Nobelese Largesse Swap #10: Ambiance

After having so much fun with Swap #9, I jumped at the opportunity to participate in the Ambiance swap that was announced next! I was assigned to Lady Felicia FizMaurice, who lives in An Tir. I read through her completed questionnaire and took note of several things--items for the table, jewelry (but not rings), shades of blue, 1200-1400 period ...

I wound up doing three different items for Felicia. The first was a completely period blackjack--my first-ever attempt at using only beeswax to seal a mug.

The second item I made for her was a necklace. It is Viking wire weave, made of 26-gauge silver-enameled copper wire, woven in a double-weave pattern. It is finished off with end cones and a simple ring-and-bar clasp.

The last item I made was a small coin purse, based on a single extant example from the fourteenth century in the Bryggen Museum in Bergen, Norway. I'll go into this item in detail, because I've not previously recorded this process. I learned to make these purses from a class taught at Atlantian University by Mistress Sigrid Briansdotter.

Trying to track down information about the extant piece is frustrating. The museum does not seem to have an online gallery. Fortunately, other reenactors have made replicas of the purse and documented the process, and some of them even have photos they took when they visited the museum.

For my project, the body of the purse is made of split deerskin, cut in a circle the size of a dinner plate and pierced with threading holes--one hole every ten degrees in a small ring around the center and a larger ring near the edge. The small ring is three inches in diameter. The large ring is an inch from the edge of the leather.

The original purse was strung with leather cord, but I instead used blue fingerloop braid cord to give the purse just a small pop of color. 

The smaller circle that holds the bottom "cup" in place in the finished purse was threaded using what is known in embroidery as a "whipped running" stitch--first it is running-stitched, and then a second time around with the needle, whip-stitching into the thread of the running stitch rather than into the leather itself.

The outer circle is just threaded with a running stitch, and the loose ends of the cord are tied together. When the purse is gathered, it leaves a length of purse strings which can be affixed to the wearer's belt. 

I hope Lady Felicia likes her items!