Weekend Report

Friday - Preparation Day

I'm not sure I needed to stay home Friday, but I decided I wanted to, and so I did.

I got most of the garb packed, and most of the tools packed, and . . . printed out various bits and pieces of paper we needed to take with us. Then I mentally flailed about regarding how many belts we had and how many I thought we might need.

Which turned out to be a fruitless exercise, because we are rather low on half-cows of the harness and latigo leathers we use for belts. I only had one side of black, and decided what we needed in black wasn't particularly pressing.

Then Robin and I went out and did some errands, including buying water and pickles for Saturday.

After lunch I started a bag, similar to the one we made for Ron next weekend, for myself. I decided to make it large enough to hold a standard letter-sized piece of paper (or booklet), and to go with a landscape orientation. I also widened the large gusset from 3.5 inches to 5 inches. I cut the front, flap, and ront facing piece out of some very nice dark brown moose, and the gussets and straps are golden brown.

One of the issues with making Ron's bag was gluing the gussets in. For mine, I dampened the gussets, folded them lengthwise (once for the small gusset, accordioned-folded into fourths for the wide gusset), then shaped them - the wide gusset to the center divider, and the narrow gusset to a scrap I trimed to the right width and corner shape.

Ron got home in the early afternoon, he and Robin packed the trailer, and by mid-afternoon we were pretty much ready to go.

Then a few minutes before six I realized I hadn't been to the bank. I made it in time.

Saturday

The site was a county fairgrounds in Elkhorn, WI. Things were spread way way out - feast hall way over to the left, camping off the front right, and the fencing and fighting off to the left front. Some of the field in front of us appeared to be roped off for fighting, but nobody used those areas.

Weather-wise, it was hot and windy. And the site was dusty. We spent the morning chasing things that got blown off the table, Xap and I saved a garage tent that had lost 3 of the 4 legs on one side of disaster; and we spent all day chasing the shade from the back of our space to the front.

In the morning we got new prices on merchandise, a process made slightly more complicated by the wind. Then I worked on my bag, Ron and Xap each did the braiding on a belt in the afternoon.

We definitely need more hard pouches. The post-CodCon plan was to mold fronts, but that fell through.

Sales were not great, both Ron and I had expected better. I heard someone I know, who's wife has been a merchant, remarking to someone else about the spread-out nature of the site being against us. I think that was a correct asessment. We were kind of on the way to the fighting, but not really. I don't think we spent more in gas and food than we took in, but close. We'd have been better off to stay home.

We got home to find the first of the two leather kilts Ron had ordered from AltKilt had arrived. Green with a black waistband, front apron, and trim. Very very nice.

Then showers, as we were feeling filthy, and to bed.

Today

This morning Ron made a belt to go with his kilt, so he could wear it to "Avenue Q" this afternoon (the belt he wears with his other kilts is too wide for the loops on the new one). He covered a belt blank with leftover green leather, with a bright silver buckle and loop set. It looks really nice.

We'd been planning to make a matching sporran, originally thinking it could wait, as his black sporran would look ok. But a green one would look soooo much better. So we made that this morning, too, with a black gusset and binding on the flap, and an antique nickel latch. It looks really nice. I'll get Ron to forward the pictures to me.

This morning we also started some leather soaking to mold for pouch fronts, and were going to mold it tonight, but we pooped out. It should keep until tomorrow.