Haandkraft

Last market of the year

2011-10-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures from the last market of the year. There hasn´t been time for much medieval this year, and I kind of miss it. So when we got an invitation from our friends Anne and Daniel to be a part of their camp we said okay!
There is not much to say other that it was a lovley time with great friends - and the weather was fantastisc!

Planning a book about needlebinding

2011-08-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

I have for quite some time now been planning to make a book about needlebinding. I have been binding for about 6 years now and I really like the tekstiles that I get out of the little needle. It´s not going to be a very large book - more like a booklet. And since I have startet work in Bork Vikinghabour there has been requests for such a book. So this autum I´m going to devote some of my sparetime to make the text, take the photos and such.
So at the moment I´m looking for references to both books, articles and finds of needlebinding from Europe and if you have any it would be a great help.
Here in Denmark we have some interested finds.

In the Mammengrave dated in the mittle of the 10th century were found a great chieftain. He had quite spectacular clothing with embroidery, brick weaving and also needlebinding in very thin metal treads.

Both pictures come from the Nationalmuseeum in Copenhagen. Go to their website to see more information about the grave.

From Ribe, which is the oldest town in Denmark, there has been found a mitten made in needlebinding. It is shown in their very good medieval excibition. I took some pictures of it and from the look of it the stitch use for this mitten is probably Oslo or Mammen.

A new workshop for me, and a small birthday present for Louise

2011-07-02T02:40:00.000-07:00

A wonderfull thing happened in decempar last year. I got myself a workbench!

I have been doing woodcarving for a couple of years now, and have been making all kinds of small stuff at home. Things like spatulas, spoons and other household items. This is always nice to do, but i have been aching to make something bigger.
I have been looking at old danish and scandinavian furniture for quite a while. Looking for inspiration for all kinds of stuff.
I have also been collecting a lot of tools, like planes, saws, chisels and the like.
... Now I just need some wood, so I can get going on a larger project.

The last couple of months have been dedicated to school and I have not been able to get a lot of Workshop-time. One thing that I found the time to do is this sliding lid box. A birthday-present for Louise.

This box is the first project that I have made using only handtools. And I must say that it was a real joy to do. It is great to experience how much you can actually do on your own, without using machines for the job.

Of course it takes some practice to learn how to use the tools, but that is all part of the joy of working wood.

I made the box from some riven ash, that I had left from when I made the shaving horse. It proved to be very nice wood to work with.

Both the bottom and the lid fits in to a groove in the top and bottom of the box. The corners are joined with glued rabbets and wooden pegs.

The joinery definately could have been more precisely done, but I like the box all the same.

Doing these small projects is a great chance to try out different techniques and think about the process of working. Especially efficiency of wokring is a good thing to think about. When working with hand tools you can end up spending too much time on the different steps of the project. I find that I enjoy working more, when I feel like I am getting somewhere. If things take to long to do, it gets boring. The best thing is when you are working efficiently, without compromising the quality.

Lastly I want to show you my new (old) workbench. A real beauty!

I put some grease on the spindles and after that it worked like a dream.

I dont know how I even got by without this tool in the past. It really is a very versatile tool to have in the workshop.

Pouch purses

2011-03-17T07:39:00.000-07:00

I realise that it has been quite a while since my last update. My last post was in may last year... So I quess it's high time that I post something new.

The lack of posts does not mean that I have not been making stuff. I certainly have. Just never got round to putting it online. It's time to do something about that.

The first post is the latest project. Two 15th century pouch purses. A type of purse worn by men and women alike.

The main compartment is a pouch, seperated on the inside into two seperate compartments. It is all joines togeather with stitches sewn from the outside.

The buttons have a wooden core and are wrapped in leather. Same type of leather as the pouch is made from.

The inspiration comes from two different places. A painting of the last supper and of course "Purses in Pieces" by Goubitz.

Hope you like them :-)

... And shame on Google for changeing the system that I used to use for reducing the size of pictures!

A little teaser - the first post in a long time!

2010-12-08T11:48:00.000-08:00

Everything have been standing a bit still here at the blog (this goes out to you, Peter!). I got a new job in April being a fulltime viking. A actually that is what it turned out to be - a lot of wonderfull work and not a lot off spare time. Mikkel and Simon have also been buzy. With work, studying, attending new and exciting events but also making diffentent projects. So eventhough we haven´t been writing so much our hands have been buzy. Mikkel and I have among a lot of things been making viking clothes. So this little update is a teaser for more posts to come!

Also we could like to say hi and much velcome to the many new readers here at Haandkraft. It is lovely to see so many people tuning in eventhough we haven´t written for at while.

15th century pleated gown - PART II

2010-06-22T06:36:00.000-07:00

As promised here is the picture of me wearing my new gown for the first time this summer. It was very pleasing to finally wear it, and it worked just wonderfull.

Scabbard

2010-05-07T11:41:00.000-07:00

This week I made a scabbard for Louises new knife. I am quite pleased with the result, but I must admit that I am not very experienced at working with metal. I am getting better at handleing it though.
The only thing that bothers me is all the polishing and filing. I have always thought that my life was too short for sandpaper, but with metal there is no way around it (that I know of).

So rather than telling you how I did this scabbard I will give you a link to a swedish guy who makes scabbards and knifes like this one... Only much much better.
Be sure to have a look at his blog!

I have been looking at his knifes quite a lot, during the makeing of this knife. I especially like this knife, that he made in 2009. (Keep up the great work Frej!)

