Largesse: Round 2

I've been working on more largesse entries. As noted in the last entry I decided to make paternosters as my part of the Household Entry. In the end I made a total of 10 paternosters. Most of them are made from wooden beads but 2 ended up being made from gemstones. The one on the left is rose quartz and snowflake obsidian. The one on the right is made from amythest and owllite.

I also decided to make some small 8.5 x 11ish pennants with our Baronial device on them. There are seven of the rectangular ones and two that are in the more traditional shape, the extended triangle, pennant. The fabric is some very light weight polyester I purchased from the local fabric store and the image is made with acrylic paints. I plan to get them hemmed up over the next week or so.

My home canton, Harrowgate Heath, voted this weekend to make an entry for the Dirty Dozen Donation Derby as well. We decided on the theme "Things for little hands"; toys, garb, and items made specifically for the children of our Barony and Kingdom.

For my part of that theme I made two small carved animal toys, a horse and a lion. They are quite small as you can see in the photo of the lion with my hand as backdrop. They are carved from scrap basswood I had lying around and are coated with tung oil to help them stand up to little fingers and mouths. Even though they are only 1/2 inch thick they stand up on their own and look pretty proportional.

Since I nalbind for relaxation in front of the TV I plan to use up my partial skeins of yarn to make a couple of kids sized nalbound caps. I am also considering making a couple of faux leather 4 panels caps if time permits.

I still haven't put my spice collection together but I have been collecting the recipes. One recipe for each spice that I will include in each basket. The ground spices will be sealed into small glass jars but the whole spices will be presented in a small bag. I was going to use a plastic bag that zips shut but the Spouse thinks I should make small linen bags soaked in beeswax and then scraped to make them pliable again. I am still thinking over that idea.

Trillium Exchange #10: The finished product

And I am done. The carving is complete, the brass has been added, the hinges are on, and it has been oiled repeatedly with tung oil. Now all I have to do is let the oil cure for a week or two and it can be shipped off to it's new owner.

Besides the obvious change of using chip carving rather than bas relief, I also chose to use commercially purchased hinges. The brass plate in the front should be a small lock, if the missing piece in the front of the original is anything to judge by but I simply added a small brass plate for decoration. And finally, because of the extra space at the bottom of the images I added a line from the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem in Old English and transliterated it into runic script.

The line I chose was the very first in the poem:

Feoh byþ frofur fira gehwylcum;

sceal ðeah manna gehwylc miclun hyt dælan
gif he wile for drihtne domes hleotan

 

Which translates to:

 

Wealth is a comfort to all men;

yet must every man bestow it freely,
if he wish to gain honour in the sight of the Lord.

As I mentioned in my last post there are several things I would like to do differently in the future:

1) I will build the box to the proportions of the photo rather than to the dimensions, or as in this case to the dimension of the wood.

2) I want to make the brass hinges myself with the repousse decoration that can be seen on the original.

3) I want to carve the figures in bas relief as in the original.

4) I would like to make a working lock that can be installed into the box.

5) I want to cut the box from a solid block of green wood and do the carving while the wood is still wet. I think it will make a difference in the ability for the wood to hold detail.

Now mind you, it is going to take lots of practice to get to the point where I can make a finished product that looks like I think the original looked when it was brand new. I have to practice my relief carving, preferably by making plaques of each side of the box. I have to research and learn how to make small period locks and of course spend some time practicing. I have to make the repousing tools and learn how to do it. And, of course I need to learn how to make hinges.

This is going to be a lifetime project. But, with luck and lots of practice I will end up with a near perfect replica of the original in pristine condition before I die.

Trillium Exchange #9: Progress

Finally some positive progress on my exchange gift. The decoration on the lid have been completed and the decoration on the box body has been started. I have learned a few things along the way and can already see myself redoing this box at a later date.

Since the bas relief was not working out I decided to use chip carving to outline the figures. The chip carving is going much faster which is a good thing since I want to have the project finished and in the mail by Jan 30. Once oiled, as the lid is now, the figures look awesome and I am really happy with the outcome. I think Rylan will be pleased as well, even if it is not a perfect replica of the original.

When I started on the box I realized the proportions of the box are different than those of the original. I new they were a little off because I chose to go with 4 inch sides but the measurements provided on the Museum website were 6 x 3 x 3 inches, but judging by the proportions in the images the original base is 3 x 2 and the lid is 1.5 or 2 at the peak. To make my box the same proportions I am carving the images so that there is a wide border at the base. I am then going to use a line or two from the Anglo-Saxon Rune Poem to fill in the wide border after the carving is all done.

My next attempt at this box will be very different. Instead of building the box to the size wood I have or to the size listed on the website, I plan to build it as close as possible to the proportions shown in the photos. I also plan to do the next one in bas relief. Not only to make a more accurate reproduction but to practice my relief carving.

I am finding myself completely obsessed with the box. I think about it constantly. I think of ways to improve my methods of construction, my relief carvings, my proportions, and even think of ways to recreate it perfectly by starting with a solid piece of green wood, instead of building the box and lid from commercial slab wood.

While I have not thought much about the hinges or lock for this currently project I do think about them for the next generation version. I want the hinges be hand made and to have the repousse work that is barely visible on the one remaining piece of the hinges. The lock is completely missing in the extant piece so I have been trying to find out more about box locks for the Anglo-Saxon period so that I can eventually reproduce that as well.