Elspeth's Blackjack

(c) Etienne le Mons

My latest leatherwork project was a heraldic blackjack for my friend Elspeth. She really likes her arms as rendered by Etienne le Mons (right), so I printed them out to use as a template for the tooling.

I thought it would be a relatively easy project, as far as the tooling went. Certainly easier than the semy of crosses on my last project! I discovered, however, that getting those flowers to come out looking like anything other than nondescript blobs was quite a challenge (one I'm not sure I completely overcame, to be honest).

I did a lot of the tooling for this project during downtime at work, which generated quite a bit of interest from some of my coworkers. That was pretty cool.

Once the tooling was done, I drilled the holes and stitched the blackjack together. Then I warmed the leather to 185 degrees in my oven before coating the outside of the jack with beeswax.
Once the wax had cooled, I mixed up the EnviroTex Lite and poured it inside the mug. When all interior surfaces were covered, I set the mug aside to dry for 24 hours. After that, I sanded the lip and inside surfaces before pouring in the second coat. After another 24 hours, I repeated the process for the third and final coat.

When the last coat was dry, I once again placed the mug inside my oven, heated to 185 degrees. As the excess wax melted off, I used a pastry brush to touch up where it had absorbed unevenly. This proved very effective, and created a pleasant, uniform, dark brown tone for the mug.

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!

Concordia Champion Prize

One of my last duties as Concordia's A&S Champion was to organize and run the competition at this year's Wars of the Roses. It is customary for the outgoing Champion to make the prize for the winner of the competition. I immediately decided to make a leather blackjack.

I began by drawing up a measured blueprint of the body of the mug on a piece of waxed parchment paper. I have discovered this to be superior to regular paper, because the wax helps it repel water when it comes time to trace the pattern onto the wet leather, thereby preventing rips and tears in the pattern. The measurements I used were based on a mug I had previously completed, which was assembled from a pattern provided by Lord Geoffrey de Cardeville during an eight-week workshop he taught in the Barony of Lochmere (Atlantia) in 2011.

Once the blueprint was drawn up, I wet down a side of ten-ounce, vegetable-tanned cow leather and traced the pattern into it. Then, using an Xacto knife, I cut the body of the blackjack from the side of leather. Since I did not intend to tool any designs into this project, I moved on immediately to the seams. Using a seam marker and a four-hole punch marker, I marked the seams into the leather. Then, using an awl, I bored the sewing holes. This is a long, miserable process, and it always makes me appreciate our modern tools all the more. When the holes were complete, I stitched the jack together using brown waxed linen thread and two needles.

Once the body of the mug was sewn, it was time to measure and cut the bottom insert. This time, I used a thinner 5-6oz. leather, which was MUCH easier to insert and sew in than the thicker leather I've used in the past. Once the bottom was sewn in, I soaked the blackjack in cool water for around five minutes. Then I carefully inserted an empty plastic bottle with the desired diameter into the mouth of the mug (one of these days I will make a proper wooden mould, but for now I use what tools I have). Once it was stretched fully around the bottle, I set it aside to dry for several days.

When it was dry, I pulled the bottle out of the mug. I then sealed the outside of the vessel with wax and the inside with a completely modern epoxy called EnvirotexLite.

 The first step in sealing the mug was to heat the leather at two hundred degrees Fahrenheit for several minutes (preheating the leather causes it to absorb the wax better) and then thoroughly coat the outside of the vessel with liquid wax. Care needed to be taken to not drip wax on the rim or inside the mug, however, as it will cause the interior sealant to not bond properly with the leather.

After the wax was applied and allowed to cool, I applied a second, thick coating of wax along the stitched seams. This prevents the interior sealant from seeping out. I used a pastry brush in both wax applications.

First coat.

Once the leather was completely cool, it was time to pour the interior sealant. For the first application, I prepared six teaspoons of the EnvirotexLite, which I poured directly into the mug. Then, by tilting it this way and that to spread the sealant, I coated the entire interior surface. Using a spoon, I carefully applied the sealant around the rim as well.

The sealant requires twenty four hours to fully set. After the first coat, the interior of the mug and the rim were very rough. I sanded it down with a fine-grit sandpaper, and then prepared a second application. It only required four teaspoons, because the leather absorbs far less on subsequent applications.

