Trillium Exchange: #4

I tried open sand casting this pattern but I failed. I mixed two packages of molasses with the sand to make it hold the pattern and packed it firmly into a form. However, when I pressed the sculpey forms into the sand they broke. After removing the forms from the sand I realized the sand was to course any way to successfully take the amount of detail in the forms themselves. Even the really simple one did not work in the course sand.

To find and purchase the required molding compound will cause me to go over the $25 limit set my the organizers. I am also feeling like the time is slipping away from me since the project is due in February. As such I have now reverted back to another project I had in mind. A box carved with a scene of some nature. I have cut pieces of red cedar and will build a box as a base for my carving, Should that fail I have ordered some pieces of Linden (Basswood) which I know are fairly straightforward to carve.

The inspiration came from a box found at an Antiquities Dealer's shop. It is a greenwood carved box made from a solid piece of wood, with scenes from the birth of Christ on it. Since the SCA tends to discourage religious imagery I have asked the organizers to get Rylan's preference. If she wants religious, I will do religious. Otherwise I plan to carve a scene from Beowulf, a classic Anglo-Saxon Myth.

Trillium Exchange: #3

I have definitely decided I want to make a strap end based on one I found at the British Museum's Online Collection. The moment I saw the strap end I fell in love and thought it would make a very appropriate gift for a Anglo-Norman Lady, if I could make a decent replica or at least something close to the right size and shape. AS a backup plan I also cut out the wood for a small cedar reliquary box that I could carve a scene from either the life of Christ or a Saint, as was common in the day.

My initial efforts to recreate the strap end in wood failed. The original is only 4 cm long and has a lot of detail in it. While I was able to cut out the shape, I was unable to carve in the amount of detail required to make something I would be proud to gift to someone of Rylan's status. I have been told to ignore her status, but I can't help but feel the gift must live up to her and be something she would proudly display every day.

Earlier this year we bought some bronze grains and some pewter grains, with the intention of making a soap stone mold and learning the art of metal casting. The same problem arose with the soapstone mold making as it did with the wood. I was not able to carve the required detail into such a small surface area. Creating the carving in reverse also is far more difficult that I expected.

Now that I have decided I must at least attempt casting a strap end I moved on to Plan B - Sand Casting. I dug out my old, stale, Sculpey and went to work creating a 3D model of the piece. Even using something as easy to use as Sculpey, this turned out to be far harder than expected. I know 3 cm is just over an inch long but apparently my fingers can not, or will not, work with something that small regardless of the medium. On to Plan B.a - Create a mold that looks reasonably decent and as small as possible, which turns out is about 7 cm. It isn't an exact replica but I would call it a very good "inspired by" piece.

Now I just have to mix some fine sand with some molasses, as recommended by the Spouse who has read up on sand casting. Something about it making the sand hold the details better and the heat from the bronze will heat up the sugar and form a film that will make the finished piece release more readily.

Unlike the sand casting methods that the Spouse has investigated before, I plan to press my Sculpey model into a layer of sand and pour the bronze into it. The back of the model, and the inspiration, have flat backs so there is no need to do a 3D casting. I may move on to a 3D casting if my idea doesn't work. The great thing about my mold is it is reusable and so will afford many attempts.

Should the sand casting fail all the way around I will move on to lost wax casting. I hope I can make a wax mold as easily as I did the plasticine one. I also hope I can make the wax mold smaller, at least a little closer to the original's size, while maintaining the level of detail I want.

A&S 50/50 Challenge: Cap #5

Wool Cap #5

Brand of Wool: Lion Brand Wool
Colours: Yellow
Stitch: Mammen
Notes: Started with the Josephine Knot but for some reason the hole pulled open during work. I was able to stitch it closed but there is still a larger than normal hole at the top. I think I created the slip knot backwards so that the working thread did not pull the slip know tighter to keep it closed.

A & S 50/50 Challenge: Cap #4

 Wool Cap #4

Brand of Wool: Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool
Colours: Oatmeal
Stitch: Buttonhole
Notes:
Started with the Josephine Knot like before but the increases didn't work out as nicely as the previous attempt. The top few stitches are Tarim so perhaps that caused the problem. The Brown and oatmeal braid is made with the Oslo stitch. I was not as careful with my stitch counts so many of the loops look awkward and uneven.

