Laurel Quest: Sigrid

At Pennsic last year, there was one night early in War Week when the air quality was particularly atrocious. This, of course, brought on an attack of my chronic bronchitis. I was utterly miserable, and spent most of my last two days of war sleeping in a slouch chair. My good friend Aelfgar helped ease my suffering with assorted medications and gentle care, and I was very grateful for him.

Imagine my dismay, then, when I learned that upon returning home from Pennsic, he also fell ill. So did the other members of his household. So not only was I sick, but I was also Patient Zero.

Aelfgar's lady, Mistress Sigrid Briansdotter, turned this unfortunate turn of events into a fun learning opportunity. She issued me a challenge: create for her household a charm or talisman to protect them from the Evil Eye. In exchange, she said, I might ask a boon of her as well.

Well.

I had *heard* the term "Evil Eye" before, but that was literally all I knew about it. So I began to research. Many rabbit holes later, I settled on making not just one talisman, but a different one for each member of the household, inspired by their different personas.

I learned a LOT ... not just about the Evil Eye and folk cures, but also about the medieval understanding of anatomy and vision (and when you understand that, it's easy to see why they believed in things like the Evil Eye and gazing at idols). Additionally, I learned a lot about myself as an artisan--particularly that I need to practice WAY more discipline when it comes to completing projects in a timely manner. I think the boon I will ask of Sigrid will be forgiveness for the length of time she's had to wait!

For Sigrid, I made a Viking Wire Weave chain with a lunula pendant, based on a pendant found at Birka.

For Aelfgar, I made a leather flacket and bartered for three "silver" coins from three different English monarchs.

For Corun, I braided a six-strand, red, cotton cord.

Here's the documentation I sent along with the items I made:

Medieval Science and How it Relates to the Evil Eye

    To understand the nearly-universal dread fascination with the power of the Evil Eye throughout medieval Europe, it helps to understand how academics of the time believed the senses operated.  Medieval scholars had located the centers of sensory perception in the brain, but they believed the five senses were active entities that conveyed external stimuli to other, internal “senses”--common sense, imagination, judgement, memory, and fantasy. With regard specifically to vision, some theorized that a person’s eyes emitted rays towards a viewed object, while others believed objects emitted rays towards the eyes. In either circumstance, these rays could influence both the viewer and the object.

    According to Augustine’s theory of vision, the life-fire within a person’ body--the same fire that animates and warms--is collected with unique intensity behind the eyes. For an object to be seen by a viewer, this fire must be projected in the form of a ray that is focused on the object, thereby establishing a two-way street along which the attention and energy of the viewer passes to touch its object. A representation of this object in turn returns to the eyes and is bonded to the soul and retained in the memory. This strong visual experience could be either negative (contamination by a dangerous or unsightly visual object) or positive (as in the miraculous power of an icon, when assiduously gazed upon, to heal one’s disease).

    Popular beliefs and practices of the time support the conclusion that medieval people considered visual experience particularly powerful for one’s good or ill. It is easy to understand, then, why the belief in the Evil Eye persisted from classical times to the sixteenth century and beyond. It was thought of as a maleficent visual ray of potentially lethal strength. A person who had the Evil Eye could reportedly touch and poison the soul or body of an enemy.

    Defenses against the Evil Eye were numerous and varied, as were cures for people already afflicted. Gestures, incantations, talismans and amulets, and even planting specific herbs and vegetables on one’s property were among the protections people practiced.

Examples of the Evil Eye Throughout the SCA Period

    Belief in the power of the Evil Eye is documented even in the Bible itself. In the Book of Judges, camels are described as having “ornaments like the moon” hung around the neck for protection. Half moons have long been considered among the most potent of amulets against the Evil Eye.

    Among the Greeks and Romans, statues of Nemesis were adored to save worshipers from fascination. The Romans also wore crescent moon pendants and even phallic adornments as protective amulets.

In 842 A.D., a monk of Monte Cassimo named Erchempert recorded, of a conversation with Landulf, Bishop of Capua, that the Bishop claimed whenever he met a monk’s eyes, something unlucky happened.

