.
No, no, I don't need money. Well, who doesn't need, or at least want, money. Just... What I need, from you? Hold your horses, I'm getting to it.
As I have mentioned, I am planning on attending Burning man. There is much planning and prep that must take place, on the practical side. To be honest I have most of that squared, owned or designed in through time. However, on the other side, I don't have anything to wear. Mostly, mind you, I will just be in simple garb. Jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and even polos. For the most part I yam what I sweet potato. Between heat, wind, sand/dirt, and rain, I won't be taking my finery... what humble and little of that I have anyway. Yet I would like to do something a little different.
I have been thinking on it. Sure, I suppose, if I wanted to square things out and push things financially, I could go hog-crazy and buy a ton of various gear, most of which would not end up being worn and would most likely simply add to the wash when I got home and for no good purpose. However, for an occasional distraction, I would like to make something. My sewing machine has not been repaired yet, and even if so my skills are not yet up to par to begin spitting out anything probably up to the event. Hmm...
While looking through the internet for something on face paint, war paint, camo designs, and such, I hit on something totally bizzarro. I saw... potential. Then I considered what I had at first been seeking, and a connection came to the fore. Of course I would not buy a, probably, expensive designer thing. However, such a design would work well on a ghillie suit format, and I have been considering building a ghillie suit otherwise. This one would also need a torn cape and shell-hat-hoodie sort of thing. So... I could both practice and actually make something for Burning Man in one fell swoop? Why... yes I could! Further, with just a bit of attention, as I am modest, it might be made to be a very cool and cooling (physically) device. Oh, many think black is the wrong color to wear in heat. There are many a desert dweller who would disagree. It is a matter, to a degree, of design, and perhaps material.
This is where you might be able to help. Of what material do you think that garment was made? Would that material hold up well to high desert heat, wind, potentially rain? Just so long as it doesn't become litter, or worse deteriorate in days, I don't fear much else. If I had to guess, I would say Rayon, crinkle(d)? I know that shrinks in a hot dryer, but in the desert? What materials would work well, otherwise? Can you help? Uhrm, I think I'll stick with my knee high engineering boots, however. Just... I have my limits. No Elf gear. *hrumph!*
I also saw something my co-adventurer might want to replicate? A reasonable take on a favored show? I could see him, maybe, doing that.
Yes, yes, silly, to be sure. But it is something to do. I will get some experience making ghillie suits. And it will keep me out of trouble, or just out of bed these days. Good night.
Oh, but how about a bit of mood music on the way to dreamland?
I have a few ideas ruminating.
ReplyDeleteBased on a BMan prep vid I watched, I will probably hit second-hand stores for materials to work with.
This gig reminds me of haiku. To a degree you can do anything. But first you have to think of it. It gets a bit more complicated after that, as if you had to buy each word or letter, each with a varying cost, then build or put the sentences together by hand, cutting out the letter forms by hand from wood?
ReplyDeleteSame principle, just a bit more involved. Creativity, limits... Should be fun. I could go with black, but I could also look over pictures of the soil, true pictures, and attempt to do a blending... a real environmental camo along that design? What do you think?
Of course, black, at night, with lights throughout, would be... interesting. Perhaps too spooky? Then again, being in true camo might be just as unnerving. If that isn't quite the point. Ah, a happy face pin will help?
A man in a black, internally lit ghillie suit would probably qualify as one of the most unusual things most people will see at BMan this year.
ReplyDeleteI would have a hard time guessing at the material in the photos. In the desert daytime I almost universally favor 100% cotton or maybe as a compromise a high cotton content blend. Rayon is an interesting if uncommon material. I detest polyester. Hot in summer, cold in winter. Its only redeeming quality is cheap.
ReplyDeleteIf that ghillie suit were cotton and you got it wet, say by walking through the stream of a water truck, you could create a microclimate within the strands probably 20 degrees cooler than the surrounding air.