Walnut Dye: Crushed Husk with Ferrous Oxide

 For this experiment I added Ferrous Oxide, a.k.a rusty iron to a small pot of crushed husk dye to see how that changed the colour. It was a very small pot of dye so I was only able to do the cold and hot dip tests.

The dye batch started just like the regular crushed husk dye batch. Chopping and soaking the green husks in warm water. I had some rusted steel that I had found while on one of my walks. I broke the big piece into small pieces and crushed them as fine as possible in my mortar. By the end there were a mix of small pieces and course rust dust. I mixed this into the pot and boiled everything for 6-8 hours.

The liquid looked very black instead of brown and the white linen took on a very different shade of brown. While wet the fabric looked like a very dark grey brown but as it dried it took on a slight red overtone. As with the other tests I rinsed and washed the fabric swatches.

Unlike the other tests, this dye seemed to bleed more during the rinse and wash tests. The colours in the picture are more green than they really are but the picture does show the the difference between the dyed and dried only and the rinsed and washed samples. Even after the water ran clear small amounts of dye can be seen on the white cardstock.


Because I was not able to boil the fabric in the dye as with the other dyes I do not know if the colour would have been darker and more wash resistant than the dip tests were. Walnut season is now over and the squirrels have successfully cleaned up all the nuts, which means I will not be able to repeat this test until next season.

Walnut Dye: Crushed Husk on Linen

For this Walnut dye experiment I went with the crushed, cut up, husks to make the dye. The progression of pictures shows all the major steps but I will go over them.

1) Collect and cut the husks off of the nuts. The squirrels love this part because the nuts are ready for them to munch on after you have filled your pot.

2) Cover the husk pieces with water and let it soak overnight. The water actually turns brown very quickly, but all the pages I found says you get a better dye if you allow the husks to oxidize overnight.

3) Boil the pot of husks until they are very soft and the water is very dark.

4) Strain out all the big pieces. Note to self, three gallons of cut up husks makes a whole lot of liquid. You can see in the photo that the husks turned into a grainy mush at the bottom of the pan. The one 1800's book I referenced called this "soil" and I know why. It looks like black earth in the bottom of the pan. I threw this gunk away but I am wondering now if I should have used it as a mulch around my blueberry bushes.

5) Continue to cook the strained mixture. This is the point where I did my hot dip, 20 minute boil, and 1 hour boil dye tests. After it cooled overnight is when I did my cold dip test.

6) Since the Spouse wants to try making ink with walnut juice we strained the liquid again the next day, using a very fine muslin bag as the strainer, and put the resulting liquid in jars. The Spouse mixed this two parts to one alcohol to preserve the liquid.

7) And finally my dye swatches. The photo looks more green than it actually is. I took the photo inside under LED lights so the colour is not correct. The swatches are actually four shades of a rich brown. Starting at the top left we have Cold Dip, Hot Dip, 20 Minute Boil, and 1 Hour Boil.

Each column consists of four pieces: Dried, Cold Rinsed, Cold Wash with detergent, and Hot Wash with Detergent/ Cold Rinse. There was a very small amount of water discoloration at the beginning of each wetting process, but the rinse waters cleared quickly. I like the brown dyes the cut up husks makes and can see making clothes dyed in this for use in the SCA.

I am also going to make dye using crushed husked and some rusted metal. Not only do I want to see how that changes the colours but I also want to see if it makes the dye more or less permanent. I am going to hang all the swatches in a sunny South facing window to test the lightfastness of the walnut dyes.

Walnut Dye: Whole Husk on Linen

I am insatiably curious about things, especially arts and crafty type things. The Spouse came in and told me that the Walnut tree in the neighbour's yard was dropping lots of nuts this year. When we first moved here I told him I wanted to try making dye from the walnut husks, but the last few years there were no, or few, nuts. So I jumped at the chance to try making dye for linen using the nuts.