A knife for Louise

2010-05-04T10:07:00.000-07:00

I just finished this knife, that I made for Louise. She will need a knife for her new viking-job, so I made one from another knife that I had.

I have been looking a bit at knifes from the 9th and 10th centuries, and found some nice examples from Sweden, that I really liked. They have wire wrapping around the handle and some were found in womans graves. So I thought that that would be just the thing for Louises new knife.

I used beech wood for the handle and brass for the end plates and wire wrapping.
The blade was made by my good friend Jesper.

The wrapping is made as a "common whipping". A type of knot where you draw the knot itself under the wrapping and cut of the edges.
I am not sure if the wire wrapping on the excavated knifes were done this way, but I wasn't able to find any info on this anywere.
The whipping works just fine and if it is made tight enough it will surely stay in place.

Here is a picture of one of the original knifes. This one is from Gotland. From a female grave (grave 503 at Ihre, Hellvi parish, Gotland). 9-10th C.

I got the picture from this site: Dark age recreation company
There are also some examples of knifes with wire wrapping in the collections of Historiska Museet in Sweden.

Another bone belt buckle.

2010-04-24T14:48:00.000-07:00

I just made another bone buckle last night. It is inspired by one made by an english guy (i think) who has made replicated artifacts for various museums. Including some for a museum in Ribe (Here in Denmark). All of very high quality stuff.
You can check out his archive here: Roland's archive (It's all good!)

The buckle I made is inspired by this one.
But it lacks the ornaments on Rolands example. Since I still have to learn how to do that.

Here Is the buckle just after the initial sawing.

And here it is after most of the filing has been done.

I am really starting to enjoy working with bone. So I am definately going to make some more bone stuff in the future.

Going Viking!

2010-04-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

Since Louise has now gotten herself a new job in the "viking ages" (At Bork vikingehavn) I have been thinking more and more about making some viking period stuff. I will of course visit Louise at her new job and do some crafts, so I need new clothes for the right period.

I have not quite decided what to make in terms of clothes, but I am aeking to get to do something. So I made a thing that I will surely need, whatever clothes I might decide to make - A belt.

I have long been facinated by bone buckles from the viking and medieval period, so that is what I have made. That way I could also try to use a new material (bone) and finish an old project that I have been wanting to finish for a long time - the pump-drill that I made last year.

The buckle is made from pieces of pig bone that I had lying around. I sawed the bone into plates and cut out the basic form using a coping saw. The I refined the shape using various rasps and files. The pin is set in place with a piece og brass rod, riveted on both sides of the buckle.
The buckle was then fittet on the belt using brass rivets.

The belt is aproximately 2 cm wide.

I needed the pump-drill to make the cirkle-pattern on the buckle and strap-end, so I made a small drill bit to fit in the pump drill. It turned our like this.

The bit is simply made by hammering flat a steel nail, and then filing out the "teeth". I didn't harden or temper it, but it works great none the less.
The bit is 5 mm wide.

And then there is another viking-related project, that I want to get back to. Since I made the Birka-wallet I have been wanting to make another one. The last was not the correct size and I read somewhere that the braids were done using metal foil rather than leather. So that is what I will try to do this time.
Although I still need to get the exact measurements from the originals (If you have them, I would be very interested in hearing from you! I believe they are in one of the Birka-books).

Here are some experiments I made, using copper foil for the braiding. I think it looks very nice.

More Viking crafts is yet to come... We are danes after all ;-)

15th century pleated gown - PART I

2010-04-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

I've been working and thinking about this project for some time now. Mostly because I couldnt figure out how to do the pleats. I've always had the book the medieval tailor's assisant with me, but I wasn't too happy with its explanation for the pleats. I also wanted the right fabric for it, but immediately after I found that I started on the gown.

I had this painting I wanted to go from:
the life of St. Ulrich, 1450-1455

I used this because I liked the buttons on the collar and possibly also the ones near the wrists (there must have been some kind of closing there, because of the opening beeing so tight around his wrists). And I also wanted a jacket without the fur. Fur is very nice, but it was maybe a bit too overkill to start with and also for a normal jacket. But I must try with fur next time!

Here is what I came up with:

The pleats are hold together very nicely with the inside belt. So I can only recommend that. What I'm missing still is to Iron the pleats and also attach a fastener or two in the belt.

I'll make another post of me in it, hence the PART I in the headline.

Bollock dagger

2010-02-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-22T07:51:00.000-08:00

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.

Spoons, spoons, spoons!

2010-02-22T07:12:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been carving like crazy! I have set up a chopping block in our living room and spent almost every evening for the last couple of weeks carving spoons.
I suppose it is a bit like knitting... only a bit more manly.

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the projects I have been working on.

First these medieval spoons. I shamelessly copied the design from some spoons made by Robin Wood. They are based on a spoon from Lübeck, dated to "The middle ages" (ca. 1100-1500).

A ladle. Not based on anything i particular. I just liked this type of "spoon" som I decided to make one. The wood is birch like all the other spoons, that I have done. Only this turned quite dark, because I stored it in a plastic bag for a couple og days. I quite like the colour.

Normal spoons for eating. These are actually some of the first ones I made.

Another ladle carved from a crooked branch. The grain follows the curve of the bowl and handle. Making the spoon more durable.

I would do a guide on carving spoons if there wasn't already a couple of these out there. Therefore I will point you in the direction of some of these.

