we aint been out since two weekends ago. You finally going to shoot that hornsoundingvideo?
Me: Naa….. dun feel like it.. I need to check up sources…. lets just.. eat cheese.
Emil: Ok, new forest?
Me: Naaa….. lets take the same one as I’m lazy and don’t wanna walk to far before we get to the actual woods.
Events don’t have to be big. Instead of conducting a salmon orchestra of pipers, with a meatfork, maybe just a pie in the park will do?
And this is the making of about 80% of our blogposts under the ‘hunting expeditions tag’ (like this one for example) . They usually result in a day or half day of medieval woodsmanship.
Time for planning: approx ten minutes.
Time to prepare approx 20 min (including looking for braes -ten minutes)
This is an excellent way to keep your medievaling going and get to use your clothes that you put all those hours into making.
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The next level, organising an event!
Lets say you want some more people to join you and not just the ones that are easily gripped at armslength.
It still don’t have to be very much work. Just set a date, a time and maaaaaybe some kind of theme (if it doesn’t feel to advanced) and tell people to be there. You usually get more people the longer time they have to plan.
A week? You get maybe three to five people.
A month? You get maybe ten to twenty.
No one ever liked neighbours playing loud music. Keep the event civil.
Now, some might think its more work the more people you get. But you don’t really have to do everything yourself. You don’t have to make all the food, get places to sit and tables and all that. Most people like making their own things. That is part of the hobby after all. These kind of events can range from rather small and cosy, like the huntgathering, or very big social historical crossovers, like “the ultimate historic megapicnic” , which where both in the form of a picknick and thus not as draining on the organisers.
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Its just me, myself and I
Lets say it is mostly just you that share the fascination of late spring 1378 and you’d like others to play with you. To get people interested there is almost just one way to go around it. Get active. If you build it, they will come. People like to be social, and they like to do things. This is why historic segments with alot of actives, get more actives.
Try to get cool pics for Facebook. But don’t get photobombed by shady monks in sunglasses.
No one likes those guys.
If you want to get a new historic segment started you need to make things people can do in that segment. There is no use to try and lure someone to sew an outfit to clutter up yet more space in an overused closet. As stated above, it doesn’t have to be fancy, but it has to be shown. If you are falling down in the forest and noone noticed it on Facebook, noone will ever know. But if you show all and everyone how you sit on a rock, eat a sausage and pokes a worm, they will see how cool it is and want to join.
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In conclusion
You don’t have to make things big and fancy. Just grab your stuff and go out.
/Johan
Exploring the medieval hunt 
Your side is the best advertisement to do it also the same way. But for real hart (boar-) hunting the clothes are to expensive and to difficult to make. But otherwise I try do find someone makes me a boarhunter jacket like Svens and maybe I taste in under real conditions.
For my book about dogs and boarhunt, I will take a few pictures with my dogs in medieval style combined with modern cutvest/harnish for the dogs and cold steel boarspear (maybe).
I search for a medieval dog harnish, too. When the fotoshot is done, I can post some of them here.
I know several that hunt boars and hart in medieval gear. But how hard they are to make is depending on how your craftmanship is i guess 🙂
No, it depends on your weapons and on your way of hunting. Standing on a place and shoot is very easy. Go with the dogs in the thickest thorns and help the dogs, when they catch a wounded boar, is an other way. The last one is nearby the medieval way, the other is only wearing clothes and do it like other modern hunters too.
Of course you can go with the dogs in medieval clothing but than they (the clothes 🙂 ) look very fast very used. The shoes will go to hell in less than a few month.
But I bought a loden cape for medieval events, and ´cause it is so warm and fits so good, I use it after hunts ad the fireplace. Is a first step, I hope I´ll continue.
it sounds you have experience of boarhunting, but not as much with medeival clothing and gear? I have been roughing it in several places that is arguably worse conditions then boarhunting conditions. As in all geras tha quality of your gear will be dependent of how long its last. But will get beaten up and mended, but thats what this was about:
here is a video of boarhunting in medieval kit by the way.
okay, I know this vid. Do you know those guys?