    In England during the Black Death, it was widely believed that a glance from a sick person’s distorted eyes would communicate the infection to those on whom it fell.

    In 1603, Martin Delrio, Jesuit of Louvain, published six books. In them, he writes that Maleficum existed, their powers derived of a pact with the devil, and that they infected others with evil by looking upon them with evil intent.

Persona-Inspired Remedies

Lunula (Sigrid)

    Crescent-shaped Lunulae date back to Roman times, when they were worn by young girls as talismen of protecting against assorted ailments, including the Evil Eye. They have often been found in women’s graves from Birka to Russia, and are still worn in parts of the world today.

    Because Sigrid is Swedish, the find from Birka caught my attention for this project. Lunula pendants were worn in particular by women of the era as talismans of fertility, female strength, and luck. It seems likely that this practice came via trade contact with the Slavic world. Pendants of this design have been found in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Finland, Russia, and of course in Birka, Sweden. These granulated pendants were sometimes cast, while other times they were stamped. The were worn as a single pendant on a chain, or as one of many adornments on the festoons between turtle brooches.

    The lunula pendant for Sigrid is a replica of a tenth century amulet, cast in bronze. It is suspended from a double-weave Viking knit chain woven of 28-gauge bronze wire.

Red String (Corun)

    In the whole of the British Isles, the majority of Evil Eye protections and remedies seem to be of the “use what we have around the farm” variety. Onions and various bits of common animals were carried as talismans. The crescent-shaped pendants were also favored, undoubtedly a remnant of the Roman occupation. The most common remedy recorded, however, seems to have been the tying of a simple string around one’s neck. Accounts differ as to the specifics--color, ply, material, number of knots, and incantations spoken while tying the string all varied. The most frequently mentioned color is red, with green and multi-colored strings being favored as well. Where specific ply count is recorded,  three-ply is what was used. The number three may have been significant to the protective and healing properties, as accounts often recorded either three knots tied in the string, or the string being wound three times around the neck of the afflicted.

    These strings were commonly called sreang a chronachaidh, or snathahm cronachaidh (string or thread of hurting).

    Corun’s string is a six-strand braid of red cotton. It should be worn touching the skin and, according to some accounts, tucked out of sight beneath his clothing.

Water and a Silver Coin (Aelfgar)

    Also seemingly from the “use what we have around the farm” category comes a practice that appears to have been specific to Anglo-Saxon England: anointing the afflicted with fresh water that had been poured over a silver coin. Fresh water and a silver coin were frequent ingredients in other remedies of the time (a treatment for cataracts, for example, called for fresh water to be steeped with a silver coin and blades of grass). To cure an Evil Eye affliction, fresh water that has been poured over a silver coin should then be rubbed on the patient’s eyes.

Aelfgar’s hand-struck “silver” (they’re actually pewter) coins are from the reigns of Edward the Confessor (my own personal patron saint); Harold Godwinson, the last Saxon King of England; and William the Conqueror, the first Norman King of England.

It seemed impractical to try and send fresh water--instead, I have provided a sturdy leather vessel in which Aelfgar may collect and store water at need. This flacket is sealed inside and out with beeswax and is safe for drinking water and other cool, non-alcoholic beverages from. The stopper will prevent splash-back as the flacket is carried, but it will leak if the flask is inverted. It is secured with a cotton fingerloop braid cord in Aelfgar’s heraldic colors. The carrying strap is hand-woven cotton, also heraldically-inspired. It’s Kumihimo, which wouldn’t have been known in England during Aelfgar’s time. None of the fingerloop braids I tried made a strap in a sufficient width for this purpose, so I improvised (or cheated…) a little.

Works Cited

"Coin." British Museum. Accessed September 15, 2017. http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1072750&partId=1&searchText=Edward the Confessor&images=true&page=1.

“Coin.” British Museum. Accessed September 15, 2017. http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1086898&partId=1&searchText=William+the+Conqueror&images=true&page=1.

“Coin.” British Museum. Accessed September 15, 2017. http://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1089605&partId=1&searchText=coin+Harold&images=true&page=1.

Elworthy, Frederick Thomas. The Evil Eye: The Classic Account of an Ancient Superstition. Mineola, N.Y: Dover Publications, 2004.

