Opening of faire, and other stuff
Opening Weekend of Faire! I not only survived, I had a GREAT time. I can't thank Barbara enough for getting us together to dance. I've been wanting to dance at Faire pretty much since I started back in '95, but I wasn't brave enough then to ask about getting into the group. When I was brave enough, the old country dance group had been cancelled. (It was literally the same day that I was going to ask Barb about joining that she started talking about how Newcastle wasn't coming back). I had so much fun doing the shows and sitting in the Ghetto relaxing and seeing parts of Faire that I forgot that I had friends visiting Faire from Illinois/Iowa/Nebraska. Oops! Luckily I ran into them a couple of times, and they came to one of our Maypole sets. Steve even selected my friend Ericka to help wrap the Maypole, which she really enjoyed.
I also discovered my new character during the first set on Saturday. I'd only had 3 hours of sleep that night (between 3 and 6am on Saturday morning) due to needing to finish up some sewing projects. It's been years since I pulled the all night/must get costumes done thing on Opening weekend. I was happy and excited enough to keep myself awake, but my brain wasn't quite all there. Because of this, I ended up making silly mistakes in a couple of dances, and (as we're told) just hamming it up when I did. This is how I discovered that I am apparently the 'silly' character :D. When I told all this to my friend Dee Anna (stopped by Queen's Court to see her and tell her all about our first set), she gave my new character a name: Penelope. She said it was suitably silly for my silly, loopy character. For the remaining 5 shows, I played up the silliness, although I did make a couple of slips back into my old character (Abigail, who was a total bitch). Now I just have to learn to respond to Penny and Penelope instead of Sara and Abigail! It's tough when you've had the same faire name for 10+ years!
I find it really interesting how our show is coming together from a bunch of dances into a real show. Schtick bits to introduce dances are becoming actual roles/parts of a cohesive performance. It's really kind of cool :).
And for those that are disappointed about the lack of sewing news.... Tori's outfit is done, and delivered, except for bloomers for which I forgot to measure her. It's terribly adorable :D. Bruce's pants almost got finished, but at 3am Saturday morning I realized that I'd pinned the leg to the leg band completely wrong and was going to have to repin it (luckily I didn't sew it and have to rip out the seam). I went to bed instead. His pants are first on my list for this week (which may actually be tonight).
I also discovered my new character during the first set on Saturday. I'd only had 3 hours of sleep that night (between 3 and 6am on Saturday morning) due to needing to finish up some sewing projects. It's been years since I pulled the all night/must get costumes done thing on Opening weekend. I was happy and excited enough to keep myself awake, but my brain wasn't quite all there. Because of this, I ended up making silly mistakes in a couple of dances, and (as we're told) just hamming it up when I did. This is how I discovered that I am apparently the 'silly' character :D. When I told all this to my friend Dee Anna (stopped by Queen's Court to see her and tell her all about our first set), she gave my new character a name: Penelope. She said it was suitably silly for my silly, loopy character. For the remaining 5 shows, I played up the silliness, although I did make a couple of slips back into my old character (Abigail, who was a total bitch). Now I just have to learn to respond to Penny and Penelope instead of Sara and Abigail! It's tough when you've had the same faire name for 10+ years!
I find it really interesting how our show is coming together from a bunch of dances into a real show. Schtick bits to introduce dances are becoming actual roles/parts of a cohesive performance. It's really kind of cool :).
And for those that are disappointed about the lack of sewing news.... Tori's outfit is done, and delivered, except for bloomers for which I forgot to measure her. It's terribly adorable :D. Bruce's pants almost got finished, but at 3am Saturday morning I realized that I'd pinned the leg to the leg band completely wrong and was going to have to repin it (luckily I didn't sew it and have to rip out the seam). I went to bed instead. His pants are first on my list for this week (which may actually be tonight).