A&S 50 Challenge ... Six Years Of Creative Mayhem!

The SCA will enjoy its 50th anniversary in 2015, and to celebrate, the A&S50 Challenge was created.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term, A&S stands for Arts and Sciences, and encompasses all the activities in the SCA that are of a creative nature - most notably, making and embellishing all manner of things (embroidery, sewing, weaving, carving, casting, dyeing, working with herbs, soapmaking, music, theater, leatherworking, shoemaking, lacemaking, games, bead making, cooking, illumination, and many, many more), all researched and performed using period techniques and materials to the extent possible, or using reasonable modern substitutions when not.

The A&S50 Challenge, in a nutshell, is to choose 50 A&S projects to do prior to May 1, 2015. There are several different ways to go about it, and I'll let the creators explain it better than I could, on their own website: A&S 50 Challenge.

I've been wanting to be more involved in the SCA anyway, and I thought this was a fine way to dive back into it! Plus, as I mentioned in my first post when I signed up on their Yahoo Group for this Challenge, I tend to be kind of lazy, and need the motivation of committing to something with a definite goal, and committing publicly to boot, to get myself going.

So I signed up! I'm kind of excited. It really will be a 'challenge' for me, as I'm kind of time-poor as it is, combined with the formerly mentioned lack of motivation. But I want to do this, and I'm going to set some goals and make it happen.

I've decided for my challenge to do this: I'm going to pick 15 different A&S skills, and make three different projects for each one (and have 5 left over, artisan's choice). Some of these skills I already know and have done before (like embroidery), though I've never fully completed any project with any of them. The only projects I have ever completed are sewing projects, and I didn't include sewing in my list.

The three projects in each A&S skill category will have three different purposes. One will be a personal item for me. One will be something to help spiff up our group camp at Pennsic, or something I can donate to my local group if it's something that they could use; or must in some other way be used for the benefit of some group (like our combined camping arrangement at Pennsic). The third will be something I can donate to the Kingdom, if appropriate, or something to be used and enjoyed on a larger scale. (that one's getting challenging already, but I'm confident ideas will be manifested when the time comes).

I'm going to post a list of my project plans, as soon as I figure out where to put it so it can be accessed without scrolling through all the posts to find it. It'll be updated as things progress.

Craziness! But I think it's going to be a lot of fun, and I'll learn a lot of new things in the process. And hey, I do have six years to do all this.