If you are a Viking in the SCA or a member of the international Viking community, you might be familiar with Scot and Maggie King of Feed the Ravens/VikingULike.  They are both wonderful artisans, exceptionally open with their vast store of knowledge, and a positive influence on the reennacting community as a whole.  Last night Scot was bitten twice by copperhead snakes and while he is now doing ok, and working on recovery, the excessive cost of the anti-venom is NOT being covered by their insurance.  A GoFundMe has been set up to help defray these costs.

Please consider making a donation and/or buying some of the amazing wares in their shop to help our own in this time of need.​  https://www.gofundme.com/help-scot-and-maggie

And you can find their shop here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/feedtheravens

This is absolutely one of my favorite parts of Pennsic.  This event is a fantastic chance to take a step into the past and explore various arts as they were done then.  Some of my favorites from past years were lampworking beads over coals, early period embroidery, spinning, bronze casting and, my favorite, was last year where I got to make a coin!   Some classes will be organized with specific times, but even if you miss that thing you really wanted to take, here tends to be artisans down there all day doing demos.  

This is absolutely worth putting at the top of your Pennsic To-Do List!
Preachain's 26th Annual Early Period Arts and Sciences Day

• Wednesday, August 8 at 1 PM - 4 PM
• Clanne Preachain's camp, E-23, across from the Raven's Spittle in the Bog

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This post is for those in the SCA who brave the hot humid events, and who desire something a bit "less" to wear that still falls in with a quasi-historical look.

Five years ago, I wrote an article for this blog called "Dressing for the Weather".  In that piece, I covered use of linen, types of garb and some other tips based on my own experiences over the years.  Ability to cope with the weather, is, of course, a very personal issue and while some can parade around in full Elizabethan at Pennsic, others would find their comfort too compromised were they to dress in that manner.  Because this is the SCA, we allow for a range of options, and strict period attire is not required.  There are still plenty of ways to try to fend off that humidity, with a passible historic guise.

One way to do this is simple single layer garb.  Many people opt for Roman or Green in the summer months for this very reason.  A chiton or peplos can be a brilliant way of combatting the elements.

Other options include Bog-dresses (which is also a peplos).  This garment can be voluminous for a very historic look (and in linen, with no belt, that can be exceedingly comfortable in the muggy Pennsic afternoons).  Finds from Huldremose, Zweeloo and Hammerum all give us peplos garments that are a tube of cloth that is pinned at the shoulders.  Huldremose has a fold at the top that creates a flap while the other two have the pins at the edge.  The Hammerum dress is also short, which actually allows you to make this garment with less fabric (and less bunching under the arms and at the waist) than the Huldremose version.

For something still passible, but that uses minimal cloth and reduces bunching, I have a document on creating a "less fabric" version of a bog dress, that uses pleats at the top for a better drape. Without the pleats it is actually pretty comparable to a "Germanic Barbarian Dress" from the Hungarian Museum.  You can find that item here:  ​http://awanderingelf.weebly.com/blog-my-journey/sca-standards-the-bog-dress

Finally, we have the Theoretical Wrap Dress that I tested out last year.  This garment only requires a single hemmed piece of cloth and drapes easily and that keeps you fully covered while working.  You can find instructions (as well as my tips) for this item in my post from last year:

http://awanderingelf.weebly.com/blog-my-journey/new-projects-right-before-war