I am seeing some basic cotton base layers, but I was hoping to find muslin. On a side note, those djellaba make for pretty easy wear, and if you look you might be able to find it not just in cotton but in muslin. Rayon seems to an alternative to silk, which isn't a bad thing to wear for cooling, but like cotton, not the best when the chill hits.
ReplyDeleteA spritzer of water in a holster would be more reliable than the water truck. Already on it boss.
As to the micro-climate, I am digging into that more deeply now. I don't want a turban, but I think I could do some other thing that mitigates the heat on the head. I do have a frog (cover, like a watch cap, but for watercooling). It's just a matter, to a degree, of getting air to that without gaining an abnormal appearing head size. Heck, while I'm there, I might as well do some experiments.
I'm actually considering a kilt, wool, for night. Mostly just cloth, wrapped rightly, with a belt and pins. I don't know. The ghillie suit is primary though. With layering, long wool/silk under-layers and a t-shirt or thermal. I think it will go well from day to night itself. Trying to pack clothes for a week with both extreme hot and relatively extreme cold is difficult without layers, I think. For an experiment, five yards of wool is a heck of a lot cheaper than almost anything else I could buy, though it might be doodads on that which end up costing. Still, $50 for a kilt getup isn't bad? But that will be it for new clothes I think. Just thinking.
ReplyDeleteSince I'm not Scotch, I wouldn't be obliged to wear tartan. Solid colors are fine. Just not pink, or even baby blue. :p Black, brown, khaki, or coyote or such.
"Since I'm not Scotch, I wouldn't be obliged to wear tartan."
ReplyDeleteDude...
Uhrm, actually, I did research on it. For those who aren't allied into a clan (married in, really, or birthed in of course), it is even considered rude to wear tartan. Solid colors are not only allowed, they are encouraged by foreigners. So as to not step on toes and upset political alliances, or even encourage enmities a foreigner wouldn't realize, much like gang colors, and such. At least by tradition. I definitely have no clan.
ReplyDeleteUhrm, no, none of that nonsense. You should know better by now.
My ghillie goal is a cross between their regular and ethereal appearance.
ReplyDeleteThey don't make a smilie for "givin' ya shit".
ReplyDeleteI'll disavow my Scottish blood before I'd be caught in a kilt of any color.
I am curious if you looked up the tradition though? That of foreigners not wearing tartan? As for you, I would have to agree. Wearing unscented would be an affront to your heritage. However, just as bad and worse maybe, would be wearing tartan that is not your clan's. Do you know your tartan? If you know your tartan, there might be a way to make me an honorary clanny. Blood brother might do.
ReplyDeleteAt first my nose became just a tad... out of joint. Then I figured you were stretching your legs and kicking wildly, or even with directed manly if misplaced man-anger-peevishness... Or you had a toot or three and was just running a minor wilding.
Had to laugh when my mind struck on the notions somewhere in one of my half-awake stages.
Ah well, I should know better than to poke you there. Although I could blame the gin if I had a mind to.
ReplyDeleteNo idea of clan or kin. Just that Great Grandma was Scots-Irish. As with many if not most of the American Scots-Irish who've been here for much of the US history, that knowledge is long lost.
Hmm. Twere it me, I would at least try to seek my tartan. It might be well and truly lost. Then again, it isn't always in the finding, but the hunt. Who knows what sort you might bump into on your quest. Good, bad, ugly, but it's all good so long as you survive it. You might even rekindle friendships or even kinships in the homelands. One never can tell what will happen.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I have tons of time and little call to use it other than as I may. What time you have is already allocated for the next hundred and fifty years! Hmmm, get the woman on it, it's her sort of area, or at least a womanly thing. Just suggest she probably can't do it, and being an American woman shouldn't, then get out of the way? *grins*
As for poking fun? Poke where you can. I'm not delicate. It's what men do. In a fight for my life, or to gain strength, I don't go for the shielded parts. I look for the dangly bits! Even in jest... Did I tell you about the nad smack contest on subs? Just amongst us youngens, chiefs and officers weren't so enamored with the sport. But... yeah... all fun and games by me. Just wanted to make sure you weren't having some kind of... fit. You are old, you know.