Friday, April 8, 2016

The Journey Continues


It's been a spell since I last posted here, but life gets busy and our plates become full.
Thankfully, events with friends still occur on a somewhat regular basis. These days are made even better when we get to spend time together in costume!
A few weeks back, San Jose hosted Silicon Valley Comic Con. It was a perfect excuse to not only get into costumed shenanigans with friends, but to enjoy the entirety of the con and all its amazing guests, talent, personalities, cosplays, vendors, workshops and discussion panels.

Still, my favorite part was the fact that we'd gathered more friends for the shieldwall, including the awesomely talented BelleChere, who built their own unique Viking impressions/costumes based on the History Channel TV series, 'Vikings'.
We raided SVCC, we all looked fantastic, and we had a blast.
I had dyed my hair a visceral blood red shade about two months before, and it had finally (amazingly) worked its way out in time for SVCC.
I wore my blue Lagertha battledress and armor from season 2, along with one of the bronze hound barrettes she wears in the current season 4 of Vikings. I had bought a matching set (one for each side) of the hounds from the Crafty Celts booth, at this last Dragon Con before they were available online. This first set was actually taken from the same initial castings as those sent to the Vikings production for Katheryn Winnick.
At the time, they didn't have the accompanying bronze doe barrettes available, but they alerted me as soon as they were a few months later. I pined over them, not having the extra funds at that moment.

In exchange for some needed and skilled massage therapy on my battle-weary back, I built some leather armor with chainmaille, for my good friend and fellow Shieldmaiden, River. I also assisted her with modifying a found suede jacket into a tunic for underneath, and dyed a Scandinavian style shirt to be a little more rustic.

River and yours truly; from the talented eye and lens of Arian Hormozi.
I turned up the brightness of this image a bit, so you can see a little more of River's outfit.

Another great shot by Arian Hormozi.
Right to left: BelleChere, Mary Anne Butler, Me, Anders Hudson, River, Gwendolyn and Geoff.


A closeup in-progress shot of the waist cincher portion of the battle gear I made for River.
The woven parts are actually created from a woven leather belt found at a thrift store. I ended up weaving it to the cincher itself along the top edge and down the center, framing the tooled boar designs I did, and resembling Thor's hammer.


SVCC was also the weekend before my Birthday, and while my gift from Anders didn't arrive in time, it arrived that Monday after. It was a set of the bronze doe barrettes to join my hounds!!

Self portrait, barrettes by Crafty Celts.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

The Little Viking Raid On Dragon Con 2015


Saturday night craziness with Ragnar (Joe Winkler), Floki (Anders) and a few fellow shieldmaidens.

Left to right: The Omer sisters Loren & Karen, me, Jen and Kristen


With Laura, bringing up the left of the shield wall

Loki likes petting my hair


"So much flash!" with Floki.

I even have my Viking shwerve going under my Battlestar Galactica flightsuit, thanks to my TYR (metal band) bikini. The bum says "Kiss my Scandinavian ass".
More to come, stay tuned!
XOXO

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

At The Faire

San Jose Fantasy Faire - April 2015
Photos by Stephen C Johnson


Wait, what?!...


Photo by Angelica Roque with Kazaran Spasojevich as the Doctor.

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Vikings Like Gelato, Too

On a Sunday afternoon, and the Shieldmaiden hair is still going strong 48 hours and two battles later!



Earlier...

Skål! xoxox

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Links To The Lagertha Project

Yesterday, I was one of 10 contestants that won in the History Channel's "Valhalloween" costume contest!
There were so many great entries, and while I didn't vote for myself, I still voted for a few of the other people that entered their amazing viking inspired costumes. A huge THANK YOU to those of you that voted for me and my fellow winners xoxox

When I began this journey of leather work, chainmaille and lack of sleep, I was posting about it all over at my main historical journal. Now that I've had to compartmentalize all the various hobbies between different blogs, here are the links that will take you through the process of how I built Lagertha's battledress. I could re-post all the posts here, but that's more work than it needs to be ;)
Newest to oldest (wow that's a lot of entries):

Dragon Con: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/09/dragoncon-lagertha-part-i.html

Finishing touches before Dragon Con: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-final-update.html

The chainmaille & leather armor: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/lagerthas-battledress-making-progress.html

The leather work: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/still-kicking.html

More Leather work: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/lagerthas-battledress-leatherwork-and.html

Leather Dress etc: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/lagerthas-battledress-blue-leather-dress.html

First patterning for the leather pieces: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/08/lagerthas-battledress-early-update-on.html

The boots: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/07/omg-shoes-lesson-on-viking-footwear.html

The Chainmaille shirt I used to supply the larger sections of Lagertha's armor:
http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-shieldmaidens-search-chainmaille-found.html

Issues with buying bits of armor online: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/06/lagerthas-battledress-insert-expletive.html

Gathering the bits and pieces: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/06/lagerthas-battledress-bits-and-pieces.html

Even more gathering of bits: http://austrianwoman.blogspot.com/2014/06/lagerthas-battledress-gathering-of.html

Skål
xoxox

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

(Warrior) Girls On Film...

Another shot of my Lagertha battle dress, with a friend, as more photos roll in from Halloween ;)
Photo credit; Jenny Storm

Monday, November 3, 2014

Samhain

I was lucky enough to have the chance to dress up for Halloween again this year, right before coming down with a fever just two days later. At least I temporarily dodged the bullet, and was able to have a good time with friends.
Anders and I brought out our Viking wardrobe that we had made for Dragon Con, inspired by the TV show 'Vikings'. His Floki impression is spot on, and he even gets into character (it probably helps that he is also playing Bill Sykes this year in a production of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist).
I of course, brought out my Lagertha armor, and both of us were a big hit.
I'm still amazed, as are others who inquire, at how comfortable this whole ensemble is. It weighs a lot, but the design disperses the weight in the the right anchor spots, so it's not all just hanging from my shoulders.
Here's the one photo I have so far, of me and Anders. This was right after a rather fancy Halloween dinner at The Village Cafe restaurant in San Jose's Santana Row. I huge thanks to the amazing cooks and our waitress, for putting up with us nut bags.
I'll add more photos as I get them.