And So It Begins ...

I built a loom.

The awesome Dread Reverend made me a couple bobbins on his lathe.

And I began weaving.

I'm ecstatic. This is so much fun! And so addicting. Not to mention really relaxing. I can't wait till I've learned enough of the basics to start my first real 'tapestry' project, because I already know what it's going to be, and I'm incredibly psyched about it.

I'm using a book called "Tapestry Weaving: A Comprehensive Study Guide" by Nancy Harvey. I like the book so far. I'm only a few chapters in, but I've learned enough already to begin successfully accomplishing the basics. She explains things well enough that a total novice like me can understand it, and make progress immediately. Probably most importantly for a novice, she goes through things likely to go wrong, what they look like, and how to correct them. When learning a new hobby, those educators who only tell you how things are supposed to look, but don't explain the causes behind the inevitable mistakes or how to correct them, are only doing half their job. Not so with this book.

I also like that she gives directions for building this easy, inexpensive nail-frame loom to start on, just for practice, so that you can try weaving quickly, without a large investment. The total cost to build this loom was about $6.00, and all the supplies were available at my local hobby/craft store.

The only thing I wouldn't have had on hand was anything to use as a bobbin, and I've never been very successful at making 'butterfly' skeins (yarn wrapped around your hand and fastened into a little hank). Fortunately the talented Dread Reverend was able to whip up a couple bobbins for me on his lathe, and they work great.

I also had to order the weaving materials, as my local hobby store didn't carry those. I got 8/4 cotton carpet warp for the warp, and Bartlettyarns Maine Wool for the weft, from Halcyon Yarn.

This is the only thing about this book that I find a little bit disappointing - the author doesn't go into as much detail as I'd like about fibers. It's not that she doesn't explain things, it just feels like she's talking over my head - like, for example, if you needed A, B and C to understand weaving fibers, and she greatly explains B and C but forgets to talk about A.

Even though I knit, weaving has a whole 'nother language ... the numbers (8/2, 20/9, etc.) aren't ones I'm using to seeing in knitting yarn (sport weight, DK weight, etc.). The two can both be used to describe some fibers, but I still find it confusing. I was very unsure of what to use for warp and weft on my first, practice project. She actually recommended a 4/2 carpet warp, but after hours of searching on the internet, I could not find such a creature anywhere. I opted for the extremely popular 8/4, and chose the Bartlettyarn Maine Wool based on yardage-to-weight information from the book. It seems like I guessed well enough, as it seems to be working. The yarn is a little thick and fuzzy for my tastes, but that doesn't mean it isn't a perfectly good weaving wool - it just means that when I envision future work, I picture something smooth and with great detail. I actually want to try weaving my first 'real' piece with perle cotton, because I love the way it looks woven (have used it for both card and inkle weaving).

I won't have any idea what to use for warp with it, though, but I realized this is far from a disaster. The best thing I could do is make a couple more, smaller nail frame looms, and just get different fibers and experiment ... what happens when I use this warp and this weft? That will probably be the best way for me to learn, anyway, rather than someone just telling me "always use this and this." Or some such.

Right now I'm just weaving the hem, and it's going very well, I think. Once I get past that I'll begin working with the first practice pattern in the book, when I'll begin learning to work with multiple colors across a row, different techniques for dealing with color changes, and how to make shapes and whatnot.

I am so psyched!! I know I have a tendency to pick up a new hobby, get all excited, then lose interest in it in a few weeks or months. And there's nothing wrong with that (once I learned not to go out and spend $500 on equipment for a new hobby before giving it a chance to see if it's going to 'stick' or not). Trying new things, even briefly, is a fine thing. I didn't stick with card weaving, but it left with me a deep interest in weaving, and I learned skills there that transfer to this type of weaving.

But this smacks of something that's not going to go away ... it's difficult to describe, but I just find the act of "painting with wool" so incredibly fascinating. The idea of being able to create pictures of anything I can envision, woven in fiber ... well. A picture's worth a thousand words, and that about covers it.

