Nobelese Largesse Swap 15

The theme for this round was to create something to keep your recipient warm during the cold winter months. Well, I don't sew, so my initial ideas (a hood, mittens) were right out. But then I thought, what better way to warm up on a snowy, bitter day than with a piping hot mug of cocoa?

My recipient was Mistress Giraude Benet from Calontir. She provided a link to her heraldry in the questionnaire, which was great! Eagerly, I clicked the link...and then I groaned. A semy of crosses! Oy. That would be a tooling challenge.

Nonetheless, I got to work. I cut the mug from a side of veg-tanned cow hide, and drilled the stitching holes. Then I started the tooling.

The crosses were as frustrating as I had anticipated. After fighting with the first one for more than an hour, I gave up for that night, convinced I had ruined the whole thing. The next day, however, I gave it another go. It was still rough, but I eventually worked out a stamping pattern that seemed to work.

Once the tooling was complete, I stitched the handle and the bottom using waxed linen thread and a saddle stitch. Then I soaked the entire piece in cool water and inserted a mould (in this case, a cannister of spray glue!) to shape the blackjack. I set it aside to dry for a couple of days.

In hindsight, the cannister wasn't be best choice as a mould. Extracting it from the blackjack after it dried was nearly impossible, because there was no good way to grip it firmly enough to pull with force. It took a lot of wiggling and gentle prying to finally extract it. Next time, I'll look for something with a better handle!

Once the cannister was out, it was time to seal the leather. The exterior of the blackjack is sealed with beeswax, which I melted in a crockpot and applied with a soft-bristled brush. I applied an extra-thick layer along the seams, to prevent the inner sealant from seeping out.

The inner sealant is Envirotex Lite, a completely modern epoxy. Using this sealant instead of a historic alternative allows the blackjack to be used for beverages that are hot, acidic, or strongly alcoholic--options that are not available if it is sealed with beeswax or pitch.

All together, there are three coats of sealant inside the blackjack. Each coat had to dry for twenty-four hours before the next could be applied.

After the last coat of sealant had set, I placed the blackjack inside a warm oven, heated to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. This temperature allowed the excess wax to melt off, without risking the boiling of any lingering moisture, which could ruin the entire piece.

The initial applicating of wax absorbed very unevenly into the leather, which I only discovered after the excess was melted away. I decided to apply a second coat to the entire exterior of the blackjack, and then repeated the process to melt away the excess. This improved the evenness, though there were still some irregularities. I was leery of trying a third application, however, and decided that the variations were probably due to a natural characteristic of this particular leather.

Catch Up Post

As you may already know, my old laptop crashed last August. With it went all my research and documentation, and in many cases, my photos of projects in progress. As a result, nothing I worked on for a good eight months got documented here. This post is a quick-and-dirty attempt to correct that. The Evil Eye Quest has already received its own post, of course, but here is a smattering of what else I have been up to.

Dad's Christmas Gift

My love of heraldry began long before I discovered the SCA. We had a stained glass window in our house when I was a kid that was the Dillon coat of arms. Are we actually *that* Dillon family? I don't really know. But I have a fondness for the coat of arms nonetheless, and I know it is meaningful to my father. Therefore, for Christmas, I decided to make Dad a blackjack with the arms tooled and painted on.

Before and after vinegaroon.

This project also gave me the opportunity to try out vinegaroon, which I had taken a class on at Pennsic, to make the leather black instead of brown. A jug of vinegar, a bunch of steel wool, and two months later, a test piece of leather revealed that it did, in fact, make a delightful black shade.

I knew before I even started that that lion was going to put my artistic abilities to the test. As I did with the dragon on Fina's mug, I decided to only paint Dad's lion rather than tooling it. Somehow, foolishly, I thought that free-handing the lion would be a better idea than trying to trace it onto the mug.

It was SO bad that I posted a photo of the resulting critter on Facebook, asking my friends to guess what type of animal it was:

Unsurprisingly, nobody guessed it was a lion.

After that debacle, I resigned myself to tracing it. It was rough, but at least it was recognizable.

Finished painting, before wax.

When I was done painting the device, I actually hesitated about applying the wax to the outside (even though I knew I had to). It had such a nice finish already--I didn't want to risk losing some of its very appealing sheen. Despite its pleasant appearance, though, I could feel that the vinegaroon process had already made the leather more brittle. I feared that leaving the exterior unprotected would lead to dry, cracked leather over time. And, of course, I had to seal up the seams to be able to pour the sealant inside.