Iona McCleery; A sense of the past: exploring sensory experience in the pre-modern world, Brain, Volume 132, Issue 4, 1 April 2009, Pages 1112-1117, https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awp020

Maclagan, Robert Craig. Evil eye in the western Highlands. London: D. Nutt, 1902.

Oakseed, Trobere. "Leatherworking II." The Compleat Anachronist, no. 18 (March 1985): 38-42.

"Ornaments of Copper and Alloys, Part 2." Pycтpaнa. October 11, 2007. Accessed September 15, 2017. http://xn--80aa2bkafhg.xn--p1ai/article.php?nid=28038.

Robinson, Wayne. "Flackets - the Other Leather Bottle." The Reverend's Big Blog of Leather (blog), May 6, 2010. Accessed September 26, 2017. https://leatherworkingreverend.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/flackets-the-other-leather-bottle/.

Translation of Excerpts from

“Ornaments of Copper and Alloys, Part 2”

Привески играли роль не просто украшений, но в значительной степени амулетов-оберегов, они должны были охранять их обладателей от злых духов. К оберегам относят такие типы привесок, как зооморфные, миниатюрные предметы быта и орудия, лунницы и др. Наиболее распространенной и древней формой привесок была круглая, олицетворяющая солнце.

The pendants played the role of not just decorations, but largely amulets-charms, they had to protect their owners from evil spirits. The amulets include such types of pendants as zoomorphic, miniature objects of life and tools, lunettes, etc. The most widespread and ancient form of pendants was a round, personifying the sun.

Лунницы - привески в виде полумесяца, символизирующие луну, - типичное и наиболее распространенное общеславянское украшение. Находки их известны в Югославии, Чехословакии, Польше, Венгрии, Германии, Финляндии, Швеции (Арциховский А.В., 1946. С. 88). Б.А. Рыбаков писал: «Если руководствоваться мифологией, то их (лунницы) следует считать принадлежностью девичьего убора, так как Селена - богиня Луны - была покровительницей девушек» (Рыбаков Б.А., 1971. С. 17). На Руси лунницы получили широкое распространение уже в X в. и просуществовали вплоть до середины XIV в. Специальное исследование этим украшениям посвятила В.В. Гольмстен, разработавшая их типологию и хронологию, основываясь на материалах собрания исторического музея (Гольмстен В.В., 1914. С. 90).

Lunnitsa - pendants in the form of a crescent moon, symbolizing the moon - a typical and most common Slavic adornment. Their finds are known in Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Finland, Sweden (Artsikhovsky AV, 1946. S. 88). BA Rybakov wrote: "If you follow the mythology, then their (lunnitsa) should be considered a part of the maiden's dress, since Selena - the goddess of the moon - was the patroness of the girls" (Rybakov BA, 1971. S. 17). In Russia, lunettes became widespread in the X century. and existed until the middle of the XIV century. A special study devoted to these ornaments was made by V.V. Holmsten, who developed their typology and chronology, based on the materials of the collection of the historical museum (Holmsten VV, 1914. P. 90).

Тисненые серебряные широкорогие лунницы, покрытые зернью в виде вписанных треугольников и зигзагов, окружающих выпуклые полушария, известны в древностях Великой Моравии (Декан У., 1976. С. 157). Они входили в состав украшений знати как великоморавской державы, так и Киевской Руси. Подобные привески-лунницы хорошо известны по кладам, зарытым в Х-ХI вв. (Корзухина Г.Ф., 1954. С. 88. Табл. VIII, 32, 34). Отдельные экземпляры встречаются и в богатых курганных погребениях Х-ХI вв. около крупных городов (табл. 54,3). В подражание зерненым лунницам изготовляли литые бронзовые лунницы, полностью воспроизводящие узор штампованно-зерненых изделий (табл. 54, 2). Такие лунницы встречены в курганах Х-ХI - начала ХII в. почти всех древнерусских племен, а также во многих городах.