More pictures as I progress.

That Permanent Pennsic Packing Thing: How I Did It, How You Can Too!

I'm just so psyched about the permanent Pennsic packing scheme, I decided to babble about it for awhile. If anyone who has to pack only for themselves for Pennsic (i.e., not a family, not packing up the entire camp) is interested, here's what I did. Of course, although everyone probably takes slightly different stuff to Pennsic, there are some basics, and I think this pretty well covers them. If you can be a minimalist (a goal I've been striving towards for years with Pennsic), this plan could suit you well. But it should also be easily adapatable.

I managed to get the permanently packed stuff into two totes.

TOTE THE FIRST

Sleeping Gear

• sleeping bag
• pillow
• air mattress (new this year, the double-height one - awesome!)
• pump for air mattress

Tent Comfort & Maintenance

• small wooden tray I use in my tent
• bug jar (jar with lid I use for divesting my tent of bugs; I don't kill bugs if I can avoid it, I instead gather them up in the jar and put them outside - far outside - my tent
• Raid (for spraying heavily along the outside of the door; helps keeps the bugs from coming in in the first place)
• small tent dust pan and whisk broom
• garbage bags
• miscellaneous little useful things: rope; Sportsman's Goop (great for patching holes in almost anything); duct tape - stuff like that).

Feast Gear & Related

• feast gear (plate; bowls; mug; utensils; linen napkins)
• paper towels
• can opener

Decor

• lantern
• device banner

Other Important Stuff

• tent stakes and mallet
• ground tarp for tent (both of these on top in the tote!)
• there's still room left. :o)

TOTE THE SECOND

Garb & Accessories

• all garb (including underwear and socks - yes, to have the permanent packing plan work, I have special underwear and socks that are just for events, and stay packed with the event stuff)
• two cloaks
• belts, pouchs, mug straps
• boots (sandals I wear to the event)
• scarves and 'wraps' that I wear around my waist or tie to my belt
• small carry-basket
• a laundry container (one of those mesh collapsible things; goes in the tote flat; expands into a rectangle-shaped thing to hold dirty laundry; you do not want to put sweaty Pennsic clothes into a closed up tote and leave them for a week; trust me on this.)
• a parasol (portable shade)

Personal Stuff

• personal stuff that can stay packed year-round (in some cases requires duplicates of home stuff): hair brush, butane curling iron, washcloths, powder, mirror, jewelry box I only use at Pennsic)
• there's still room left. :o)

What's left that falls into the 'permanent event stuff' category but won't fit in the totes, and therefore must just be stuffed in the truck willy-nilly?

• tiki torches
• camp chair
• cooler
• tent
• shepherd's hook for lantern
• stackable plastic shelves (more on those later)

In other words, not that damned much!!

What's left that has to be packed per event? Again, precious little:

• makeup (sometimes I wear it at night; during the day it'd just melt off before I got out of the tent)
• jewelry
• personal toiletry items that I'd rather not store for a year (toothpaste, etc.)
• sleepwear (I could store a permanent set, but it's usually whatever my favorite pj pants are in the moment)
• shower stuff (all in it's own little shower tote bag)
• current reading books
• the current hobby projects
• musical instruments
• tiki fuel
• batteries for air mattress pump
• first aid kit
• tea lights (can't be left in storage, would melt)

And of course food, water, and other beverages. So the 'per event packing' is pretty minimal. Most of it will fit in one additional tote - the only stuff that won't are the things that are just too big for the tote (musical instruments are the only thing jumping out at me there). And the best news is, it won't take long at all to pack it all up, right before the event.

So that's the basics of the Permanent Pennsic Packing Scheme. What goes in the truck?