Dad's got Envirotex Lite sealing the inside of his mug so he can drink his beloved hot tea from it.

After wax.

The wax made the black a little bit darker, which was not entirely unexpected. It pushed the leather from the chocolatey black above to pretty much a true black. It created a nice, sharp contrast with the white of the coat of arms.

I used red cotton crochet thread to stitch Dad's mug--another first, and another experiment. It seemed like a strong, sturdy choice, and I knew that the waxing process would soak and protect the thread as well. I like the pop of color around the seams, complementing the red crescents and lion in the coat of arms.


Dad seemed very pleased with his present!

Nobelese Largesse Swap #13: Tokens, Talismans and Tools

For Swap #13, I decided right away to go with the "Tokens" part of the title. I made 50 wire-wrap rings for Natasha to hand out as she sees fit. I chose an orange sea-glass bead for the rings because she had recently made for herself a beautiful orange and green gown.

After I finished the rings, though, it occurred to me that once she gave them all away, she would have nothing left for herself from this swap. So I decided to make her a little coin purse to match her new gown, and in which she could carry the rings at events.

Gift received by Natasha!

Supplies included in kit.

This project was an absolute first for me. I don't sew. I've never made a purse. It's way out of period for where I normally work. Fortunately, Billy & Charlie's had JUST started offering kits to go with their new line of purse frames, and one of the options was a beautiful orange and green brocade. I snatched that up right quick and got to work! The kit came with a very detailed, step-by-step guide on how to create the purse. The whole thing from start to finish took me between two and three hours to complete.

I started by cutting the brown lining and the brocade to match the pattern they included (not pictured). With wrong sides out, I stitched the two pieces of fabric together, leaving a small gap at one side to turn later the purse rightside-out. I used saddle stitch, mostly because it's the one stitch I know from my leatherwork. After I turned the purse rightside-out, I had to YouTube a how-to video for closing the gap.

With that done, it was time to attach the purse frame. I tried hard to center the brocade motif in the frame, but it still came out a little bit crooked. I used a whipstitch to fasten the frame to the material.

After the frame was secure, I cut the holes and threaded the ribbon through the fabric before stitching the sides of the purse closed. I used brown thread, both to attach the frame and to stitch the sides of the purse closed. I again used whipstitch for the sides -- I think for future projects I will research and practice a better option, but it did get the job done.

The last step was to attach the two tiny tassels to the corners of the purse. And voila! It was done! It was a lot smaller than I anticipated, even knowing that I had ordered the small kit option. But I thought it was just too adorable, and I was also really proud of it!

Tiny purse!

It holds about a dozen of the rings at one time, without gaping open. I hope Natasha gets lots of use and enjoyment from it!

Assorted Largesse Projects

My friend Anna Leigh from Aethelmearc put out a call over the winter for artisans to contribute to the thank-you gift bags for the teachers at Gulf Wars. I volunteered to make some Viking Wire Weave chains, some wire-wrap rings, and also some Anglo-Saxon rings like this one in the British Museum.

I built up my stockpile of token rings as well, in anticipation of the approaching event season. Most of these will be left at A&S displays and given to performers at Keeper of the Central Flame, Wars of the Roses, and East Kingdom 50 Year. I'm still in the planning stages of tokens I can make for archers who do something spiffy--stay tuned for those!

There is one more top-secret largesse project that has been in the works for months, too, but I cannot reveal it yet--I'll link back to it here once it has been delivered!

Nobelese Largesse Swap 11: Kingdom/Household Pride

The theme for Nobelese Largesse Swap #11 is Kingdom/Household Pride. It's actually a theme I suggested--I figured we could all learn a little about someone else's kingdom while we were at it! My recipient is Lady Izza bint Amat al-Rahman, who lives in the Shire of Arenal in Meridies.

Meridies is crazy. That was my first impression, anyway, as I began browsing around the kingdom website. Did you know they have FOUR populace badges?! Four! So, I had to find out a bit more about these badges if I intended to incorporate them into my project.

Other items I considered incorporating into my project were Meridies' kingdom arms, the arms of the Shire of Arenal, and Izza's own arms. Putting all of these things onto a single item would be WAY too busy, so I decided to pare it down to the Kingdom badge (but ...which one?!) and a single set of the wings from Arenal's arms. I planned to do a limp-bound book (hooray for new skills!), with the kingdom badge on the front and the wings on the back.