First a couple of videos (by the fabulous Robin Wood). Be sure to watch all four of them!

Second is the "Bodgers ask & awnser forum", wich I have linked to on earlier occasions. There are lots and lots of clever people using this forum. And they are always keen on helping.

More Colour please!

2010-02-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

While winter is still here with lots of snow and frost I´m continuing with my in-door dyeing. Can´t help my self! It is great to find the medieval spirit again - I have some how lost it in a lot of knitting projects. But I can now see the forthcomming markets and great medievaltrips as a kind of carot in front of me and this really helps. I have already sold some of my dyed yarns and this finances bying more wool and yarns.

I have dyed with Solidago canadensis, also know as Canadian Goldenrod. I have dyed woth woolen yarns and silk and the green is from adding iron in the end of the dye.

Dyeing with mushroms

2010-01-31T08:30:00.000-08:00

Winther have really got it´s strong hold on Denmark and for the moment it seems like a very long time to spring and summer. I´m really missing my plant dyeing and the colourfull yarns that it gives. Thankfully one of my friends from our medieval group gave me a large amount of mushroms in november in exchange for something nålebundet. I was thrilled that she had picked so many which were enough to dye fabric in the size of 1 m x 1,6 m.

So a couple of weeks ago I got the earge to dye and found the dryed mushroms in the basement.

I have never dyed with mushroms before and didn´t know how many grams to use for the 1 meter of fabric that I had. So this was kind of an experiment - to see how much colour the mushroms gave.The mushrom that I used is in danish called Cinnober-slørhat, and in latin Cortinarius cinnabarinus. It should give a redish colour which I was quite excited about since one of the only other plants that give red is madder.

Before dyeing I chopped the mushroms in to very small pieces and let them soak in water for 24 hours. Mikkel surgested this so that I could get as much colour out of the mushroms as possible. The colour soup became very red as you can see in the pictures and when the fabric went in it took in the colour very fast.

The result became much more dark in the colour than I had emagined but this was a very good result. I was very surprissed to see how close to madder the colouration really is.

There is some areas were you can see that the colourations is not perfekt. This might have something to do with a to small pot were the fabric wouldn´t more or/and that when I did the mordant I didn´t move the fabric enough. I used the colour soup for a secound time and was happy to see that this also gave some colour. I´m not sure that I´ll use the yarns for medieval things, but I can use it for knitting something moderne.

I´m really starting to want to dye again and thankfully I have some dryed plants in the basment. Now we just need the snow and frost to go away so that I can try my new modern gas cauldron that holds up to 60 liters.

Spoon carving

2010-01-09T09:17:00.000-08:00

As I am writing a project for an upcomming exam, I was getting desperate to get to do something other than writeing. So I decided to do a bit of carving.
The result is this spoon.

It is based loosely on a type og medieval spoon. Charaterised by a wide cirkular bowl and a quite short handle.
This one is carved from birch wood (Betula pendula).

The inspiration came from this 15th century spoon... and the spoon to the right in this picture (From Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen)

The trick to eating with a spoon like this is to drink from the edge of the bowl rather than putting the whole thing in your mouth.

Sewing the leather cower for a wooden scabbard

2009-12-04T11:34:00.001-08:00

Someone asked me how I "attach" the leather to the scabbards that I make. So I thought that I would post some pictures to expalin it.
It's pretty straight forward, but pictures always help.

I use some pretty supptle leather for these scabbards.
This is calfskin and just about 0.6-0.8 mm thick. It is very streatchy and soft.

First I glue some leather strips on to the core. These will appear as raised areas after the core has been covered and they will help the belt to stay in place, and make sure it won't slide down.

In the next three pictures you can se how the leather is fitted to the tip of the core. This way of doing it gives a pretty tight fit.
The leather is also soaked in water before being sewn to the scabbard. This makes it more streachy and therefore reduces the danger of tearing the leather when sewing it togeather. When the leather dries it will shrink and make the fit even tighter. This way you can avoid using any glue at all!

First you fold up the tip.

Then the sides.

... And you start sewing!
As you can see I cut the leather to size as I go along. Then i don't risk takeing off to much.

Sew all the way to the top, fold down the upper rim and stich it in to place.

Tie some string around the leather risers to streach the covering into the corners.

Let it dry for a day and it's ready to be fitted with a belt!

A recommendation

2009-12-02T12:13:00.000-08:00

For those of you who are interested in carpentry.
I just found this book on different techniques for making joints in wood. It has a lot of pictures and descriptions of various techniques.

Woodwork joints

Scabbards

2009-11-18T13:09:00.000-08:00

My dear friend (and blacksmith) Jesper ocationally get to make som swords for his clients. He is very good at smithing, but not quite as good at working with leather. Therefore I make the scabbards for the swords that he makes.
Actually he makes the sword AND the wooden core for the scabbard and i dress it up in leather.

So far I have made two scabbards for him. Both for early medieval swords. The design is made after the instructions drawn out by Peter Jonhson (See this thread on "My armoury" for details).

It is a pretty straight forward design and one that I have really enjoyed working with. I really like all this "braiding and weaving" og the leather.

This is the most reasent one (Just finished it today) the one in the picture below was made in august this year.
I am really pleased with both of them!

The belt is divided in to two thongs and wrapped around the scabbard. On the back it passes through it self before it goes around the front again.

The two thongs pass under both the belt and the covering on the scabbard. This Is the most tricky part of the whole process because you have to hold the slit open and press the thong through at the same time. And you have to hit the slit on the other side as well.

