Bollock dagger - Vol. 2

A couple of months ago I finished a bollock dagger for a friend of mine.
I dont have a lot to say about it, but it is based on the same type of handle as the last one I made. If you want to know more you can take a look at the post i wrote about the other one.

The handle is made from beech burl, with a brass plate on the top. The blade is was made by Tod.

Bollock dagger

I have had this blade for a bollock dagger lying around for almost two years now. So I thought that it was due time to do something about it.
Therefore I spent some time during my winter holiday carving a handle for it.

I first ordered the blade when I saw this bollock dagger at the National museum in Copenhagen a couple of years ago. I really liked the octagonal handle and wondered why I hadn't really seen any reproductions of these daggers with that type of handle.
My handle is not a reproduction of the one I saw though. Just inspired by the shape of it.

Here is the one I made:



The handle is made from the root of waht I believe was a cherry tree. I'm not exactly sure, since It had been on the ground for a long time. The bark was falling of and the leaves were long gone. But I managed to get a good chunk of one of the roots sticking up from the ground.



The scabbard-design is inspired from some of the scabbards in "Knives and scabbards" and is made from two layers of leather.

Needlecase

It's been a long time since I did one of these. So I decided to make one.
Hope you like it.

I made the inside from a piece of half tanned leather. This gets very stiff after drying, so the inside won't get wobbly after some time of use. If the inside gets soft it can't keep the top in place, wich is a problem.

Pattens

Tha last project I did at Voergaard was a pair of pattens. They were made purely out of necessity, as we had a lot of rain that week.

They are made from alder (Alnus glutinosa), which was cleft and worked from the still fresh wood.
Alder will get very light when it dries, so the pattens won't be too heavy. Poplar or willow would also do just fine for pattens.

The most important thing about making pattens is to place the raised wedges in the right position, so it won't hinder the movement of the foot.
They need to be places right under the heel and right where the toes bend when you take a step.



And I really recomend people using medieval shoes (with leather soles) to get a pair of pattens!
They keep your feet warm and dry, and they make a fabulous noise when walking on cobblestone pavements :-)

Tent complete!

Finaly we have finished our tent! And we are both (Louise and I) very pleased with the result, and looking forward to field testing this coming week.



The tent is ca. 3 m tall, 4m wide and 7m long. The canvas is made from cotton and we have sewn the whole thing om a sewingmachine. So no authentic handsewn seams on this project.

The poles are made from spruce. Not the toughest of woods, but it should be perfect for tentpoles. And it has the advantage of not being to heavy.
We have painted the poles red with linseed oil paint.

There will be more pictures later, but here are some details on the tent.



The edges of the "flap" were reinforced with jute-band, to prevent the rope from tearing through the canvas.






Of course we had to celebrate the ocation with "Expensive champagne" :-)

New embroidery

After I finished my final thesis for my medieval studies I just had to make some new embroidery. So I found some of the many woolen yarns that I have and decided for a pattern. I know that most of the geometric emberoidery were made with silks but those are quite har d to get in Denmark and at the moment I have so much beautiful natural dyed wool that I want to use. So for the moment all my embroidery is made with wool.

So far the embroidery is quite easy to do and I really like the colours and the pattern. I would actually say that this is my best piece to date. My plan for the embroidery is to make a small purse for my new 14th century outfit which I´m going to make soon.



The wool that I use is dyed with madder, indigo and tansy.

Purse from Dordrecht

Another purse finished!

This purse is also depicted in "Purses in pieces" and was found i Dordrecht (Holland).

The front compartment has its opening on the inside of the front flap. And this time i decided to make the front compartment from textile, rather than leather.
the description of the purse said thet the front compartment had been made from either chamois or textile.
I used unbleached linnen canvas.

(BTW: If you know where to get good quality chamois. Please tell me!)



The reason why I wanted to make this purse is the three pouchlets.
They are made from a single piece of leather. All the other purses I have made have pouchlets made from seperate pieces.
I think this solution gives the purse a much simpler look.





The dye that i used for this purse is the same that i used for the Nieuwlande-purse.

Thats two purses done. Now theres only two more to go :-)

Purse from Nieuwlande

Time for another purse! :-)

This time it´s a find from Nieuwlande (Holland), and based on drawings from "Purses in pieces" by Olaf Goubitz.
I can't supply you with a dating of the purse, as the author does not provide one. All I can say for certain is that it is medieval... Late medieval that is.

I decided to make this one because I really like the stabbed decoration and the shape of the girdle loops (or rather the space between them).



The binding is a typical split seam and the front compartment opens to the front of the purse rather than on the inside.

The leather was coloured using a mixture of iron and oak galls. The result is a nice bronwnish black.
After compleation the purse was greased with a mix of tallow, beeswax and pine tar. This gaves the purse a pleasant smokey odour.



On the inside are 3 small pouchlets.





And here you can see the opening to the front compartment.

The things that weren't preserved from the original are: The binding, the front flap, the pouchlets and the dravstrings.
Therefore these things might not correspond with the original purse. These parts of the purse are therefore based on guesswork - I hope that I have come close.