Embossed silver wide-brimmed lunnits covered with granules in the form of inscribed triangles and zigzags surrounding the convex hemispheres are known in the antiquities of Great Moravia (Dean U., 1976. P. 157). They were part of the jewelry of the nobility as a Great Moravian state, and Kievan Rus. Such pendant lunnitsa are well known for the treasures buried in the 10th-11th centuries. (Korzukhina GF, 1954. S. 88. Table VIII, 32, 34). Individual specimens are also found in rich burial burials of the 10th-11th centuries. around large cities (Table 54.3). In imitation of grain lunnits made cast bronze lunettes, completely reproducing the pattern of stamped-grained products (Table 54, 2). Such lunnits were found in the barrows of the 10th-early 12th century. almost all ancient Russian tribes, as well as in many cities.

Например, в Новгороде такая лунница найдена в слое ниже 28-го яруса, датирующегося по данным дендрохронологии 953 г. Своеобразной разновидностью широкорогих лунниц являются образцы, украшенные по концам, а иногда и в середине тремя кружочками (табл. 54, 1). Эти лунницы также имеют прототипы в великомо-равских древностях (Декап У., 1976. № 153-155), а в восточнославянских памятниках получают распространение в Х-ХI вв. В Новгороде сделана интересная находка такой лунницы в слое конца X в. вместе с ожерельем из ластовых глазчатых бусин желтого и черного цвета (Седова М.В., 1981. Рис. 6, 6). Подобные бусы датируются по многочисленным аналогиям в древнерусских памятниках X - началом XI в. Район наибольшего распространения широкорогих литых лунниц - Ленинградская, Калининская, Смоленская, Брянская области. К середине XII в. лунницы этого типа выходят из употребления.

For example, in Novgorod such a lunette is found in a layer below the 28th tier, dated according to the dendrochronology data of 953. A specimen decorated at the ends and sometimes in the middle by three circles is a peculiar species of broad-shouldered lunnits (Table 54, 1). These lunnitses also have prototypes in the Great-European antiquities (Dekap U., 1976. № 153-155), and in the East Slavic monuments they spread in the 10th-11th centuries. In Novgorod, an interesting find of such a lunette in the late-10th century layer was made. together with a necklace of finely-colored eye beads of yellow and black color (Sedova MV, 1981. Fig. 6, 6). Such beads date back to numerous analogies in Old Russian monuments X - the beginning of the XI century. The region of the largest distribution of wide-necked cast lunnits is the Leningrad, Kalinin, Smolensk and Bryansk regions. By the middle of the XII century. lunnitsy of this type are out of use.

Уже в XI в. появляется новый тип лунниц - узкогорлые, или круторогие (табл. 54, 6-8). Орнаментация их разнообразна: это и точечный подражающий зерни орнамент по контуру привески (табл. 54, 6), и глазковый орнамент (табл. 54, 8), и соединение того и другого (табл. 54, 7), и треугольники ложной зерни (табл. 54, 9). Круторогие лунницы распространены были на всей территории северной и южной Руси. Время их наибольшего распространения - ХI-ХII вв. Именно тогда создавались и такие своеобразные формы, как узкорогие язычковые (табл. 54,10) лунницы и лунницы, подражающие славянским, но изготовленные в финской среде методом литья по восковой модели (табл. 54,11).

Already in the XI century. there is a new type of lunnits - narrow-necked, or steep-necked (Table 54, 6-8). Their ornamentation is diverse: it is a dot pattern imitating the grain along the contour of the pendant (Table 54, 6), and eye ornamentation (Tables 54, 8), and the combination of both (Table 54, 7), and triangles of false grain Table 54, 9). Twisting lunnits were common throughout the northern and southern Russia. The time of their greatest distribution - XI-XII centuries. It was then that such peculiar forms were created as well, such as the narrow-horned tabernacle (Table 54, 10), lunnits and lunnits imitating the Slavic, but made in the Finnish environment by casting using the wax model (Table 54, 11).

Extant Examples

Silver Coin: Edward the Confessor. British Museum.

Silver Coin: Harold II. British Museum.

Silver Coin: William the Conqueror. British Museum.

10th c. Lunula pendant.

Flacket Gone Wrong

When I agreed to run the Arts and Sciences competition and display at Lochmere's Nacht in der Stadt event, I intended to make the first- and second-place prizes for the Newcomers' Showcase competition. First place would be a leather flacket.