Also the slits have to be as small as possible, so the thong will stay in place afterwards. If the slits are to bit the thong will come loose.

Also notice that i thinned down the thongs. This gives a bit more room to work with.

The end is folded up under the covering to give a nice round end.
It could also be fitted with a chape to reduce wear on the end, but unfortunately I don't possess the skills to make one.

And here is a closer look at the upper portion.

BTW: The red fabric in the background was the fabric that I dyed at our stay at Spøttrup. I will make it in to a new doublet later.

Dyeing in the fall

2009-10-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

As Mikkel wrote in the last post the Handkraft team have been at two medieval events this October. The two events made it possible for me to do some dyening. At Vitskøl monestary we dyed with madder and mushroms, and at Spøttrup Castle we continued dyeing with madder. Have brought differnt types of yarns which you can see had a great impact on the results of the colours. We also dyed fabric but pictures of this will be saved for another post - this was mostly Mikkels project and I´m sure that he will show it to you later.

From left to right. Light grey yarn in 2. colourbath, white yarn in a bath made with mushrooms, the two next are white yarn in 3. colourbath, a light grey yarn in 3. colourbath, three next is different white yarns in 3. colourbath, and the last is a white yarn in 2. colourbath.

I rally love the colurs that we made. I made sure to make a lot of the really thin embroidery yarn, so that I can experiment with overdyening them with either yellows, greens or indigo. I have tried that in a small scale, with much succes. So now I want to dye some more yarn that I can use or sell.

Medieval pies

2009-10-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

During this last week the authors of Haandkraft were all camped at Spøttrup castle in Salling, Denmark. We had a wonderful week, and got some time to try out a lot of stuff. One thing being cooking some medieval food.
Of course there is no such thing as a truly authentic medieval dinner, but we made some food inspired by sources from the period.

The course that got the best response were the pies, wich I will describe here.
It won't be a specific recipe, as I don't have one. but I will give some pointers in what direction to go.

Konzil von Konstanz (ÖNB 3044, fol. 48v), c. 1465-1475

To make pies you first need to make some dough. In this instance we made a so-called "Hot water-crust pastery"-dough, wich is mainly made from flour, water/milk and lard.

500 g wheat flour
2,5 dl water (or half water, half milk)
250 g lard

The water/milk is brought to boil in at pot. When the lard is all molted the liquid is poured into the flour and mixed with a spoon.
After this you should knead the dough until it is uniform and without lumps.
Leave the dough to cool for a while. The cooler the dough the easier it will be to work with. Room temperature should be fine.

We made two different types of filling. One with chicken and one with minced pork and beef.

Chicken filling:
Pluck the meat of one cooked chicken and roast it in butter, with some garlick, fresh ginger, thyme and cinamon. Season with salt, pepper, sugar and vinegar.

Pork/beef filling:
Roast some minced pork/beef in butter. Add chopped mushrooms, sage and thyme. Season with salt and pepper.

Shaping the pies:
We shaped the pies using a small wooden bowl (ca. 15cm in diameter). First make a flat piece of dough about 5mm thick. Push it down into the bowl so that the edge go over the edge of the bowl, and place some filling in it.

Then make a small disc to cover the filling, and cut the edges flush with the edge of the bowl.

Fold down the edge, and make sure the folds stick in place. If you don't the pie will come open when you bake it. You could probably glue it with egg or water, to make sure it stays in place.

Tip the pie out of the bowl, and poke a small hile in the top.
After the pie has been baked you can pour different kinds of sauces into the hole or seal it with lard or butter.

Bake the pies in the oven until thay are golden brown. In a normal oven that will be somewhere around 30 minutes at 200 degrees (celsius).

We had a butter and honey sauce with these.
Equal parts butter and honey melted togeather in a small pot and seasoned with a pinch of salt.

Enjoy! (I know we did)

A treatyse of fysshynge wyth an Angle

2009-09-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

Sometime a couple of years ago I came across this text somewhere on the internet. I have read it several times and thought that I would recomend it to all you reenactors out there.

It is nothing less than period instructions to making, fishing rods, lines, hooks and catching bait.
The original text was first printed in 1496. And I believe that I have read somewhere that the text was written sometime in the earlier (around 1465).
Additional info can be found HERE.

What I really like about the text is the very detailed instructions on how to make a variety of items that the fisherman needs. Not only the preparation of the rods, but also how to make hooks from needles, how to make lines from horsetail-hair (and dye them in the correct colours), as well as where to find the correct worms and other animals for bait.
Even tools and matierals are described thoroughly.

The entire text can be read here: http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/berners/berners.html

Another ladies purse

2009-08-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

Just this weekend I finished another ladies purse. It is basicly the same design as the last one. This new one has two pouchlets, rather than just one and it is a bit larger. The pouch measures 20 x 20 cm.

I also found this picture from the Mendel Hausbuch at this fantastic site: Die hausbücher der Nürnberger Zwölfbrüderstiftungen
(It contains a great amount of 15th century craftsmen (as well as 16th and 17th century craftsmen))

A purse very similar to the one I made lies on the table.

Things that I have been doing this summer

2009-08-23T12:33:00.000-07:00

I´m very sorry that I have been absent from the blog in quite a while but there have been so many things going on this summer. Although I have been busy I havn´t stopped making different medieval things. It is things that you have seen mentioned before on the blog and there is at the moment no new and exciting projects with need of source pictures and such. So this post is going to be pics of different things and opbjects that I have been working on/with. Sometimes much reading in a post isn´t always the best. So at the moment I´ll leave all the writing to Mikkel :0).