Second coat.

Twenty four hours after the second coat, the interior was much smoother. However, the interior handle seam needed some attention. This seam has proven problematic to seal in the past, because the EnvirotexLite flows with gravity, and it's really difficult to find the perfect balance that will keep the sealant in that seam until it hardens.

I created a dam with several pieces of scotch tape (a first-time experiment for this project) and, after pouring the sealant into the mug, balanced it carefully on a dolphin candle holder in my living room. I watched it for about half an hour, and it seemed to be correctly balanced. So I left it to harden and went to bed.

Whoops!

And I woke up to … well … this.

The mug tipped forward during the night, and a lot of the sealant flowed out. Fortunately, enough remained inside to sufficiently seal the seam. Fortunately as well, it didn't stick to the surface of my bookcase, nor to the waxed top of the mug handle! I was able to cut off the solidified overflow and easily remove the tape dam.

 I applied one final, small coat of the sealant, mostly to smooth over a few rough edges. When that last coat was set, I again placed the mug inside my oven at 200 degrees to melt off the excess wax from the surface and exterior seams. Then, while the leather was still warm, I used a soft cloth to buff the waxed surfaces.

When the mug again cooled, I filled it with water and let it sit for an hour to test for watertightness. It passed the test, showing no signs of seepage or leaks. This mug will hold twelve ounces of hot or cold liquid.

I displayed it in the open display at Roses. Then it was awarded to Lady Astrid, who won the Populace Choice competition with her lovely embroidery!

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!

A More Period Blackjack

This is my fourth blackjack to date. I have the techniques down fairly well—tracing, cutting, sewing, tooling. How, then, do I continue to challenge myself as a leatherworker?

My goal for this project was to move further from the modern and closer to the medieval. On past projects, I have used overtly modern tools—such as a Dremel tool—and overtly modern finishings—acrylic paint, EnvirotexLite. This project, then, would be completed using an awl to drill the holes (much as my aching hands would come to regret that decision), no tooled and painted designs, and wax to seal the inside. It was the waxing of the interior that had me most nervous—a completely new technique applied late in the project (being the last step before completion) meant the potential for a lot of work wasted, if I got it wrong and ruined the jack.

I also knew that, because there would be no fancy tooled and painted design to draw the eye, the craftsmanship of the vessel itself would have to be its own adornment. Uneven stitching, nicks in the leather, and rough edges would all stand out all the more on this project.

I began by drawing up a measured blueprint of the body of the mug on a piece of waxed parchment paper. I have discovered this to be superior to regular paper, because the wax helps it repel water when it comes time to trace the pattern onto the wet leather, thereby preventing rips and tears in the pattern. The measurements I used were based on a mug I had previously completed, which was assembled from a pattern provided by Lord Geoffrey de Cardeville during an eight-week workshop he taught in the Barony of Lochmere in 2011.

Once the blueprint was drawn up, I wet down a side of ten-ounce, vegetable-tanned cow leather and traced the pattern into it. Then, using an Xacto knife, I cut the body of the blackjack from the side of leather. Since I did not intend to tool any designs into this project, I moved on immediately to the seams. Using a seam marker and a four-hole punch marker, I marked the seams into the leather. Then, using an awl, I bored the sewing holes. This was a long, miserable process, and made me appreciate our modern tools all the more. When the holes were complete, I stitched the jack together using brown waxed linen thread and two needles.

Once the body of the mug was sewn, it was time to measure and cut the bottom insert. This took two attempts to accomplish successfully. On the first attempt, I simply traced around the existing footprint of the body of the mug. This produced a piece that was much too narrow—it wouldn't even stay in place when I tried to sew it in, but if it had, the mug would have been thinner than a modern beer bottle! So I tried again, with a wider piece. It still resulted in a narrower mug than I would have preferred, but it was much better than the first try.

To sew the bottom into the mug, I bored stitching holes into the bottom piece of leather by matching them up to the already-bored holes in the body. These were done five holes at a time, then stitched before drilling the next five. As I have learned in previous projects, the bottom leather piece stretches and moves as it is sewn, so pre-drilling all the holes does not work out very well—they wind up not lining up correctly with the holes in the body.