I have not found a single source that suggests walnut husks were used in period for dye. I do know that Walnuts originated in Turkey and have spread from there. I also know that early people's were not shy about trying everything in nature to make dye and occasionally ink. Walnuts, all species, have a great deal of tannin in the green husk that surrounds the nut. It is also a source of natural iodine.If you crush the husks your hands will get stained a light orange. The longer your expose your fingers the darker the stain gets so it is reasonable to think that the Romans, Byzantine, Early Medieval, and Medieval people took note of this effect and used it to its fullest effect.

Locally, we have the North American native Black Walnut. Like its Middle Eastern cousins, the fleshy outer husk starts out a bright green but quickly begins to turn black if it is bruised in any way. It is also a favourite food of the North American squirrels who are more than happy to find  stash assembled by some foolish human. If they think about it, they probably just assume that they have found the poorly hidden stash of another squirrel and quickly liberate the nuts for themselves.

The process starts by collecting enough nuts to create your dye. Since we had a plethora of nuts this year I decided I was going to make two types of dye. One made with the crushed husks and one made from the whole nuts. I sorted through the collection and chose 14 nuts that were nut bruised, crushed, or otherwise damaged. I placed the nuts in a small enameled pan and covered them with hot tap water. They were placed on the stove and simmered for 4 hours, until the nuts started turning a dark greenish brown.

We strained the solids out of the liquid using a nylon straining bag I use when making jelly. I knew it was going to be stained but I didn't care. The colour of the bag will not affect its ability to strain juice from fruit later. I made sure to squeeze as much of the liquid as possible form the solids without crushing the whole nuts, so that the colour of the dye was not changed by the internal flash of the walnuts.

At this point the dye was ready for use. I decided to test four strips of white linen. A quick hot dip, a 20 minute boil, a 1 hour boil, and once the liquid was cooled down completely, a cold dip. The dyed strips were then allowed to dry completely overnight before I did the wash tests. The picture below shows the results of the dyeing and wash testing of the pieces of linen. The piece of linen in the centre is the original colour of the linen.

The top left column is the cold dipped linen. The top right column is the hot dip. The bottom left is the 20 minute boil The final column is the 1 hour boil.

The picture should be large enough for you to read the notes but just in case it is not:
1) The top piece in each column is the linen dyed and dried only.
2) The second piece was rinsed in cold water only. The rinse water did change colour a little.
3) The third piece was washed and rinsed in cold water with detergent. Again there was a slight discoloration of the wash water but not the rinse water.
4) The final piece was washed in hot water with detergent and rinsed in cold water. There was the same level of discolouration to the wash water but again none to the rinse water.

My conclusions are that:
1) Whole walnut husk dye is wash permanent.
2) Whole husk dye gives you a lovely olive green which gets darker the longer the boil it.
3)Light to dark tan can be achieved using the cold or hot dip. I presume the colour will be darker the longer the linen is left in the dye.

I want to collect more of the unbruised nuts and dye enough linen to make a pair of pants, a tunic, and some trim. I don't think that will be this year so I hope that the nut crop is large again next year.

Thorsberg Pants: Final

Finally, my Thorsberg pants are done. The most recent changes to the pattern for the footies worked well. I find the footies to be a little tight, being used to modern stretch socks. I am also finding the seams under my foot to be annoying. Like the seams in  legs of the pants I suspect it is a matter of getting used to them.

As you can see from the photos, the pants legs are quite baggy. So much so that when I sewed the footies onto the legs I actually had to over lap the fabric. Luckily, with the split in place it was fairly easy to overlap and does not impede my use of the pants at all. But, because of the overlap, 2 inches on the right leg and 3 inches on the left, I do not feel the need to add the ties to the backs of the legs at all.

Speaking of the ties. The Spouse had an idea for the purpose of the opening in the back of the leg and the ties. He suggested that anyone wearing this style of pants would not want to get them wet or muddy so the slit in the back allowed the wearer to put his feet through and pull the pants up out of harms way. The ties could have been there to tie the raised pants up and out of the way so they wouldn't have to hold them in place or risk them slipping down anyway. It is a possible reason and is as likely as any other theory I have seen on the subject.