Working on my embroderi (which is now finished, and will be shown in a upcomming post)

Dyeing in an iron cauldron.

Here I´m washing the yarn that have been dyed with Saint John's Wort (on danish it´s called perikon)

Here are some of my dyes - the small bundles are embroidery wool which I sell on the markets that we attend. So fare there haven´t been much luck in the sales.

And this...I just had to show you that I have been so lucky to have tried to hold such a wonderfull bird :0)

Pattens

2009-08-23T12:27:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

15th century girdlepurse

2009-07-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

At Voergaard I also made a girdlepurse.

The most interesting feature on this purse is the decoration on the flap. I have never made a purse with a decorated flap before, so this was something to try out.

The decorarions are made using an awl, but later I will try using a wooden board with some carved lines, and press the leather into those. Hopefully this will result in deeper lines.

Early 16th century ladies pouch purse

2009-07-22T07:40:00.000-07:00

During our (Louise and I) stay at Voergaard castle I was asked by a friend of Louises to make a ladies purse.

I remembered seeing some pictures of the so-called "Pouch purses" in Purses in Pieces, so I thought that it could be an interesting project.

The pouch purse is a fairly simple type of purse. It consists of a pouch og "bag" of variable size and a strap to attach it to the belt. The pouch is drawn shut with a drawstring and the flap is held down with a sort of "button".
Smaller pouchlets can also be attached to the main pouch.

This type of purse can be seen on several pictures from the early 16th century. For example this picturen from 1500-1501 by Dürer.

And here is my interpretation of a pouch purse.

The pouch measures ca. 15 x 15cm and is made from very soft cow-skin, 0,6-0,8mm thick. The strap for the belt is ca. 20 cm long and made from 3mm cow-skin. The drawstrings and the edge og the belt-strap is made from goat-skin, ca. 1mm thick.
The glass beads are hand made (not by me though).

In the picture by Dürer the flap does not look like it is held down by stiching, so I decided to leave it. Even though the flap is not stiched down it sits well on the belt.
The weight of the purse doesn't seem to be a problem.

A close-up of the button and reinforcement of the holes for the drawstring.

And this part of the purse is what I am perhaps the most pleased with. I really enjoyed making these stiches. And I think they look great :-)

The back of the purse. The drawstrings are held in place bu a knot on the backside of the belt-strap.

And here is how to sew a strap on the edge of a piece of leather. Is also looks great on shoes!

First sew a strip of leather on to the front of the edge. Sew it on front-to-front. The distance from the edge to the stiches determines the with of the decorational edge.

Then turn over the leather strip and sew it to the backside, with stiches that doen not go through the front side of the leather.

All it takes is a bit of cencentration, and it looks great :-)

- - - - - - - - Update! - - - - - - - - -

I also found this picture from 1503. Artist unknown.

Buisnesscard

2009-07-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

Since Louise and I are going to a market next week. We thought that we would do some promotion for this blog.
So we made a buisnesscard :-)

Tent complete!

2009-07-07T11:33:00.000-07:00

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" :-)

The Haandkraft team!

2009-06-25T03:11:00.000-07:00

We thought that you readers might want to see who the authors of this blog are. So this weekend we got togeather for a classic group photo!

From left to right: Simon Nygaard Jensen, Mikkel Frederiksen, Louise Schelde, Jesper (Ildsmeden) Jørgensen.

Thank you all for reading and commenting on our blog!

White doublet

2009-06-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Me and Mikkel have been looking at various white male outerwear like jackets and whatnot. And I've been wanting to make one specific for a while now. I finished it a month ago or so, but I knew I was soon to go on a trip so I wanted to wait with showing it on the blog before I got good pictures of it in use.

Here is the Reference Painting:

It's the St John's altarpiece From 1474-1479. By Memling.

And here is my version of it:

I did not make the low cut on the head opening because then my undershirt would show, and it does not do that on the painting so I figured I just had to make the opening smaller.

From the start I have been in love with the little detail you can see at the sleeve on the painting and it is one of the reasons I wanted to make this jacket.

Reference:

New shaving horse and riving wood.

2009-05-28T02:04:00.000-07:00

For a long time now I have wanted to make myself a shaving horse. And as the tent that Louise and I are working on is almost finished, I am definately going to need a shavinghorse for making the tentpoles. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to do something about it.

I called the local forester and bought a 5m long trunk of ash. And thats what I made this beauty from :-)

I have been reading alot about greenwood working lately, so I decided that it would be interesting to try making "The horse" from fresh riven wood. Hence the call to the forester.
With help from a colleague of mine I got the trunk sawn in to smaller pieces, that I could work with.

I then split the wood into quarters, that I could transport home (also with the help of my colleague and his trailer).
At home I rived the quarters into eights, wich were shaped into planks that I could use for making the bench. For that I used a small single bevel axe that my dear friend Jesper (Ildsmeden) made for me last year.

When riving large pieces of wood (that you want to split evenly down the centre) start by scoring the wood in a straight line across the end of the log. Make sure that the two halfs are of equal size.

Scoring the end of the log will create a plane of weakness through the wood, that will guide the split.

Start riving from the edge of the wood with the wedge set at 45 degres.

The wedge will open a split across the end and down the length of the log. Open this split further using wooden wedges, set into the split running down the side of the log.

