re-New-ed table top covering

 I have taken some time to take advantage of the past few sunny days to get a new layering on my old table cloth covering.

the last of the grass tufts were still setting

the darker 'chocolate' cloth that I will use with allied
(Austrians, Russians or British) forces

freshly done for my French bases

Now they get on the table

while I was re-sorting the magnets and minis
I lost track of a couple of the bases when I set them
aside on the tablecloth

the rough-and-tumble look is what I was after

they do not look anything like the old green grass paper ones

from behind it is still easy to ID the units

Summer is looking to end quietly here, only some little showers so far.

New cloth coverings ...

 The refurbishment of my magnetic base stands continues.

magnetic stand for cavalry, with the cloth covering to the right
all standing on the same cloth covering the tabletop

This time a fun cloth was found as a roll end in a local fabric store.

$10 score!  and it had enough there to cover the table fully and produce an army's worth of the base stand covers for one of my Napoleonic armies - I chose the Austrians.

a single stand pulled forward

cover removed to show magnets

cover 'inverted' to show inside of the cover

did up a fast video about them

now onto the olive green fuzzy throw set for my Russians ...

then comes a new flocking for them all ...

raw materials getting some sunlight 'seasoning'

Teddy Bear Fur & MORE!

 I finished off the blanket worth of the camouflage fur material I had, and laid out troops, for a sample set of photos:

Then I laid out some of the early version of the fur, for comparison.

In taking them out of the storage drawer, I was immediately reminded of why I wanted to do this change, I had 5-8 bases 'magnetize' together and dropped one mini (not on the floor thankfully) it was a few minutes of sorting before they were ready for use.

a royalist horse unit
with the first generation of 'fur'

comparison photo with a Scots horse unit
in the new fur

Royalist P&S standing on old bases
this was the difficult unit where muskets were dropped

in a fire exchange

both up close in a push of pike

wide angle shot of the whole force

I also took a few photos from above, to show the visibility of the units.

I have also taken advantage of the access to the sewing machine, to try out something that I thought of ... using some old other fabric:

A 'red' Command

Plans are in the works to consolidate this idea into at least three if not more such marker sets for use on the tabletop to aid new players in unit identification.

I am also going to work on recovering the old sets of teddy bear fur into the new versions (so that I will have at least two different full army sets of fur).

teddy bear fur - Pike and Shotte unit

 more sewing has been done, now enough to kit out a Pike & Shotte unit

the sewing continues and next up might be to lay out a force on the tabletop fully in fur bases

new teddy bear fur bases sample

 

artillery laid out on the table covering

skirmishing dragoons

Royalist horse

Jaegers

just a horse troop

the jaegers and the old 'paper' cover

a grouping with the new fur coverings

artillery

work in progress ...

busy - busy - busy on Teddy Bear Fur

 Progress!

 When I found this camouflage fabric last year, I knew I wanted to use it as the new base stand cover.

The challenge was to sort out how to do this without the fraying and 'bunching up' of the earlier run.

Enter, using a textile approach and sewing up little furry pockets.

a pocket ready to put the stand into

the finished pocket as it came off the machine
it gets made 'inside out'

raw material

work in progress on the machine ...