Once the bottom was sewn in, I soaked the blackjack in cool water for around five minutes. Then I filled the mug with sand. Using a mallet and a dowel rod, I pounded the sand down in tightly. Then I added more sand, and repeated the process. This stretched the leather and created the mug's uniform, round shape. Once it was thoroughly packed, I set it aside to dry out for four days.When it was dry, I poured the sand out of the mug.

Now came the new and exciting part of the process: the waxing. On my previous projects, I have sealed the outside of my vessels with wax and the inside with a completely modern epoxy called EnvirotexLite. For this project, however, I wanted to take a more period approach, and so I intended to seal the entire jack with wax.

In consulting with other leatherworkers, I learned that the best way to go about this is to heat the leather at two hundred degrees Fahrenheit for several minutes (preheating the leather causes it to absorb the wax better) and then submerge it completely in liquid wax. Then, it should be left submerged until no more air bubbles escape the leather. After it is removed from the wax, it should again be heated to melt away any thick, excess wax on the exterior surfaces.

I ran into a problem almost immediately with this plan, however, because the crockpot I use to melt my wax is entirely too small to fully submerge a project this size. So I improvised. After warming the mug in my oven, I submerged the lower half of it in the crockpot of melted wax. Using a ladle, I then poured wax into it while it was still submerged. Then I used a pastry brush to apply wax to the outside surface of the mug. At no time did I observe any air bubbles using this method, so I had to guesstimate how long it should sit to allow the wax to thoroughly penetrate the leather. I then removed the jack from the crockpot, poured out the wax, and placed it upside-down in a pan in my oven for about fifteen minutes to melt off the excess.

When it came out of the oven, I allowed it to cool briefly—not to room temperature, but enough so that fresh wax applied to it would solidify quickly. Then, using my pastry brush, I carefully applied wax to the interior seams of the blackjack.After that, I allowed the blackjack to cool completely to room temperature. I then filled it with water and set it on a piece of newspaper, keeping an eye out for wet spots that would indicate leaks. Only one such spot appeared—water was escaping through two of the stitching holes in the bottom of the mug. I applied more wax over these holes on the exterior of the mug, and then filled it with water again. This time, no leaks appeared.

This finished mug holds twenty ounces. Because it is sealed with wax, it cannot be used for hot beverages.

______________________________________________________________________
Entered In:
Kingdom Arts and Sciences Festival 2016, Atlantia: Barony of Lochmere's Baronial Display

KASF display. (c) Lady Cassair Warwick

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!!!

Two Bears' Black Jack

Shortly after I completed my first Black Jack, my former Barony in the West announced an A&S Exchange project. The idea was that each participant would be secretly assigned to another participant and would create some spiffy SCA item for them. Long before I knew who my recipient was, I knew what I was going to make: a Black Jack!

I was assigned to someone I had never met and given the suggestion of bears and bear paws. Perfect! I looked up his registered SCA device and made that the focal point of the design. For the background, I created a pattern of bear paw tracks and the stars from his device. Unlike on my own mug, I decided not to paint these designs in the background.

Most of the tooling and construction process was identical to my first project (albeit without Geoff to guide me at every turn), so I won't recreate those details here. Rather, I will discuss the differences and challenges.

I did not have a Dremel tool of my own at this point, but Geoff very nicely allowed me to come over one afternoon and use his. I resolved to purchase one of my own before any future projects!

This project from beginning to end was a learning process for me. Right from the start, it was a lot of trial and error. I did not have Geoff's patterns at hand, and so I created one using my own Black Jack and vague memories as a guide. This finished mug came out a good bit narrower than mine, and I neglected to follow the curved stitch pattern at the bottom of the handle. Despite these faults, though, I was very proud of the finished product!

The device itself was mostly painted, again using acrylic paints. However, I was inspired to leave the bears unpainted with the hope that the natural leather, when waxed, would turn an appealing shade of brown. That hunch paid off, and I was very happy with the result!

Further complications arose as I raced the deadline to complete the project: my oven didn't work and I had no easy way of melting the excess wax off the finished product. I attempted to do so with a lighter, which resulted in the somewhat streaked look of the finish. I actually found that I liked that effect on this piece, though--it gave it a more rustic feel that I felt went well with the bear theme.