A theory I came up with is that the split is there to make it easier to get the pants on. If you have ever tried to put on non-stretch thigh high boots, especially very snug ones, it is kind of hard to get the foot down and into the foot section. It could be something similar for these pants. If they were as snug fitting as the original documentation suggests it could have been hard to get them on with out the split in the back of the leg.

I've watched the Spouse put his leg wraps on and loose fabric can be tricky, causing the wraps to not tighten correctly and slide off during the day. Maybe the ties were there to  close the material to make it easier to get the leg wraps on and stay on during the days activities. Until we develop a time machine to go back and view the pants being worn by their original owners, we will never know for sure but we can make educated guesses based on our own observations with reconstructions.

Thorsberg Pants: Part 6

The most recent edition of the footies for my Thorsberg pants are much better but still not perfect.I used the same pieces from my first tries, but cut the gore down so that it only reached to the arch of my foot.

I did two things wrong on this effort. First I forgot that I needed to open the back of the pants, which of course changed the size of the opening on the footies. You can see the row of pins indicating where the opening of the pants legs ends when the footies is pinned to them.

The second mistake, and not a big one, is the way I cut the gore. You can see that it is not level with the top edge of the foot. Since I have to take both the feet apart to make a smaller gore, I had planned on cutting a fresh piece so that the top edge of the gore is level with the top edge of the top of the foot. But, as I look at it I wonder if matching the edges up will create excess fabric that hangs at the back of my heels.

One thing that did come up when I was opening up the back of the legs was the length of the thigh gores. The extant example has a 30 cm, almost 12 inches, opening at the back of the pants. I didn't think about the opening when I sewed the pants, which I guess worked out since I was able to wear them without the feet, so I had to cut the seams out. To cut them out to the the 30 cm, I had to cut away part of the thigh gore.

My next pair of pants, wool ones for winter wear, I'll make sure the gores are shorter, and that I leave the seam open on the lower length of the legs. I also plan to make the strips of the fabric, that make up the legs, narrower than this pair. Instead of making them as wide as my lower thighs I will make them as wide as my upper calf, adjusting all the other pieces to make up the difference. This will create a more form fitting look on my calves which I hope will lead me to some ideas as to what the cords on the back of the calves was really used for.

A & S 50/50 Challenge: Wool Cap #3

Wool Cap #3

Brand of Wool: Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool
Colours: Oatmeal
Stitch: Buttonhole
Notes:
Started the hat with the Josephine knot with eight loops on it. The round at the top is quite smooth. Increased one stitch every five until I reached the width of my head. I ran the cap through the wash cycle of the washing machine then laid flat to dry. This gave it a slight felting but the stitches are still easily seen. Cap shrank during felting and is now slightly to small for my head.

Thorsberg Pants: Part 5 The Wearing

The Coronation of Nigel and Adrielle II was this weekend so I decided to wear the pants I've been working on, sans footies of course. I don't know for sure what I expected but I found the pants to be quite comfortable once I got past the seams running up the back of my legs. I was able to bend, kneel, squat, and walk without any of the binding I find in most pants, modern or otherwise. I was especially pleased with the ability to squat without a single pop of a stitch or tear of the fabric.

A change I do need to make is the number of belt loops. The original had a total of six for a slim fitting waist. For a larger waist, like mine, six as not enough. I found the back of the pants tended to slip down between the loops so that the wool belt was rubbing on my skin. As the day dragged on I noticed this slipping effect happening between all the belt loops. To correct this I will be adding more belt loops between each of the current ones. This should correct the slipping problem and prevent the belt from contacting my skin directly.

I do wonder if the footies will work with my period shoes. I find the shoes to be just a tad tight across the top of my foot. So tight in fact, that even thin modern socks are uncomfortable after a short period of time. Period socks are completely out of the question, until I learn how to make super thin yarn and nalbind a pair and even then I am not sure if they will work with the shoes. While there will not be seams along the top of the foot, there will be seams along the bottom of the foot and back of the heel. Will these interfere with the way the shoes fit and make them even tighter than normal? I guess I will find out, as soon as I get the footies made and attached to my pants.