This is the first of 4 purses that I am currently working on. So there is more to come!

A couple of weeks ago Louise and I went to visit some friends (and hopefully soon-to be contributors to this blog).
We had a very pleasant experience and got to try some new and interesting crafts.

For my part I got an oppotunity to try some blacksmithing. This was something new to me, and also a very enjoyable experience!
I starded by making a couple of S-hooks (wich I wont post any pictures of) and went on to make an eatingknife for Louise.
I won't get into the details of the whole process, but I will post a picture.



Tha blade was forged from spring steel and the handle is made from beech... and I'm pretty pleased with the result. Especially since it's only the third thing I have ever tryed smithing. Perhaps it's only beginners luck ;-)

Leather costrel

In my last post I mentioned some "advanced stuff" that I was working on.

Well now it is done and I can finaly show you some pictures of what I have been doing.

This time it is a leather drinking bottle (also called a "costrel"). It is a bottle made from relatively thick leather (I used 2-3mm vegetable tanned leather) that has been sewn togeather, and lined with pitch (A cripy, yellowish resin derived from pine-trees) or beeswax (wich I used).

The costrel is decorated with pictures of saints that I copied from some very nice frescoes in Sahl church. A small church situated near Vinderup here in Denmark.
The frescoes are from ca. 1500... give or take a couple of years...

- Front and back of the bottle. The cork is made from oak.

Some of the edges of the costrel consist of several layers of leather. The top of the bottle where the strap is attached is made from 4 layers. The sides are made from 3 layers and the "mouthpiece" is made from 2 layers. The thick edges help to waterproof the seams, and the seams were actually almost watertight before I coated it with beeswax.

All seams were done with a double thread. Otherwise the thread would tear through whilst sewing with it.

- This is the bottle before I cut the holes for the strap end dyed it.

The extra layers only cover the seams, and does not extend more than a couple of millimeteres into the inside of the bottle.

When I cut the pieces to be sandwiched between the outer layers of the top the costrel I only cut the size to fit the inside of the bottle. When I have sewn them in place I trim down the excess. This makes it much easier to get a nice finish on the edges (I also sanded the edges with some sandpaper to get a nice even surface, and to remove some bad cuts that I made)

In the sides of the bottle I just insert a band of the same with as the seam allowance.

- The overlapping cut of the band and the inside of the bottle.

The band that I have sewn in to the sides and the mouthpiece are both cut exactly to size, and the edgs are cut at an angle to make a tighter seal.

The side piece is an almost "pearshaped" piece, that is pushed into the side of the bottle, while holding the "welt" or band in place. This is a bit tricky, and maybe it is easier to just start sewing in one side and then fit the side piece into place as you go...

Start by sewing the inmost seam.

Also I should be mentioned that the shape of the side piece determines the shape of the bottle. So if you want a flat bottom for the bottle to stand on, the end of the side piece should have a flat bottom too.

- This is the side of the bottle after the side piece has been sewn

in place (and the edges have been trimmed off).

When I had finished sewing the bottle together I dyed it with wallnut shells (as explained in an earlier post), rinsed it under running water and, stuffed the (still wet) bottle with dry sand.

You really have to force in the sand to get it tight enough to expand the leather. I used a funnel and the wide end of a chopstick to do this.

The bottle won't get much bigger, but it should expand a bit.

It is important to really pack the sand tightly in the bottle, beacuse makes it easier to mould the ornaments later on.

Now the bottle should be left to dry, for a day or two or until the leather has become completely dry.

If you want to do some ornaments on the bottle it should be done now... If not, it is ready to be sealed with wax.

- The braid on the strap.

To seal the bottle you need some beeswax, a hot oven, a small paint brush and a pot for melting the wax. First melt the wax. I do this in a pot directly on a hotplate and it works fine a long as you make sure that the wax won't burn the leather. Do this by holding a small scrap of leather into the molten wax. If it starts bubbleind around the piece of theater the wax is too hot. If no bottles can be seen the wax is fine.

The molten wax is then poured into the bottle and slushed around the entire inside of the bottle. Especially the seams!

Do this a couple of times till you feel sure that you covered everything.

Maybe the wax will start seeping through the leather and turning the colour darker. This is ok!

Now put the bottle in the oven and turn it on (Ca. 100 degrees celsuis). When the bottle is heated the wax will start seeping through the leather (this happens because all the pores in the leather are filled with wax)

Turn the bottle around a couple of times so that the leather sucks up all of the molten wax inside the bottle. Most of the bottle (maby exept for the edges) will turn dark.

The places that doesn't absorb the wax can be painted with molten wax from the pot, using a brush. Put the bottle back in the oven so the wax can be absorbed.

When the bottle has become dark all over it should be left to cool.

When the bottle is cold, puur in some water to make sure it is watertight. If it isn't you should pour out the water and let it dry. Then pour in some more molten wax and make sure it sets in to the seams.

This should do the trick! (If not try rubbing some soft wax in to the leaking places).

Now your costrel should be done, watertight and quite hard.

The leather turns almost plactic-like when it is saturated with wax. It shouldn't be necessary to grease the bottle itself. This might even dissolve the wax.