The project started well enough. I had just received a side of lighter-weight 5-6 oz. leather, and I was excited to use it for the flacket. I found a pattern for the shape of the bottle on instructibles.com. It was a bit too squat for my tastes, but that was easily correctable by stretching the image slightly in Paint before printing it.

After tracing the outline of the flacket onto the side of leather, I quickly discovered that thinner leather doesn't necessarily equate to easier-to-cut leather. Oooof! It was no easier at all.

Once I had wrestled it free from the side of leather, I marked the seams and spaced the stitching holes. Then I drilled the stitching holes all the way around. I had also marked the holes for the carrying strap, but I didn't have a drill bit that large. I decided to go ahead and stitch and sand-pack the bottle, and I'd have Dad drill the bigger holes when I saw him next.

For the first time ever, I didn't break a single needle as I stitched the project together! I count that as a major victory. I also hit a point about half-way through the stitching when I got *super* excited about the finished project--it went from this hypothetical concept in my mind to something I could actually visualize as a complete, usable object! I love that point in projects. It's such a neat feeling.

Once it was stitched, I soaked the leather with water and then packed it with sand, stuffing it as full as I could. Then I wedged an old, dried-out highlighter into the neck to hold it in a perfectly round shape as it dried. I let it sit for three days to dry completely.

After it had dried, I took it over to my parents' house to have Dad drill the big holes. It turns out that waiting was a mistake--even though it wasn't yet wax-hardened, the leather was so stiff from having been soaked and dried that it was very difficult to drill through. The drill actually skidded across the leather a bit on the first hole, an imperfection I hoped would be disguised by the waxing and then further hidden when the carrying strap was attached. Next time I know: do ALL the drilling first.

With the holes finally in place, I took the bottle back home and popped it in a warm oven for about twenty minutes. Then I applied hot beeswax to the exterior surfaces. I immediately noticed that the leather didn't turn a deep, rich brown like the thicker leather has in the past. Still, it did darken somewhat, so I attributed it to the different leather weight and kept working.

When I applied the wax to the back, something very strange happened. Most of it matched the front, but there was a spot roughly the diameter of a quarter where the base of the neck began to widen out into the body that turned MUCH darker. I still haven't figured out why that happened, and it looked really strange. Crossing my fingers, I hoped that it would even out when I melted off the excess wax--maybe the additional absorbing of wax would darken the rest of the flacket a bit?

I poured four coats of EnviroTex Lite inside the bottle, taking great care to spread it evenly over all the surfaces and allowing each coat to dry for twenty four hours. I couldn't see the inside very well, though I did my best by shining a flashlight down the neck. The only way to know for sure would be to melt off the excess wax and then fill the bottle with water and check for leaks.

When I filled it with water, I didn't see any leaks or seepage around the seams. This was good. I poured the contents into a measuring cup--the flacket holds about a cup and a half of liquid.  That was a little surprising--I thought it would be at least two cups.

I looked back at the bottle, and was surprised to see light speckles in the finish that hadn't been there before. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that the sealant hadn't completely coated the inside and the water was seeping through the leather in places. Worrisome, but not a disaster--I just had to let the leather dry out, and do another coat of sealant.

I left the bottle standing inverted in a cup for three days before reapplying a thick coat of beeswax along the seams and pouring in another coat of the sealant. I painstakingly tilted the bottle this way and that, doing my very best to ensure that the entire interior was covered. When I was at last convinced that I could do no more, I set it aside to dry.

When I put it back in the oven to again melt off the excess wax the next day, I was pleased to note that the light speckles darkened back down to match the rest of the surface. When it came out of the oven, it looked exactly the way I hoped it would--except for that strange dark spot on the back, which had not blended any better.

I decided I had better let it cool completely before testing it for leaks again, so I set it on a shelf in the living room and left it overnight. The next day, I carefully filled it with water, holding my breath the whole time. No spots appeared! I held it full for several minutes, watching carefully for any sign of seepage. It maintained its perfect finish, and I breathed easier.