Continue hammering wooden wedges into the split until the log cracks open.
You will need an axe to clear out crossing fibers in the wood.

The result should be two halfs of equal size.

And here is a picture of how clean the split can actually be.
It's pretty incredible if you ask me!

For more info on riving and greenwood working, take a look at these sites:

Greenwoodworking.com

Peter Follansbee, joiner's notes (Blog)

Bodgers ask & anwser forum

Dye-mania

2009-05-22T01:41:00.000-07:00

All though I should be reading for yet another exsam I haven´t been able to keep away from the dyeing pots. Mikkel and I (and friends) are going on a market in the middle of July and I wanted to bring different things to sell. My friends Janni and I have decided that we are going to show natural dyening and the yarns can then be used for embroidery and nalebinding. The picture below is some of the colours that I have produced so far. I´m quite happy with the result and it have been quite easy to make. I have been woundering if I/Janni and I should make a small texts about plant dyening that people could purchase. There is often a large interest when we do this kind of thing and a lot ask how we do it.

The plantes that I have use for these colours are (from the left):
- Walnut (the browns - 1. and 2. colour bath)
- Madder (the reds - 1. and 2. colurs bath)
- Birch (the greens and the bright yellow - the greens have been treathed with iron, and taken up at different time in the colour bath, the yellow is 1. colour bath)
- Goldenrot - (the light yellow - 1. colour bath)
The white is the original wool yarn

These small duckets are 50 m yarn and would be relly good for embroidery and very fine knitting. I´m dyening on three differnt types of embroidery yarns and one silk, and have also plans on dyening some more normal yarns for knitting and nalebinding.

New embroidery

2009-05-15T02:20:00.000-07:00

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.

15th Century mens undergarments

2009-05-14T02:12:00.000-07:00

Time for my second post. This time I will show you my first 15th century mens undergarment. I think they are called breeches in english.

I've been wanting to make me a pair of these for a while now since I've been walking around in 13-14th century braies. I've been thinking a lot about how they were made.

Some of the reference I looked at:

After some time looking in the Medieval Tailor's Assistant and after some altering on that pattern I finally then came to a conclusion together with Mikkel about how the pattern could have looked like to make it work like you see on the pictures and paintings. I then made a test pattern out of this idea.

It came out similar to this:

After that I made a test pair and fitted them in where they were too big. After that I used the test pair as pattern and cut out a real pair for sewing. This is how they came out:

They look pretty stupid because they are not tight enough, and not anything near enough as the ones on the paintings for my liking, but they are pretty comfortable to wear. They are also a very good first pair and I can now develop a much better version out of my experience with this one. So I'm definatly going to make another pair or two.

15th century bench

2009-04-29T13:51:00.000-07:00

I am currently working on some new furniture to put in our (soon to be finished) tent. I am working on two tables (+ trestles), some tent-poles and I am also going to make at lantern.

But today I finished a small bench.

The bench-type that I have made can be seen on various 15th century paintings, and seem to be very common. It can be found in many variations, both simple and vith lots of fancy carvings.

I went for the simple style.

The construction is very simple and seem to be quite stable. So it was a nice project for a novice woodworker like me.
Again I used beech wood. And the whole thing is held togeather with wooden dowels (no glue).

The bench is 90 cm long, 25 cm wide and 45 cm high.

Here is a picture from 1475 of this specific type of bench. I am also going to make a couple of the 3-legged trestles that you see holding the table.

Hope to show you more furnifure soon!

Toolbox

2009-04-22T12:37:00.001-07:00

This is a box that I have had lying around half-finished for a couple of months. I made the box myself sometime before Christmas, but have been waiting for at friend to make me some nails.

Yesterday I recieved them in the mail and spent the evening drilling holes and hammering in the nails.

Now I have a nice sturdy toolbox!

The box is made from beech (Fagus sylvatica). A very common tree here in Denmark.

The design came from a chest that I saw at mittelalter möbel, so I´m guessing that the technique is somewhat authentic. Although it isn't based on a particular find.

I really liked this project because it´s (almost) the first wood-working project that I have done. And thus I learned a lot from it. Now I just hope to get to do some more of this type of woodwork! Eventhough most of the sawing and planeing was done using modern powertools I sawed and chiseled the dovetails by hand.

Now I just need to fill it with tools :-)

Natural dyed silk fabric

2009-04-17T02:48:00.000-07:00

All though I´m really should be writing on my final thesis to finish my archeaology studies I couldn´t stop my self from trying to dye on silk fabric. Mikkel and I have been collecting onion shells for a while and there were now a big pile of shells. I know that the dye stitchs really well on wool and gives a great colour. And when I stumbled on this guys flickr I just had to try dyeing on silk.

So I found some white silk that I have bought at a tailor on sale and gave it a mordant (alun). The mordant water and the fabric was moved a lot. Then I made the colour water and after an hour of boiling it was ready for the fabric. I removed the onion shells and but in the fabric. The piece was about 1 m. The colour was on the fabric right away and during the next hour is stured all the time.

The result and the colour is amazing! It was much easier to dye on silk than I thought and I´m for sure going to make more silk during this summer.

This picture is taken in our livingroom and the light is not to good.

Here you can see the white silk and the plant dyed silk.

More books!

2009-03-29T09:36:00.000-07:00

I found this fantastic page just yesterday: University of Iowa libraries bookbinding models digital collection

It is a collection of examples of different types of bindings sorted by types and historical periods. The site contains numerous pictures og the bindings from different angles.
This makes it very easy to see the different techniques used in the binding of books.