• Two large totes. All of the shelter necessities (except the tent itself), sleeping necessities, tent comfort and maintenance, garb and accoutrements stay in those totes year round. At the end of Pennsic the totes will come home; the garb and sleeping stuff will be washed, dried and repacked; then the totes will be ready to go into storage until the next event. (the mesh laundry bag should fit back in it's tote, even full of laundry, just for transport home)
• One medium-sized tote for stuff that must be packed up per event, either because (a) it won't store well; or (b) it's stuff that changes from year to year (like whatever the current hobby project or reading book is). At the end of Pennsic that tote will just get unpacked, and the empty tote stored with the filled ones for the next event
• A snacks/food tote
• A cooler
• Large stuff that won't fit in a tote (tent, tiki torches, camp chair, lantern pole, shelves).

It doesn't get much simpler than that. Unless you're even more of a minimalist than I am.

About the plastic storage shelves - I'm talking about those sets of plastic shelving that sort of snap together that you can buy at any major store. I took a 4-shelf set and a 2-shelf set for my tent last year, and it was one of the best tent organization things I ever did. The 4-shelf set was placed in one end, and held all my garb, folded (so I didn't have to leave it in the tote - hard to root around through a tote for garb; and so I didn't have to hassle with a clothing rack to hang things up - I'd actually prefer that, but don't have room for it in my tent). It also held various other items I wanted easily to hand but otherwise kind of out of the way.

The second, 2-shelf unit went against a side wall of the tent, basically in the middle. On the bottom shelf I stored my embroidery basket and other hobby things; on the top shelf I had a nice scarf, then my jewelry box, mirror, a couple decorative items, an ashtray, and my books. This doubled as a bedside table.

These are not easy to pack. They might fit in one of the large totes, but they would take up too much of the room. I decided the easiest way to deal with those is to stack the shelf parts together (the legs conveniently stash in between, so they all fit together flat) and tie them tightly with some "tug-tightening" straps I intend to get - the kind where you run the end through a fastener of some sort, then just pull it as snug as you can, and it stays. Two straps on each set of shelves will hold them into a nice, tight, stackable bundle. The bonus to using shelves is I don't have to leave the totes in my tent - they can stay in the parked truck till I need them for packing. As I said, I hate digging through totes for things. Some people prefer to leave their stuff in totes so nothing gets wet. I prefer to make sure my tent doesn't leak, and keeping things on shelves adds a layer of protection even if I do get water in the tent.

As I mentioned before, although I won't know for sure until after Pennsic, I truly believe this scheme is going to work. I've been to 4 or 5 Pennsics now - not exactly an age-old veteran, but enough to have learned a thing or two about what works for me, what doesn't, and what kinds of things are just annoying hassles I'd really rather not deal with. Having put a lot of thought into it, I am confident this plan is going to work well for what I need for Pennsic, or any other event.

As I also mentioned before, the only drawback to this plan (and it's minor compared to its convenience) is that to make this plan really work the way I envision (i.e., almost no packing effort for any event), I have to take both those large, pre-packed totes to all events - even the small weekend events. But the up sides of this are several: I'll never have to worry about forgetting anything by trying to pack only what I think I need for the weekend; the only thing extra I'll really have with me is extra garb, and that's really no big deal; and the biggest upside - packing for weekend events will also be simplified by default. This was the biggest thing that prompted me to get busy putting this scheme together this year - not Pennsic packing, but the hassle of packing for a small weekend event. I worked my butt off for several days sorting and packing stuff for War Practice (a weekend event in May) - it was way, way more work than any weekend event should be. I remember thinking that between packing and unpacking, and setting up, I spent more time on those things than I actually had to just chill out and enjoy the event. And that's when I decided, no more. I'm making this simpler if it kills me.

Hopefully it worked. I'll find out in only 30 days!!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Pennsic

Today was an excellent project day. We (the Dread Reverend and I) got a bunch of our Pennsic stuff done.

I finished the embroidery on the new pirate shirt, put the buttons on, put in buttonholes, and stitched up the over-long slit in the front to a semi-respectable height. The only thing I'd still like to do is fix the facing on that front slit with a little Stitch Witchery or whatever that iron-on tape is called that will stick the two pieces together, so that the facing doesn't constantly flop out and annoy me.

