#pbp crafts

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Question i want to ask an archeologist who specialised in fibre crafts:

Do we find cat hair woven in to historic projects?

Or is that just a thing potential future archaeologists will find in my tablet woven bands

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Finished this flower bead yesterday!

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It only took me two years to begin actually weaving this

I struggled so much with the previous version of this band (had to restart and rethread like 4 times) that I warped up this one and then never actually turned a card on it. Until this week when I suddenly felt moved to start. It's supposed to be a cable but it wasn't cabling, but I figured out what I was doing wrong now, so I guess this one will just have a weird non-plied beginning on it.

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I've had some pottery sitting around that was pit fired and where I wasn't confident it was fully fired. That's no good for anything. Except I thought of putting candles into them yesterday. Viking camping season is over but these will be nice for next year

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Hubris

So this year I managed to put together a little early-medieval/viking era camp for myself so I could camp at events.

But curse my eternal desire for things to be Perfect (if not necessarily historically, there are adaptions because my back is very shouty) because I have only used this tent a couple of times and it's already irritating me. It's 3.5m around and because it's not very tall (2.3m) there is NOT a lot of headroom. And now I'm sleeping on a raised stretcher there's not that much room unless I put the bed practically in the middle. It's just not a super practical space. The awning helps a bit but is a bit too open to really feel like it extends the indoor space. I'd really like a saxon/geteld/'double bell tent' tent, so the bed can be on the long side and you can curtain off the sides to hide non-historical stuff. But they're pricey and don't come in the exact size I would like.

In my hubris I imagine I could build one. This is the third time I've spent a day researching patterns and how to adapt for the size I want. Priced tent fabric etc. Tried to find the balance of A Nice Amount Of Space and That Ballroom Is For You ALONE??

and then closed all the tabs because this shit is complicated and maybe I should use this tent a bit longer before I consider replacing it.

I'm gonna make shallow triangles to the far sides of the awning though, to close it a little bit more.

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Finally had enough sun to do my cyanotype re-prints and get some good ones for the new flag line in the wasteland camp.

NOW I just need to be satisfied and sew the flagline and close the damn project rather than dwelling on it, trying to make more prints, and ignoring more important projects..

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I've been messing around with pottery lately, did a course first, felt vaguely unsatisfied with the small amount of actual wheel time, and bought a cheap little wheel to do stuff at home. There's a local artist where i can glaze and who will fire things for me and that's pretty fun. Couple weeks ago when I was at the Viking farm I did a pit firing though.

Which is literally just a hole, spread out unfired pottery with a layer of fuel in and between, and then a fire on top. I kept the fire on from about 16:00 to midnight, then covered it with sand to let it cool down slowly. Dug it up next afternoon and was so happy with the results. Only a couple of broken things and i had unintentionally created a reduction firing (not enough oxygen in the fuel layer) so things had turned black and some off them even had an amazing silver luster.

It was super fun and I want to do it again! Only downside is that I want to glaze cups and stuff at least on the inside, and you can't do that without burning the cool colours off.

The other downside is that my back is not into this craft and I struggle to make more than two or three things per throwing session before the pain levels go all the way up, which hardly seems worth the cleanup!

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Beads beads beads

been playing with stacked dots. The ones with clear colour were a bit disappointing. I like the effect on the sides the most

The left two beads were made with an amazingly fine twisty I found in the stump pot at the Meet & Bead event I went to. I'm going to be chasing the absolute sharp fineness of that thing for a while, because I don't know what glass it was made with (a lot of glass gets fuzzy around the edges when pulled that thin) The right three are my attempts so far

Playing with effect glass and my bead press. I love these, they're like pebbles. Very satisfying

Just some recent experiments