The site show both bound books and the structures that are normaly cowered by the leather binding (the wooden boards and the thongs that attach the pages to these boards).

Especially the "medieval" and "monastic" sections are really interesting!

Purse from Dordrecht

2009-03-28T05:27:00.000-07:00

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 :-)

Bookbinding

2009-03-27T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have been facinated by bookbinding for at least a couple of years now, and I have wanted to do something serious about it for just as long.
So, yesterday I bought some second-hand bookbinding tolls. Now I can't wait to get to work, making some books!

These are the items that I bought.
From left to right: Sewing press, Cutting press and a "plough".
Descriptions on the function of the different tools will be given as I get to try them out.

I think that these tools should be suficcient to get me started. Now I just need to find some sources on medieval bookbinings (It has to be medieval of course).

Sources for the binding of books aren't exactly numerous on the internet, but I have manageded to find some:
Bookbinging.net
Medieval manuscripts on-line

And this fantastic site:
Hand bookbindings from Princeton university library

I will also use this oppotunity to post some pictures of a project that I finished sometime around July last year:

The book is made using techniques that are at least inspired by medieval bookbinding. I was not in posession of the correct materials for the project, but it gave me some interesting insight into the processes that go into making a book.

I think it came out pretty nice... Authencic materials or not :-)

The pages should have been parchment, the binding should have been oak boards, and the leather should have been thinner.
The technique for joining the pages to the cower should be pretty historicly accurate though.

Hope to show you more books soon!

Purse from Nieuwlande

2009-03-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

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!

New blogger and pilgrims bag

2009-03-16T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hello. My name is Simon and I'm a new contributor to this blog. I'm here because I'm in the same reenactment group as Mikkel and Louise, but mostly I'm here because I'm Louise' brother. Right now I don't have a good picture of myself for my profile, but once I get that I will update that so you all can see what I look like :)

My craft is mostly sewing. Both in leather (not as much as Mikkel, but made a pair of shoes) and textile, but once in a while I tend to find small other projects that I find interesting to make aswell.

Anyway, now you kind of know who I am and why I'm here posting. Now we can head on to my first project here on Haandkraft, a pilgrims bag. This kind of bag is good to have around you when you camp. You can use it for plates, eating knifes and for me a sewing kit. It's easy to pack your stuff in it and get going. And when all your stuff is put together it does not lie all over the place where you might loose it.

The bag compartment is roughly around 35cm wide and 25cm. And I find this a fine size. The strap is 160cm, but that should be made to fit individually.

I made a little "S" on the down right side of the lit so that I can better recognise it.

My reference picture is a painting from a danish church called Jetsmark church. And its dated to 1474. I've also seen the bag on european medieval paintings, but I found it more fun to post a picture from my own country.

I'm sorry that the reference is a little small, but that's the size it can get. I find my pictures at the danish church painting collection called Kalkmalerier.dk

Projects in the making

2009-03-16T13:37:00.001-07:00

As we have a whole lot of projects, but no finished items, we thought that a post about all of our "works in progress" would be in order.

There are a lot of things that needs to be done before we can be ready for this years season. First of all we need to sew a tent and make poles and tentpegs. Thats the major project.
Besides that we need to make some furniture (tables and benches) and some lanterns.

We bought the fabric for the tent a couple of weeks ago and are currently working on the "blueprints" for the whole thing. We should be ready to start cutting the fabric any time now.
The tent will be a so called "Norman style tent" and it will be 4m wide, 3m tall and about 6m long.
It will look something like this <-- Link to www.Matuls.pl

The "normann tent" should be a nice tent for both sleeping and shopkeeping. And we are going to partition the tent in at least one end, to make room for sleeping.

We also need some new clothes! So yesterday we went to visit some nice "vikings" living in Fillerup (a small town near Odder, where we live). They have a small shop dealing in all kinds of re-enactment goods, like fabrics, rope, whetstones and all sorts of other materiale. We bought some very nice 2/2 wollen twill and some woll thread. The quality is very nice and it has that sweet wollen smell :-) Here is a link to their shop: http://www.glaipnir.dk/

The fabric and thread should be coloured and sewn into a pair of footed hose and a new bocksten kyrtle.

The checkered fabric is for Louises' new dress. A late 14th century dress based on London findings and with fabric buttons. This will be her fist 14th century dress and she is quite looking forward to making it. The plan is also to make a new apron with smock, a head veil with frills and a new underdress without sleeves. So there are much to work on.

Louise is at the moment working on some new embroidery. She have tryed the pattern before which you can see at her old blog. This piece is going to become a small bag - maybe for her new out-fit.

We are looking forward to working on all these things... And a whole lot of other stuff. So even though the activity on this blog is somewhat low at this point, there should be plenty to read about in the future.

2009-02-20T04:36:00.001-08:00

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

2009-02-02T05:25:00.000-08:00

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.

Socks...in York stitch

2009-02-02T02:33:00.000-08:00

I have made some needlebound socks (nålebinding) for a guy that is going to use them for an experiment where he and a group of students at Medieval archaeology here in Denmark are going to live a month in a reconstruction of the Hedeby house. The location is at the Moesgård Museum.

I had been surfing the interenet and found some interesting videos about needlebinding on YouTube. I found a great one with the York stitch and the result it very different from the three other stitches that I know (Mammen, Buttonhole and Medieval stitch). To see the video go to YouTube and search for York Stitch.