I also fixed the neckline of another tunic I made last year. T-tunics are pretty simple to make, except I've always had trouble with the neck opening. I made this one too small, and sewing that tiny double-turned hem around a circle is a pain in the butt. I never liked the way this one turned out, so I ripped out the entire hem, made the neck opening a little bigger, and put a facing on it instead of a hem. Much better. The only thing I still have to do to that is sew around the edge to help hold the facing in place, trim the facing, and probably stick it down with a little Stitch Witchery too. (I forgot to take a picture of that one, but will when it's done).

What else did I get done? Oh, I cooked our first meal for Pennsic. Since I hate set-up and tear-down, and additionally I can't be there for either this year because of having to change dog-watching arrangements, I made a deal with my campmates: I'll provide dinner every night for the second week if they will handle my share of the set-up and tear-down. Everyone readily agreed, so I'm making eight one-pot dinners (more or less one-pot, anyway), freezing them in gallon Ziploc freezer bags, and will just heat them up each night at War.

It's funny - I always said I never intended to cook at Pennsic because it's my vacation ... but after seeing the disaster of the kitchen plan the last few years, it would actually be easier for me to cook than to hassle with trying to figure out how to get a decent meal every night. And having at least one good meal a day at Pennsic is important to me ... I'm out there for 9 or 10 days, it's always unGodly hot, I drink a lot, and walk a lot ... eating at least one decent meal a day is vitally important.

So I cooked the first of the meals today, and after it cools (it's still in the crockpot), I'll bag it up and freeze it. One down, seven to go. I figure it's only a little over a month till Pennsic, so I'd better start soon and do a couple meals a week, if I don't want to be scrambling around staying up till midnight every night the last week I'm home, trying to throw this together. And ... no. Been there, done that enough years. None of that this time. I'm getting organized this year!! Dammit.

The Dread Reverend began working on the new sheet wall panels for the camp, too. There will be five of them, and he cut them all, hemmed several of them, and began the artwork on one of the two that will bear our camp's device.

So all in all it was a nice, productive day out on the back porch. I'm tired, and pretty soon lounging on the air mattress on the living room floor, watching a movie, and knitting will be about the extent of the evening.

And I haven't posted a picture of the Poo in awhile ... here he's enjoying having his porch back, after we cleaned up the day-long mess that had accumulated there, relegating him to the yard all day.

Ooops ... I inkled

I completed my first-ever inkle band this week.

This was an absolute blast. I have high praise for inkle weaving now. As I mentioned in my last post, a few years ago through my involvement with the SCA I decided to learn a weaving skill of some type. I debated between inkle and tablet (card) weaving, but thought that inkle looked a little too simplistic (I'd been given to understand the patterns you could make were very limited), and the special inkle looms cost more than I wanted to spend for a hobby I just wanted to try out.

I could put together a serviceable tablet weaving loom on my own for a few dollars in wood and screws, and make the cards myself; and I knew you could make intricate, multi-colored designs in tablet weaving, so I decided to try that. After making quite a few practice bands, I got frustrated with it, stashed the whole lot of supplies away, and haven't touched it for several years. The set-up alone is so fussy and time-consuming that I found the frustration level far outweighed the enjoyment of the actual weaving ... and after hours of set up, I usually managed to screw up the weaving somewhere in the first twelve inches or so, wasting all my set-up work.

In praise of the inkle: This loom is far easier to warp. For straight or plain weaving, once you draft your pattern and warp the loom correctly, all you have to do is weave. There is no further manipuluation needed, the pattern just appears as you weave away. Pattern drafting in inkle weaving isn't nearly as complicated as tablet weaving, so setting up the pattern and warping the loom is just challenging enough to be interesting, but not so damned hard that it leaves me too frustrated to enjoy myself.

The weaving itself works just like tablet weaving, except for the absence of cards to turn and fiddle with. It goes very quickly ... this band is quite long, and I made it in less than a week, but that wasn't working on it in any long stretches ... I'd just weave a little here, a little there. If I had the time and need, I'm sure I could sit down and weave a band this length in a couple days, by devoting a decent chunk of time to it at each sitting.