I tried to find out about the Meridies badges on my own. Google didn't reveal anything, though. Then I tried asking in various groups on Facebook, still to no avail. Finally, I had to ask my recipient (via the swap coordiantors) which badge she preferred to use, since as best as I could figure they're all interchangeable.

The answer came back: Izza prefers the third option above. Great! The leather I had chosen for the project was white already, so it should be easy to tool and paint the black bar and the three stars on the front, and the blue wings on the back.

I've only ever done plain books before, so I wasn't sure exactly how to place the designs to be centered on the covers. I figured, though, that I could just bind up the book and *then* tool the decorations, because I could open it to lay the covers flat on the marble slat for tooling.

The binding went well: I did five folios of ten pages each, for a hundred-page book (5 folios x 10 sheets = 50, front-and-back = 100 pages). After folding the flap over and securing it with a white leather cord (photo, right), I worried that the Meridies badge would look really squished in the visible front cover space. But then I realized that the flap itself could be one third of the badge design! This made me really happy.

That happiness was short-lived.

I don't know if it was the dying process or the tanning process (or both) for this particular leather, but it did not take to tooling AT ALL. And then the paint wouldn't adhere to the surface, either. And in the process of fighting with it, several of the pages got stained. All in all, it was a catastrophic failure--completely unsalvageable.

I was not at all eager to jump into anything else even remotely experimental at this point--the deadline loomed, the holidays were upon me, AND we were in the late stages of buying our first house. So I opted for a tried-and-true item: a Viking chain necklace. They are from the correct time period for Izza's persona, and I was 100% confident I would not experience any project failures--catastrophic or otherwise!

Actually, I made two necklaces. Both necklaces are woven from 26 gauge enameled copper wire (I sure do love that wire!), with five starting petals. I used a trusty Sharpie marker as my mandrel.

The first one I made was not entirely period--it's my own created design of single-weave in one color over double-weave of another color. In this case, it was single black and double silver -- Meridies colors. The inner core and outer layer are woven concurrently and drawn together.

Single black over double silver in progress.

Then, because this is not technically a period design, I also made a standard Viking double-weave chain in just silver.

Silver double-weave, before drawing.

They went in the mail today, and should be delivered on Friday. I hope Izza likes them!

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!

Nobelese Largesse Swap #9: Heraldry!

I recently learned about the Nobelese Largesse group on Facebook and joined right away--I love A&S swaps! I was sad to see that I had *just* missed my opportunity to get in on Swap #9, which had a heraldry theme. So I emailed the coordinator and volunteered as a "Swap Angel" in case any of the participants dropped out. Lo and behold, one did and I got a spot!

My recipient is the Honorable Lady Fina MacGrioghair from An Tir. Browsing through her responses to the questionnaire for the swap, I took note of her arms, An Tir's arms, and her awards. I intended to make her a black jack, and was confident I could do a visually-pleasing design with those elements.

Design: Fina's arms on the An Tir background.

I needed a good pattern for the shape of the mug--the one I contrived for Two Bears' project left a lot to be desired. I began by measuring various aspects of my own completed mug (diameter at the top and bottom, height, dimensions of the handle). The dimensions were larger than my graph paper, so I sketched a scaled-down version (1cm of actual measurement = 1 square on the graph paper). This scaled-down version was tiny. I didn't have any larger paper handy, but then I remembered that I had a roll of parchment paper for baking! This actually worked very well, as it is semi-transparent and therefore easy to trace patterns. It also repels water, so it was less inclined to tear when I traced it onto the wet leather.

My own mug is *huge* (it holds two full bottles of beer with room to spare), so I calculated the measurements for Fina's mug at 3/4 the measurements of mine. I traced the outline of the mug onto a side of vegetable-tanned leather with a ball-point stylus tool, then cut it from the side with an Xacto knife.

It was going to be smaller than I anticipated. I could tell that as soon as I had it cut out. Still, smaller was what I was going for, and it looked like it would still hold a can of soda with room to spare, so I wasn't overly concerned.

Tooling in progress.

Next I began the tooling. I don't know *why* I thought that the checky background of the An Tir device was a good idea. Talk about tedious tooling! And hard to get it straight and even, too. For Fina's device, I tooled only around the edges of the shield to give it a raised effect. I knew the detail work of the dragon in particular would be too fine for my abilities and tools, and so I reluctantly decided to render it in paint only.