In particular, I was pleased with the hand-tooled bear paw prints and the stars in the background. I love how the wax took to the leather, making the paw prints darker and emphasizing the details of the stars.

In the end, I met the deadline and mailed the Black Jack off to Alaska. It was received with delighted surprise, and Two Bears and I are now Facebook friends!

My First Black Jack

Several years ago, a new family moved to the Barony of Lochmere. The head of the household, Lord Geoffrey de Cardeville, happened to be a master leatherworker. He offered a series of classes to the Barony, and I was one of several who took advantage of the opportunity.

Lord Geoffrey's specialty is the Black Jack, and it was this project that he offered for his series of classes. We worked each Sunday as a group with Geoff leading us step-by-step through most of the construction, but we did complete some of the tooling and sewing on our own at home.

First, we chose which shape we wanted for our Black Jack from among the patterns Geoff has developed over the years. I chose a larger, more "manly" pattern for a mug that would stand up straight (he also had patterns for smaller mugs, and for mugs that lean back slightly). After tracing the pattern onto the side of leather, I cut it out using an Xaxto knife--this is a somewhat tedious, labor-intensive step.

With the pattern selected and the leather cut, I knew what my surface area was for tooling the design. My homework after the first Sunday was to decide what I wanted to tool. I chose a variation my SCA device (Azure, a dog's head couped contourny between three mullets and on a chief argent three shamrocks vert -- in this rendering, the dog's head is not contourny). For the background, I created a pattern of two of the major elements of my device: white stars and green shamrocks. I decided that the stars would be "pushed in" while the shamrocks would be "raised."

The following Sunday, the holes for the stitching were drilled into the leather. This was accomplished using a Dremel tool--SO much easier and faster than trying to do the holes by hand with an awl! After the holes were drilled, I traced my design onto the leather.

Then the tooling began. I accomplished the majority of it while I was working the overnight shift at the airport--I was able to work relatively undisturbed for several hours at a stretch, and the project helped keep me awake on those long, winter nights!

The following Sunday, construction began. Under Geoff's careful tutelage, I began to stitch my Black Jack together using waxed linen thread and two tapestry needles. This is a slow, painful process and is, by far, my least favorite part of any leatherwork project. I break countless needles each time I have to sew something, and it makes my fingers ache fiercely. It's worth the pain and suffering, though.

First, the handles were stitched together, along with an extra insert of leather to give extra strength and rigidness to the handle. Then the bottom of the mug was soaked in water and fitted in, and then that was stitched into place as well with a double row of stitches. Surprisingly, the bottom was much easier to stitch than the handle! It led me to wonder if this was because the leather was wet, and I have made a mental note to experiment with soaking the handle prior to sewing it in future projects.

When the stitching was complete, the entire piece was thoroughly soaked in water. After that, I poured sand into the Jack until it was completely filled. Then, using a dowel rod, I packed the sand down into the mug. This stretched the leather and gave the piece its final shape. When the desired shape was achieved, the Black Jack was set aside to dry for many days.

When the leather was completely dry, the sand was poured out and it was time to paint the design. Geoff had us use acrylic paint for this step of the project, which is not a period paint. However, it is durable, sticks well on the leather, and offers a range of bright, vibrant colors.

Once the paint was dry, it was time to coat the exterior with beeswax. Geoff used a crock pot to liquefy the wax. While it was melting, he heated his oven and we placed the Black Jack inside, warming the leather. This made it more absorbent of the wax, which we applied generously to the outside of the mug using a pastry brush. Extra wax was applied to the stitches, to prevent the sealant that would be poured inside the mug from seeping out.

When the wax had hardened, it was time to pour the sealant. While in period they would have used pitch or wax, we used a modern poly-resin mixture called Envirotex Lite. There were three separate pourings of this sealant, which was allowed to dry completely (taking a minimum of twenty four hours) and was then sanded between the first-and-second and the second-and-third pouring. Once the third coat was completely dry, we put the Black Jack into a heated oven again to evenly melt off the excess wax, and VOILA! The project was complete!