When I poured the water out, some of it dribbled down the sides. Immediately, speckles of discoloration began to appear. I stared at it in disbelief and horror. It was thoroughly sealed with wax! What was going on?!

I flipped the faucet on and ran water over the entire exterior surface. And ... well ... it did this:

I don't understand why this happened--I've never seen anything like it. I can only surmise it has something to do with the leather itself, because the wax is the same and all of my techniques are the same as my previous projects.

It has become apparent, though, that I cannot give this flacket as a prize. It's useless for its intended purpose. It's only good as a display item, really. And it's only good for that IF I can bring it back to its pre-water appearance with another coat of wax.

Second Escallop Flacket

While my first attempt at an escallop flacket was drying, I tracked down a more symmetrical escallop pattern and printed it out. Then I traced it onto ten-ounce, vegetable-tanned leather and cut it out with an Xacto knife. For the record, escalloped symmetrical shapes are just as frustrating to cut out as non-symmetrical ones!

Once it was cut out, I flipped it over and traced it onto the side of leather. Cutting that out as well created a mirror-image piece to be the back of the flacket.

Then I tooled the details into the front piece with a beveled hand stamp and a wooden mallet. As with the first flacket, I left the back unadorned.

When I was done with the tooling, I marked the seams on the front piece (in the photo to the left, you can see the gouges from the seam marker following the contours of the shell design). Holding the front and back together, I drilled the stitching holes along the marked seams. I had to eyeball the spacing of the holes because the tool I use to mark straight seams just doesn't work in tight, curved patterns.

Then, using waxed linen thread, I stitched the seams all the way around the flacket. Like the experimental project, this flacket has a relatively small opening. This again made it very tedious to sand-pack the flacket. I persevered, though. When I could stuff no more sand inside, I wedged a Sharpie marker in the opening to hold it open and round set it aside to dry.

Three days later, I poured the sand out of it. I stuck a thin pen inside the hole and scraped and banged it around inside as best I could to loosen any particles that were still clinging to the leather.

Next, it was time to apply the outside coating of wax. I warmed the oven and turned on the crock pot full of beeswax.  I put the flacket in the oven to warm the leather while I waited for the wax to melt. Then, using a pastry brush, I applied wax to the entire exterior of the flacket. After letting it cool back down to room temperature, I applied an additional thick coating of wax along the seams and edges to prevent the inner sealant from seeping out when it came time to pour.

When the wax had completely cooled, I mixed up about a quarter cup of Envirotex Lite and carefully poured it into the flacket. I tilted and tipped it around for a good twenty minutes, trying to ensure that the inside was completely coated. The extra wax along the edges and seams did the trick--no seepage occurred! Then I up-ended the flacket over a piece of scrap cardboard and allowed most of the excess to drip out. When that was done, I set it aside for twenty four hours to dry.

When it had dried, I poured in the second coat of sealant, which was also allowed to dry for twenty four hours. Then a third coat was applied. When that coat had dried, I heated the oven to 200 degrees and placed the flacket inside to melt off the excess wax. When the wax was liquefied, I pulled the flacket out of the oven and used a paper towel to wipe the last stubborn bits of wax from its surface. I noticed that there were places where I hadn't been careful enough in the application of the wax, and I had gotten it in areas where it wound up under the coat of sealant. This is problematic because it causes the sealant to not bond correctly with the leather, and it leads to chipping.

After allowing the flacket to cool back to room temperature, I filled the it with water and set it aside for several minutes. I then inspected it for any sign of water seepage. Finding none, I poured the water out (despite the size difference, it also holds 1/3c). It was done!

First on the left, second on the right.

Flacket Experiment

I've been wanting to make a flacket for a long time now. Then, last week I was looking for items or largesse to include on my 50 States quest and I was trying to decide how to include a small container of honey. I initially thought of a pottery jar, but I don't have any of the tools or materials to make those yet (that's an after-I-buy-a-house project). The it occurred to me that I could make small flackets and fill those with honey.

I have the Creative Anachronist issue that includes directions for a flacket, but I like to look at multiple sources before undertaking a project I've never made before. As I was looking at one blog in particular, something about the shape of the flacket clicked in my mind and I realized I could modify its design a bit and make escallop-shaped flackets!