I was most impressed with something you can't see in the picture - the softness and pliability of the band. I compared this one to a shoelace, and were it just a few threads narrower, it could be just that. It's like ribbon. Why that is such a big deal is that will make it ideal trim, because it will be flexible enough to easily sew on to garb, and thin and drapey enough to not be too bulky or stiffen up the edges of the fabric trimmed with it. This is just going to make phenomenal trim, and that is what I'm most excited about. I've always wished I could gussy up my garb with a little nice trim, but I usually have a hard time finding anything I like; it's not cheap; and I've always had a hard time sewing trim on. This will solve all those problems, with the added bonus of designing my own trim in just the colors I want, and having made it myself.

Yep - inkle weaving gets a definite two thumbs up. I can't wait to start my next band. I have a yellow-gold colored tunic that is screaming for some trim. I want to take a trip out to the local hobby / craft stores to see what I can pick up in the way of perle cotton. I suspect their color selection will be a bit limited, so I may have to order it online instead, but I wanted to at least check first.

I'm learning that there are quite a few very nice patterns you can create in inkle weaving, even with the limitations of only having two pattern rows to work with. And there is the advanced technique of pick-up weaving, which opens even more options. I want to try that eventually too, but for now I'm content not to commit the tablet-weaving mistake of trying to rush through all of this too quickly, and ending up frustrating myself because I didn't learn the basics first.

For the record, I wove this band with size 8 perle cotton, 24 strands wide which made a finished band 1/4" wide. It's 96 1/2 " long (about 2 3/4 yards).

In other weaving news, I got my tapestry weaving book and have read through the first few chapters. I also need a trip to the craft store to pick up a few things to build a simple frame loom to start with. I've ordered the yarn for the warp and the weft, so once I get my looom built and my yarn order shows up, I will begin the first training piece offered in the book. This is another thing that I intend to take slowly and carefully, to make sure I'm learning the basics well from the ground up - because I have grand ideas of some things I want to do with this, but I want to make sure I don't frustrate myself into failure by not laying the groundwork of good basic knowledge and skill first.

Knitting continues on the never-ending log cabin blanket. I swear it's reached a point where no matter how much I knit, it just doesn't get any bigger. I've been working on this a lot this week too, in between weaving. It's big enough now to be a quite nice lap blanket, but I really had in mind wanting it to be about the size of at least a twin blanket, if not full-size. I planned to use it on the bed in the winter (it will be warm, I know that). So I think I'll work on it for a few more weeks, and see how it goes.

... like another hole in my head

Guess what I'm learning to do.



This is inkle weaving. Yes, I needed another fiber arts hobby. No, really, I did. There's no such thing as 'too many' fiber arts hobbies.

Several years ago I got interested in learning one of two SCA-popular weaving techniques - inkle weaving, or tablet (card) weaving. I chose tablet weaving, I think because there were fewer limitations on what you could weave. I also know that inkle looms were expensive ($60 or more), but a tablet weaving loom I could - and did - make myself.

Fewer limitations also means far more complex to learn. I had some mildly limited luck with my beginning tablet weaving, but also earned myself a high level of frustration, and put all of my tablet weaving supplies away for a long while - I hadn't given up, but I just wasn't ready to tackle it again any time soon.

The Dread Reverend was cleaning out some stuff from his former residence this weekend, and brought home an inkle loom. The only thing missing on it was the tensioning bar, which he easily made in his woodshop. I decided this was cool, I'd like to try this. I did some research online, found some crochet cotton I had in my stash, and set to work.

Here's what I've gotten done so far.



The right edge is just a tiny bit wonky because I wasn't pulling my weft thread as tight on that side as on the left. Just needs a bit of practice.

