So much I could write about! .Best.Pennsic.Evar. and I am going to try to hold focus on Roman(ish) things in this post. Mostly. ;-)

The Plan: Low Drag, New Stola
As I was planning on the Middle Weekend + Monday (leaving Tuesday am) I planned traveling pretty light and had only one new outfit that I *had* to make: another gathered stola, in yellow as a nod to my barony's colors as I processed as Ponte Alto's Baronial Artisan during Opening Ceremonies. Same style as the walnut brown one; the "skinny straps" version showing up on Octavia and others. The 3.5oz "amber yellow" linen from Fabrics-Store.com arrived the Thursday before Middle Weekend: wash, wash, dry, iron, cut, sew, done! Plus a green belt Frankensteined from a spendy amount of upholstery trim from G Street... and happily works exactly as I wanted! Aaaaaand: innovation! tearing my wider 3.5oz tunicae interior in half, opening up the top and bottom sides to 20", et voila! Twice as many underbits and half as much bulk under the stolae. w00t!

A Snark, or Hadrian Had It Right
At Vlad's on Saturday night there was a roving band of short, snuffling, men in what appeared to be "kilts" and "woad" (sigh) that managed to have me shaking my head and being ... assertive ... when one came up to sniff my beer. "Go away. Now." from a Roman matron yields a scuffling retreat, a bow, and a quick exit by a couple of them. I had to laugh ;-) and did say something to the effect of "*This* is why Hadrian built the wall." I crack me up :-)

The Wearing: Hair Fu, Flipflops, Mamillare of Wonder, and How to Look Like a Traffic Cone
Yes, traffic cone; but that's after Opening Ceremonies ;-) The yellow gathered stola was as I wanted: yellow and stola-y and very comfy in the heat of the day. I have found a few photos (yay!) from Opening Ceremonies; predictably, I am not the slightest bit photogenic ;-) but my clothes look great! Hee. Hair fu in the early parts of the week involved using the short Crafty Celts pins in the manner least likely to cause hair headache by the end of the day (topknot); happily, it's not too far from the "beehive" look (metellus) sported by the mater familias. No wonder that patrician women had a slave specifically for hair (and cosmetics); an ornatrix would be a lovely thing indeed. Oh, and pardon the flipflops in the photos; with the exception of the cold nights later in the week, my 'flops were it for the week as they are [a] most comfy in heat and [b] most familiar to my feet in such settings (blisters BAD).

Photos on Flickr: isabelladangelo has a couple [1 and 2] and pinkleader has a third [3] Thank you for posting pix! I'll be bugging you soon for permission to crop and post on my site :-D

I'm superpleased with the yellow stola with light grey palla: it echoes the wall painting of Flora in Pompeii ... which is a tapered style (next up in the noodling) and while the source is more likely wool (and the palla lighter-weight) this gathered stola is a good start and very comfy for War :-)

I wore mamillare all day, every day: the last bit of sewing before I hit the road was to rip and edge a few 3.5oz linen 24" wide x 120" long (ish) mamillare. BINGO. Comfort, support, and on Friday when I bothered to tension the top and bottom edges when tying? Nearly sports-bra level of support. SRSLY. Much more comfy and supportive than any modern strapless bra I've worn; wonder if I can get away with a mamillare under formal wear? (KIDDING but wow, happy to demo / tech support this for other DDD+ grrls interested in trying this approach: I'd *love* to hear others' experiences!)

Oh, and the traffic cone look? Was me in my "slopping about camp" lower class tunica exterior (closed top, mid-calf length, no palla) made from some gifted orange linen from turbogrrl ... the last minute addition of an "apron" strip of yellow linen left over from the new stola (not a Roman thing, but handy to have) en route to the field on Monday made for a very easy-to-locate Iohanna when lady_kaolin came a-looking for Dun Carraig's Pretty Pretty Fieldside Hospitality :-D Heh. I was but a few strips of reflective tape away from pylon :-)

And Then There Was Shopping
I love coming home with the tools / bits-and-pieces that I need to "make things go" on my projects list :-) or finding "the perfect thing!" that I wasn't looking for :-D

• Crafty Celts -- fibulae and stola hardware (AKA belt slides) -- As ever, Master Vortigern has hooked a Roman up :-) My entire wardrobe is held together by his fibulae of some form or another :-) I swapped out my free-range bird fibulae once recovered by sunniva_kyrre for ones with more sturdy pins; yay! I can use them on my heavier stolae again :-) lady_kaolin spotted the larger cat-formed bow fibulae that look like Dante! They are similar to the lion fibulae and were *fabu* with the red wool stola Thursday for the Pretty Pretty Princess Party; heavy pins, strong "spring," and much easier to wrangle than the straight bronze pins. Saving best (most exciting) for last: a pair of small belt slides that I'm going to use to test one of the gathered stola renderings that appear to have a "bar" across the gathers, below "straps." I figure I'll test the method with some of my older 4.5oz linen open-top tunicae before mucking about with wool....
  
  
• Mirror Box Guy -- bone hair pins -- No clue what the merchant name is ... but am happy that I wandered fully into his shop with lady_kaolin to notice *SQUEE* seven small handmade bone pins! Which in Roman Grrl Speak equals wicked lightweight hair pins! hophophop :-) I look forward to fewer hair headaches in the future :-)
  
  
• Unknown Back Alley Merchant Lady -- "good enough" reticulum -- On a quest for snoods for Lady Lynette that won't make me itch (i.e., not stretchy shiny ravelly $2 each Renn Fest snoods) I wandered through the "back alley" along Currie Road, and found a lady selling "bedazzled" crocheted snoods ... aaaannnnd some plain ones :-) Pawing through the basket of plain (found one red and one white for Lady Lynette) I spotted a yellowy-goldish one.... Proprietress said it was a child's snood, and wouldn't be large enough for me.... *SQUEE* It echoes the hair net (reticulum) shown in some sources; not the gold-wrapped fiber of the extants [1 and 2], but enough of the "look and feel" for me to noodle around with wear and fit before making one myself. I don't have Sappho's curls (yet?) but am guessing a reticulum is helpful in crafting some of the Flavian styles (some look to have a "crosshatch" over the braids... HMMM)
  
  
• Vortex of Evil -- some braids, a few fiber tools, and a pitcher -- The attack_laurel's lacing braids will be hijacked into being stola straps (heh), spanish_peacock graciously helped me whittle away my gift certificate (with nal fu from Sigrid Briansdottir; I have a cunning sock plan), and thatpotteryguy sent me home with a fabu pitcher for future Beer Fairy appearances (so cute! looks a bit like an elephant, which pleases me muchly; is it overkill to want to sew an outfit to go with my period pottery? Anyone have 10th century beer maiden sources?)

And my "low pro" Pearl chain / cord? Worked *as though I had planned it* as the best medallion chain thingie ever :-) And I'm calling that Roman due to Venus' scallop shell iconography. :-)