Now all that's left to do is attaching the carrying-strap. You can sew it in place or make a braid like the one I did.

-Pictures of the four the frescoes from Sahl church.

Pleated apron

I made a pleated apron for my brothers girlfriend this summer. I used some of the many great internet sites to find information about the projekt: Larsdatter - here you can find a lot of great pictures of different kinds of aprons from the Middle Ages. At the site you can also find a pdf-file on pleated aprons.
Here are blogs that shows how to make this type of apron:
Sasphyria
Matrilda la Zouche´s Wardrobe - this one is really great and was the one that I got a lot of "how-to-do" information out off.

This is the end product - Louise (yes she has the same name as me :0)) is very happy with it and have worn it to two markets during the summer. She gets a lot of questions and "oh that is really nice" so that makes me want to make one during winter for myself. I think I might make the combes a bit smaller so that they don´t open quite as much.

Here are some pictures that show how I made the smock/pleat effect:

This picture shows how I made marks on the fabric (the blue dots) and have sewn it with a bight colour thread so that I can see it when I have sewn the combs together (the the next pictures)

Here the threads have been pulled together and the fabric is now ready to have the combes/the spuares sewn.

And this is the end result af the pleating.

More Embroidery

I promissed that I´d show more pictures of the silk embroidery when it came along. Now I´m allmost finished and I am now woundering about that colour to put in side the little pouch.
I have found some red silk and so far that is the best option.


I have also started a new project. I were looking at the internet one day and came across a great idea on a blog some were. So I can´t say that the idea is mine. You can see the original idea at EWKA She have finished here pillow and it will be very intresting to see the end result.

The idea is to make a bed pillow with squares in white, red and greens in a checker pattern. There were shown a couple of 15th century pictures of bedding scenes and behind the back of the person in bed were the pillows.

So I have now started the project. I had it with me on a small winter market here in start November and found it to be so much easier to talk to people since the pattern is so easy. There is no complicated animals/geometric patterns and that ment that I actually hade some work done eventhough there were poeple to talk to.

My plan is that the pillow is going to be about 40 x 60 cm. I can´t quite decide if the pillow is going to be open in the ends with lacing or if it is going to be closed. I´ll have to look at some more pictures before I decide.

The Helgeansholmen purse

Some time ago there was a discussion at Historiska världars forum about a purse found at Helgeansholmen in Stockholm (Sweden). It is by far the best preserved purse I have ever seen, and the purse was found in a Scandinavian country. So naturally I was acking to make a "replica" of it right away.
And thanks to some of the readers from the forum, some very nice drawings and photographs were made public, so that people could have a go at copying the purse.
Especially the user "Admin" (I believe his name is Henrik) provided some nice pictures.

So I have been thinking about this project for at long time now, and finaly I got around to doing something about it :-)
And the result is by far the most authentic purse I have ever made. So naturally I am very pleased with the result.
I can't say that the purse is 100% authentic, because not all of the parts have survived (the binding, straps, lining and pockets are all gone). So this can only be my interpretation of the original purse... but I really do feel that I have come close :-)

The pictures provoded by "Admin" can be found here:
http://www.medeltidenitiden.se/material/20080909_helgeand_purse.zip

The purse can be found at Medeltidsmuseet in Stockholm. Althoug it isn't on display right now. It will be from january 2010.


Here comes the pictures:



The purse measures 25 x 25 cm, and is pretty large compared to some of the purses in "Purses in Pieces".



I made the incisions for this decoration, with a very small knife, that i made by hammering a nail flat, and sherpening it.







The thing about this purse I spent the most time, trying to figure out were the shape of the pockets on the front of the inner compartment of the purse.



The lining of the flap has been sewn with stiches that doesn't penetrate the outside of the leather. I'm not entirely sure if the lining on the original purse was made from leather. It might as well have been made from fabric.
I chose leather because it i more durable than fabric.



the inner compartment was also joined to the back of the purse with stiches that only pass through the flest side of the leather, This protects the stiches from being worn down when the purse is in use.
I suspect that the flax thread won't last very long, when it is continually being "scrubbed" by wollen clothes.

The leather was dyed with walnutshells and leaves, and greased with a mixture of tallow, beeswax and pine tar.

Here are some pictures of the original:





I really recomend that you download the pictures that i linked to earlier on in this article. They probive an enormous amount of info on this purse.
The zip-file also contains drawings of the purse and all the different parts (all four of them!).

Aditional pictures can be seen at my photobucket: http://s163.photobucket.com/albums/t306/MikkelF84/Takser/helgeansholmen/

I will also post the pattern I made for the purse as soon as I get the time to scan it.

Medieval silk embroidery

Now it´s my turn to contribute with a new post to this new blog. I have made some embroidery in the last year - see my old blog
I found some really great silk on a market and have now started a new piece. The picture doesn´t really do the silk justice but you can get a sense the glow a bit in the white and the yellow. I´t makes a really great diffence to make the embroidery in silk and not in DMC - so that is the plan in the future (or to use a really thin or strong wool)