I went straight to the Pennsic Traceable Art project and browsed their selection of escallop designs. Option number three was the closest to the shape I wanted for the flacket. I used MS Paint to stretch the image vertically a bit. I printed it with two-inch margins to achieve the size I wanted for the flacket.

I traced the outline of the escallop onto ten-ounce, vegetable-tanned leather and then cut it out with an Xacto knife. Then I flipped the cutout over and traced it onto the side of leather and cut that piece out as well, creating two pieces that were mirror-images of each other and would therefore theoretically line up better when put together for sewing.

I decided to tool the details of the escallop into one side, which would be the front of the flacket when it was complete. The back I left plain. As I tooled, I began to worry about how the stitching would work. The flacket is relatively small, and I was supposed to get two rows of stitches around the curvy edges without messing up the tooling. Yikes! I was loathe to even try, and ruin the pretty tooled shell I had created.

Alas, nothing was ever accomplished by being timid. Holding my breath, I grabbed a seam marker. Just as I was about to begin marking, however, it dawned on me in the nick of time that it would be MUCH easier to mark the seams on the untooled back piece. Plus, if I messed it up, I wouldn't have to redo all that tooling.

As I traced the seam lines, I realized that I would have to cut off the pointy top of the shell if I wanted it to actually function as a bottle. So I grabbed the Xacto knife again and cut them off the front and back pieces.

It wasn't long into the drilling of the holes that I realized this was not a good plan. The seam lines didn't run neatly with the tooled lines, and drilling from back to front made it exceedingly difficult to keep a nice, neat line of stitches on the front of the project. I abandoned that tactic in favor of marking and drilling from the front, following the natural contour of the design rather than the marked seams on the back.

It also became readily apparent that there was no way to do a double seam and maintain and semblance of the tooled design at all. I resigned myself to a single seam, but I fretted about the problems that might arise when it came time to pour the sealant inside the flacket.

The opening at the top of the flacket will be small even with the modifications I will make to the seams on the next project, but on this one it's positively tiny. This made it very tedious to sand-pack the flacket. I persevered, though. When I could stuff no more sand inside, I wedged a highlighter in the opening to hold it open and round set it aside to dry.

Three days later, I poured the sand out of it. I was surprised by how easily the sand came out--guess I worried about that for naught. I stuck a thin pen inside the hole and scraped and banged it around inside as best I could to loosen any particles that were still clinging to the leather.

Next, it was time to apply the outside coating of wax. I warmed the oven and turned on the crock pot full of beeswax.  I put the flacket in the oven to warm the leather while I waited for the wax to melt. Then, using a pastry brush, I applied wax to the entire exterior of the flacket. After letting it cool back down to room temperature, I applied an additional thick coating of wax along the seams and edges to prevent the inner sealant from seeping out when it came time to pour.

I mixed up about a quarter cup of Envirotex Lite and carefully poured it into the flacket. I tilted and tipped it around for a good twenty minutes, trying to ensure that the inside was completely coated. The extra wax along the edges and seams did the trick--no seepage occurred! Then I up-ended the flacket over a piece of scrap cardboard and allowed most of the excess to drip out. When that was done, I set it aside for twenty four hours to dry.

When it had dried, I poured in the second coat of sealant, which was also allowed to dry for twenty four hours. Then a third coat was applied.When that coat had dried, I heated the oven to 200 degrees and placed the flacket inside to melt off the excess wax. When the wax was liquefied, I pulled the flacket out of the oven and used a paper towel to wipe the last stubborn bits of wax from its surface.

After allowing it to cool back to room temperature, I filled the flacket with water and set it aside for several minutes. I then inspected it for any sign of water seepage. Finding none, I poured the water out (as a point of interest, it holds 1/3c). It was done!

Cutting out the swoopy scallop edges was a task that quickly tested my patience. I initially thought that I would not do it on future projects. Rather, I would do a traditionally-shaped flacket and tool the escallop into the front. However, I think the frustration is worth it in the end--it's a really cute little bottle. And it'll be even better when I get those seams right! I'm also going to look for a more symmetrical escallop pattern. This one is actually pretty lopsided.