Prior to the pandemic a friend and I were planning to bring an event back to Ealdormere called Cloth of Gold. This is a garb challenge competition that starts on a Friday evening and ends Saturday afternoon with a fashion show and judging. The challenge is for a team to construct and complete an entire outfit from the skin out starting with flat fabric. There are various rules and categories and such but you get the gist. We had planned to run that event in 2021 to both offset the year our small stronghold runs its event and for me to step down from the KMOAS position.
Then the pandemic happened. I have stepped down as KMOAS. And we still plan to run Cloth of Gold in 2021 though when in the year is now TBD as finding a site when no one is at work is pretty much a stopper. So we’ll get back to that.
In the meantime at one of our Stronghold’s online meetings we, somewhat spontaneously, decided to run a virtual version of the event. And Cloth of Gilt was born. We stuck with the stay-at-home rules that were in place in our province at the time of the event conception and stuck with them even as the province slowly changed their mandates. This was if the province regressed their advances, our event wouldn’t have to change.
Cloth of Gilt ran this past weekend and it was more than we could’ve hoped for. Three Kingdoms were represented. Seven teams competed. The final projects were amazing. The zoom channel was open for 24 hours and full of interesting bits of conversations with a variety of people.
There is a discussion between my friend and I to run this again as another virtual event regardless of the happenings of in-person events. It can work well for those that face a variety of obstacles attending in-person events. We might change up a few things to acknowledge the lessening restrictions in the area but Cloth of Gilt this weekend has developed it’s own personality and we know we can keep it enough different from Cloth of Gold to make both events something interesting.
So, definitely look for Cloth of Gold in 2021 if you’re in Ealdormere. And perhaps, keep an eye open for another Cloth of Gilt.
*This whole post is brought to you because of a number of friends who keep showing me that writing blog posts do not need to be the equivalent of research papers and I really should just get to writing.
Ninka 