Maker's mark.

On the bottom piece, I tooled in my maker's mark--a stylized shamrock.

With the tooling done, I sanded down the edges a bit with coarse sandpaper to even out some of the glaring imperfections of my unsteady Xacto knife. Then I prepared to drill the lacing holes, only to discover that my drill bits had all gone missing! A trip to the nearby Home Depot remedied that problem, and I set to it with my Dremel tool while King Arthur played on my television in the background.

I began with the double row of holes at the bottom of the mug. Then I had a decision to make: would I do a single seam through the handle, or a double? My own mug is a double, but the handle is considerably wider than on this smaller mug. In the end, I opted for the single seam, and I cut and sanded the handle to a thinner width so that the single seam would sufficiently hold it.

Handle sewn.

Then came the sewing. On my bottell project, I had used a 3/32-gauge bit, and while it was easy to sew it allowed some of the Envirotex to seep out through the stitching holes. For this project, I opted for 1/16-gauge. This proved very tedious for sewing, and I wound up using one of my hand tools to widen the holes anyway. In the future, I will stick with 3/32!

Sand-packed.

Once the jack was stitched together, I soaked it thoroughly in water and sand-packed it to obtain an even, round shape that's just slightly wider in the "hips" than at the neck. I set it aside to dry for three full days.

On the fourth day, I poured out the sand and painted the device. I used acrylic paints in red, white, blue and black. That dragon was an exercise in patience! I'm pleased with how it came out, though.

After the paint had completely dried, I set my oven to 200 degrees and placed the mug inside for a few minutes to warm the leather. Then I covered the exterior of the mug with wax--melted in a crock pot--using a pastry brush. I applied an extra-thick coat of wax along all the seams in an effort to keep the Envirotex sealant from seeping out.

Sealed inside.

Once the wax cooled, I took a paper towel tube and knocked out as much of the sand clinging to the inside as I could. Then I carefully measured and mixed the Envirotex and poured it into the mug. I coated the inside completely by tilting and turning the jack and allowing the sealant to flow over the leather. My precautions with the extra wax paid off in all instances except at the very bottom where the handle meets the base--the sealant dripped freely from there. Trying to stem the flow, I found a tiny piece of scrap leather on my worktable and jammed it into the opening. That seemed to work. In the future, I want to try letting the mug cool off and then applying extra wax in this trouble spot. With the mug cooler, the wax will harden faster and that should make it easier to cover the opening.

Twenty-four hours later, I sanded down the extremely rough inside of the mug and completed the second coat of Envirotex. Twenty-four hours later, I did the same for the third coat.

Finished, side view.

After the third coat had hardened, I noticed that the section where the cup joins the handle wasn't smooth and glossy inside. It was rough and sharp. I decided to try one more smaller pour, keeping the mug horizontal instead of vertical as it dried, in an effort to seal over the roughness. I had never done something like this before, so it was a bit nerve-wracking. In particular, I was worried that the sealant would run down the top of the handle (darn you, gravity!!!) while it was sitting to dry. In an effort to prevent this, I added an extra, thick coat of wax to act as a sort of dam.

Finished, front view.

When that had dried, the handle seam was much smoother inside. I decided the time had come to melt off the excess wax and perform the final touch-ups. I put the mug in a disposable tin tray in my oven, heated once again to 200 degrees. Once the wax began to liquefy and drip off, I took the mug out and wiped the excess wax from its surface with an old work shirt. Getting it out of all those nooks and crannies in the checkered background was tedious!

This mug holds fourteen ounces (for comparison, my mug holds thirty four). Just enough room for a can of soda! It's crazy to me that a 25% reduction in dimensions resulted in a 60% drop in capacity! I wonder if I miscalculated something somewhere along the way...

I mailed this mug out to Lady Fina on May first, and anxiously awaited news of its arrival. As it drew near the end of May with no word, I contacted the swap coordinator to inquire. She informed me that she had not received notice that it was received, and that she would ask (we aren't supposed to have direct contact with our recipients ourselves; all communication is supposed to go through the coordinator). In the meantime, I tracked down the receipt from the post office and checked the tracking number, which indicated that the package was delivered on May 4th. I began to fear that someone had stolen it out of her mailbox or off her porch.

A few short days later, though, my fears were assuaged: I heard back from the swap coordinator, who said that Fina had returned from traveling and received her package this past weekend! Hoooooooray!!!