I really like this! It was far simpler to set up this loom for inkle weaving than it ever was to set up a tablet weaving loom. While the designs in plain inkle weaving may be somewhat more limited than in tablet weaving, it's still weaving, and you can still make quite nice, colorful designs. Progress ensues very quickly. It's my new little addiction.

There are more advanced techniques - "pick up" weaving - which enables one to make more complex patterns. That's nice. I'll try that some day soon. But not immediately. I learned my lesson from tablet weaving - trying to jump ahead to the advanced techniques too fast, before I'd mastered the basics, is partly what killed my interest in tablet weaving, at least temporarily, a few years ago. I'd still like to try it again some day, but ... not just yet.

So I'm content to produce nice little bands of inkle weaving for the time being ... I'm already studying how to make my own designs. Yes, that is (again) what messed up my tablet weaving, but tablet weaving is far more complex than this. I spent most of yesterday evening studying how patterns translate to the finished band design in inkle weaving, and it's not nearly as complex. There are only two pattern rows to work with in any plain weaving design - two rows are all you have to 'design' when making up your own pattern, then those two rows just repeat ... kind of hard to screw up. I'm sure that by studying some already existing patterns, and paying attention, I can begin to create some simple patterns of my own soon.

This stuff will be great for trim on garb, because it's light and thin, and flexible for sewing around necklines, etc. And even if my patterns aren't the most complex things in the world, I can choose my own colors.

Ahhh ... string, made into things. What could be better?

Knitting; House Sold

I've finally gotten back to consistent work on the log cabin blanket. In part because I just want to finish the damned thing. Okay, that was harsh. I really do like it ... if I didn't, I'd just stop now and declare it a lap blanket. Or give it to the Poo. (My dog ... Tyler ... he's a cock-a-poo ... which at some point we transliterated to "the Poo" ... anyway)

But I do like it, and so want to make it rather large, so it will be multiply useful. So I'm plugging away at it. It'll probably take me the rest of the summer of steady work to finish it, but hey - it'll be done in time for the cool fall weather. Anyway, it's the process as much as the finished product. If I just wanted knitted things without doing the knitting, I could buy them.

In other news - we sold the house already. Once I decided not to move into my dad's house, we needed to put it on the market. I didn't get around to that till last Tuesday, and today - one week later - we've got a purchase agreement. Amazing. Of course, I suppose just having the signed purchase agreement is not a sale done ... but I'm pretty confident that it's going to go through. The buyer's been pre-approved for a loan in excess of what we got for the house, and I don't expect the house inspection to turn up anything that's going to be a problem. I know the house is in excellent condition.

So that's one thing done, but now the fun really begins. Now I have about 6 weeks to clean out the house. To take everything I want, pack it up, and get it into storage; and to arrange an estate sale of anything that's left. Fortunately I'm not doing this alone. My brother and his family will also be taking some of the stuff from the house, and he's agreed to handle setting up the estate sale. The Dread Reverend and I are going to rent a storage unit this weekend, and once we have that, I can start packing stuff up and moving it from the house to storage.

I have mixed emotions about all this. On the one hand, it will be good to get it done rather than having it hanging over my head as something I still have to do. On the other hand, I'm not looking forward to it, because it's going to be hard, going through all of my mom and dad's stuff, and choosing what to keep, and what to simply get rid of. Stuff that was important to them, just 'gotten rid of.' It bugs me. But ... I have to find a way to deal with it all some time.

Amidst all this is getting ready for Pennsic, too. Wow, it's going to be a busy summer.

Pennsic Packing Genius

I am sick to death of the insanity of packing up for an event. Every single year I go to at least three events, and every single time it takes three times as long to pack up as I think it should; it's way too much work, especially for a weekend when you're packing it all up one evening, and packing it all back up to come home and unpack it again 48 hours later; and it's exhausting.