I think of places like this [img]http://up.picr.de/21464634dg.jpg[/img]
Yes, that is Richard Swiney in the video. They are part of St. Huberts hunters, they hunt in medieval gear all the time. We are also part of that Group. You can reach them on facebook.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/sthubertsrangers/?ref=ts&fref=ts
Im sorry but your Picturelink did not work for me’
it doesn´t for me too, how can I set a pic here? I try it with picr.de
Sven must be Emil – sorry
OMG, you can’t just put up a picture of a monk in sunglasses and not give me a date for the picture! I might could be wearing those! And making hundreds of people jealous!
I know what you mean about having lived-in clothes. I find myself looking enviously at some of the European re-enactors’ clothing because it still seems to have something authentic about it that I lack–even though I have switched to both handsewing and lining all of my garments. I think, maybe, it’s just a matter of they’ve been wearing it a while and wool, especially, molds to the body. (Living in Tennessee, where it can get dangerously hot in the summer, I don’t get a chance to wear much wool and a linen dress never fits the same as a wool one.)
But at a recent event, I fell in love with an old dress of mine all over again. It’s a heavy linen that’s been washed (and re-dyed) several times, so it’s nice and soft. It was never the best-quality, though, and there’s one or two places that have worn thin and I’ve had to re-weave the holes. Originally, it had a wide band of fake ermine at the bottom, but the red bled on it, so it was pulled off and never replaced (same with the tippets). I ended up wearing it over a white chemise with the sleeves rolled up (the red dress is short-sleeved), and I wore my new Brigitta’s cap with it. I looked like a working woman. I’m going to pair it with an apron and replace the gold metallic buttons with some cloth-covered ones and tell people that it’s a cast-off from my lady (who would have certainly salvaged her buttons and tippets and fur from it before giving it away).
The monk is from a late 14:th cent german Manuscript.
Buttons where often reused, probobly not just after a garment was ‘dead’ but also switched between dresses. My Friend Maria made a article about it here:
https://indemejarecristi.wordpress.com/2015/01/25/the-metal-button-issue/
I cant really tell how hot it gets in Tenessee, but i know our italian reenactors (and thats hot for me) also favours wool because it sheilds of the heat. and works as an insluator both ways. That is, it also keeps a constant not to hot temperature.
I had heard about metal buttons set in eyelets and attached with lacing in the back, but that blog is the first that I’ve seen with documentation. I’ll have to save that for future use!
I’ve heard some people swear by wool in the summer–in places up North. My husband, who did Civil War re-enacting and wore wool in the summer in TN–said it’s all lies; wool is awful in the summer.
Last year, at probably the hottest event of the summer, the temperature was about 95F/35C, but the humidity was so high (and that’s a common problem in the South; when the air is muggy, your sweat doesn’t evaporate very much, so you can’t cool down naturally), the “feels like” heat index was 105F/40.5C. And, unfortunately, that’s pretty average for that time of year. (I checked Italy out of curiosity; Southern Italy averages mid-80’s in August; Tennessee’s August average is 91. Our climate is much closer to that of Israel.)
I have half a mind to try some wool, though, just to see for myself. I have a lightweight wool that I might make with short sleeves. Even if it doesn’t work for summer, I can pin a pair of contrasting lower sleeves on to make it good for winter, and it would be nice to be able to take those off and roll up my undersleeves if I wanted to cook or clean.
But I’ve also considered cross-dressing for the summer. I saw a man in his short linen cotehardie, braies, and rolled-down hosen at a hot event and I was jealous!
Yeah i cant really act like i actually have a clue about tenessee climate when sitting here in my tempered climate. My only experience with tenessee is listening to tenessee stud with Johnny Cash.
There… is some odd mentioning about linnen jackets. And also madderdyed shifts in linnen (uvdal church, Norway).
How about silk? Did you try that?
There is a link on the blog to Sartor. They sell historic silkdamast that is to die for.
St. Hubert’s Rangers are having a boar hunt in Tennessee next year (and in April, which is generally pleasant weather… when it’s not raining). Why not try a holiday in Amerika this year?
My husband has a silk cotehardie that he only wears in the fall/winter because it’s too hot to wear any other time (I’ve also found my silk veils to be very hot to wear in the summer). But, I did have a gauze-silk salwar kameez that my husband brought me back from India that was very cool, though, so I don’t know. I guess a lot depends on the weave.
yes. We are both members of St.Huberts rangers. But it is a little to far and to expensive for us to go there.
I feel you. It’s been about 8 years since my husband and I were last able to go overseas. Our passports aren’t even valid anymore.