#fern crafts

[ferncrafts]

This picture is from a month ago and I had COMPLETELY forgotten how ridiculously I had managed to load this spindle.

[ferncrafts]

My spindles and a spindle in progress. All are whittled and clay formed by me - except for the whorl on the first one.

More info under the cut!

Left to right:

1. Whittled from a piece of firewood, presumably some sort of pine. I bought the whorl from a reenactor and whittled the shaft to fit. Didn’t take the wood shrinking as it dried into account, so now the whorl is loose on the shaft, and I’ve had to wind some waxed linen thread underneath it to make sure it stays in place. Lesson learned!

2. Not sure what wood it is, found a big branch loose on the ground near my apartment and grabbed it. Notice the notch “faces” to the left. Normally I spin counterclockwise, so this is the one I use for plying.

3. This one is from limewood, which I don’t especially recommend. Very lightweight but also fairly soft. I did break it some weeks ago when I partied a little too hard. No I’m not joking about that. Unwound all the thread on it and superglued it back together.

4. Still a work in progress, but this one is from beech wood. Beautiful, beautiful wood, smells wonderful when working with it. It’s a bit crooked but I’ll figure it out.

As for the notches, I vastly prefer something in this style, as opposed to some of the metal hooks I’ve seen on a lot of modern spindles, or a lack of hook/notch that requires you to tie a half hitch to attach it. It was a bit difficult to execute with the pine, as the notch really wanted to split right off due to the grain on the wood.

[ferncrafts]

Clay horse figurine. Unburnt so far, patterns inspired by Neolithic pottery.

My sketches of the design - as you can see, some elements were changed or not included.

[ferncrafts]

Just finished the last tassels on this belt. I’m still considering adding some sort of reinforcement via embroidery along the edges, but I’m not sure of the best way to go about it. Very much open to suggestions or advice.

More of the process under the cut.

This piece was done through backstrap weaving. My “loom” consisted of two sticks + my heddle. Here you can see me working the heddle to change the shed.

I highly recommend NOT doing your first ever backstrap weaving using very thin singles consisting of some of the first thread you ever spun and dyed. Toward the end of the process, I had threads in the warp break a couple of times, some of the heddle strings were almost completely worn through.

The ends were done in two different ways. On the far ends I gradually decreased the width, then braided the threads of the warp (adding in some extra threads to give them slightly more volume). Then I twined the braids, with every other twist being twined once again (you can see the smaller ones are Z twists while the bigger ones are S twists).

The closer end I simply slipped off my stick, and twisted the ends together. This was pretty good for having a loop at the end, through which I could secure tassels.

[ferncrafts]

Got to play apprentice to some glass bead makers for a couple of hours before my shift at the market. Mostly pumped the bellows, but I got to make a couple of beads myself as well. Incredibly grateful to these two for indulging me!

First bead I’ve ever made. One side is definitely more successful than the other.

And the second one

Just a picture of the setup. Both this and the first picture were posted by Håndværksgruppen Roulf on facebook. I’m already itching to make more beads!

[ferncrafts]

Lime bast twine and textile.

[ferncrafts]

Tiiiny penannular brooch I made in May. Inspired (size-wise) by a very small ring brooch (only 16mm in diameter!), presumably early medieval.

[ferncrafts]

Had a walkabout with a friend and a camera the other day to finally take some pictures of my serk! More pictures and process below.

Okay now that you’ve seen me frolic here’s the timeline, as told through images from my camera roll:

April 16th: trying on mockup from a couple years ago.

April 17-18th: ???

April 19th: serk missing only one sleeve (finished but not attached yet) and side gore, as well as the neckline

Went in and added gores down the middle one evening at the beginning of June.