Some of us had in the past discussed some way to have all our event stuff pre-packed in totes, and ready to just load in the truck for events ... but I had not yet figured out a good way to do it - or rather, gotten the ambition to try another way. All I'd managed so far were lots of little totes, which were hard to store and took up a lot of room; still involved way too many trips up and down the stairs and out to the truck to load up all those totes; too many things wouldn't fit in small totes, and had to just be haphazardly stuffed into the truck when packing up (often necessitating several re-packings till it all fit); and then I had different things I took to weekend events as opposed to Pennsic, which involved unpacking and repacking totes all the time anyway. Meh.

This year I decided, I'm Doing It. I'm figuring out a way to pre-pack as much of my event stuff as possible, in as few totes as possible, and then leaving it packed all year to wildly simplify this process.

I found these totes at Big Lots for $12 each. They've turned out to be a perfect size ... not too big to fit in my truck or deal with, but not too small that I need too many of them. Initially I wasn't sure that two would be enough, but it looks like I made a good call - it does look like two are going to be enough, at least for this size. I will still need one or two smaller totes for other things, but it's certainly not going to take any more than that.

The second thing I did was experiment with those vacuum packing bags. The actual brand sold for that purpose ("As Seen On TV!") suck. I bought a couple at Giant Eagle (not on TV), and had two problems. First, sucking the air out wasn't as easy as they make it look, and second, as soon as I put it in the tote it ripped. The plastic is cheap and brittle.

Meanwhile, the Dread Reverend had bought some of those Ziplock Big Bags to also try this with. That was the ticket. I put my stuff in the bag, zipped the bag closed, then re-opened a small corner of the zipper, stuck the hose from the shop vac in and turned it on. It quickly shrunk the bag and contents down to about half the starting size. It was pretty simple to pull the vac hose out and still have time to zip the bag closed before it started filling back up with air. And they feel much tougher, made of heavier, more flexible plastic. And they're cheaper than the 'as seen on TV' variety.

That trick was what made the two tote scheme work - by compressing all the garb, two large cloaks, and my sleeping bag, pillow and a blanket in their own respective Ziplock bags, it saved a lot of space in the totes for the other stuff that needs to go in there. (And yes, I can re-vacuum them when leaving an event as well, by taking the tiny shop vac (or my Dirt Devil hand vac), and plugging it into a power inverter in the truck).

I made two comprehensive packing lists - one of all the things that can stay packed year round, and one for the few things that have to be packed individually for each event. (That's where the one or two other smaller totes will come in to play). I found that with some willingness and creativity, there's a lot that can stay packed year-round. All the garb, all the 'accessories' (pouches, belts, scarves, etc.), cloaks, sleeping bag, pillow, blanket, air bed and pump, feast gear, extra things I like to have for convenience or decor (stuff like a lantern, a wooden tray I use in my tent, etc., yadda yadda). And with the use of the vacuum-shrunk Ziplock bags to shrink the garb, cloaks and sleeping gear, all of that stuff fits in just those two totes.

So the final scheme is, when going to an event, all I have to do is toss these two large totes in the truck; put in the things that won't go in a tote (the tent itself, my lantern shepherd's hook, tiki torches); pack up the things I can't leave packed year-round, plus a cooler and food, and ... aaahhh, that should be it!

The only down side to all this is that to achieve my goal of not having to repack stuff for smaller events, I'll have to take the entire dog and pony show to every event - even the weekend ones. But that only means I will end up with some extra stuff at those events that I didn't really need - extra garb, some decor and convenience items I usually only use at Pennsic. But on the up side, I simply toss the totes in the truck regardless of the event, and I'm done! I don't have to hassle with stupid figuring out just what I need for the weekend, and unpacking and repacking multiple totes for other events - and the time and hassle that will save alone is worth having the extra stuff with me that I don't really need.

The other upside is storage. It's going to be much easier to store a couple of these large totes, than a plethora of smaller totes, crates, and stuff just laying about randomly.

So all in all, I think it's a good scheme, and I think it's going to work well. Of course, I won't know for sure until I actually try it out at a couple of events, but I'm sure I can tweak anything that needs tweaking as I actually use this system.

I'm psyched!! No more event-packing trauma! Huzzah!