The stucture of the stitch is very flexible and they are very warm.

Thread reels (ca. 1200)

2009-01-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

Lately I have been working on a couple of different projects, some are big som are small... And while I am working on the more complicated stuff, I will post a little something for all you needleworkers who are reading this blog :-)

I have made some thread reels based on a finding from London. They aren't exact replicat, they are meerly inspired by the look of the original.
The original can be seen in the book: "The medieval household"

The thread reels I made have been turned on an electrical lathe and are all made from elderberry wood (Sambucus nigra).
Elderberry wood is very hard, despite the fact that elderberry is a quite fast growing tree. The grain is also very uniform and therfore, well suited for turning on a lathe.

The threadreel on the far right is a leg bone from a lamb. I have been using this for a long time and I think it has a very practical feel to it :-)
There are findings of this type of threadreels too, but unfortunately I don't have any pictures of it.

Dyeing before Christmas

2008-12-23T03:18:00.000-08:00

I have been collecting onion shells for a while now and decided last night that I had enough to try a little dyeing. I had seen the great results on Slingerbult´s page and have wanted to try it ever since. So I decides on dyeing small bundles of embroidery yarn which had been treated with alum. All three went in and and they took in the colour great. So I tried using ironsulfur for one of them (? - the danish word is jernvitriol). The colurs of the ones that had only been in onion shells went quite orange and the one treated with iron in the end went dark brown. I must say that I´m really happy about the result although the yarn is a bit spottet. I think this is due to the alum and that I didn´t move the yarn as much as I should have.

So filled with succes I wanted to try something else. My dear friend Christopher bought safran to me last time he was in Spain. It is much cheaper there than here in Denmark so he was so kind as to bring some home for me. It is said to be one of the most expensive/luxuary colours in the middle ages, next to indigo and kermes. I tried with a small bundle of yarn again and use about 4-5 grams of safran. It really doesn´t take much before it dyes and the colour is very strong so be careful not to make a mess with it.

The end result is SO beautiful! The colour is very yellow and very rich. So it is easy to understand that people wanted that colour. It was a great succes and I going to have Christopher to buy me some more safran in Spain next time he goes.

I put the yellow next to some of the other natual dyed colours that I have in my embroideri kit at the moment. On the to next to the safran it is madder. In the bottom it is indigo and an yellow that has been dipped in indigo.

Pleated apron

2008-12-10T12:23:00.000-08:00

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.

Pump-drill

2008-12-08T10:15:00.000-08:00

I have wanted to make a drill for re-enactment purposes for at very long time now.
So last week, when i got an oppotunity to try some woodturning I desided that my first ever woorturning-project, was to be a so-called "pump-drill".

Although I don't have any sources of these drills being used in medieval times, I can only think that they must have had them...
The mecanism that rotates the drill is very simple and has been used for at least a couple of hundred years, by all sorts of craftsmen (namely goldsmiths).

I haven't made the drill-bits, for the pump-drill yet. But photos of these will follow as soon as I figure out how to make them... Along with a demonstration!

The drill is made from oak-wood and norwegian soapstone.

The soapstone fly-wheel makes the drill rotate steadily and wind up the cords that spins the shaft of the drill.

The cord is mounted on both ends of the "cross-bar" (?) by a knot tied to a small nail.

At the top of the shaft the cord passes through a hole. This makes sure that the cord is equally long on both ends of the "cross-bar".

Pictures from Nationalmuseet

2008-11-29T11:23:00.000-08:00

I added some new pictures to the archive. This time they are from Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen.
I photographed various household objects... and some of the fancy stuff :-)

--> Arhcive link

Enjoy!

More Embroidery

2008-11-17T01:49:00.000-08:00

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.

New! Haandkraft picture-archive!

2008-11-10T13:34:00.000-08:00

Louise and I decided to start collecting pictures from Danish (and foreign) museums. The pictures will all be of different findings, mainly from the medieval period. Nice artefacts from other periods will be included as well :-)

Picture Archive link ---> http://s389.photobucket.com/albums/oo335/Haandkraft

(You can navigate the gallery by clicking the menu on the left of the screen. Click the "Museer"-button, thereafter click the "Dueholm kloster"-button... or clik here)

The first pictures are from the museum "Morslands historiske museum" in Nykøbing Mors (my home town).
It's been a while since i last visited the museum, but i found that they had quite al lot of nice findings on display.
So I took some pictures :-)

There were both medieval, viking-, and iron-age stuff (and lots, and lots of other things).

The Helgeansholmen purse

2008-10-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

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.photo bucket.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.

Natural dying - Madder

2008-10-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

I have been on a medieval market this weekend and have dyed wool yarn with my friend Janni. I had prepared some wool from home with alum and also brught some that had not been treated. This was to see how different the wool took in the colour.

This is the result from the "hard" work.

I dyed two baches that have been treated which I´m going to use for "nålebinding"/"needlebinding". And the one in the middle that hadn´t been treated with alum is a very thin embroidery yarn. There is a clear difference in the two types of yarn but I´m very excited about both colours. And I were very happy to see that the embroidery yarn took in so much colour. So for the future I´m going to dye some more for embroidery purposes.

We got a lot of response on your dying and people really were interested in hearing about natural dying. Though some kids thought that we were making red pasta with blod :0).

Leather dyeing

2008-09-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

For a long time I have been somewhat unsatisfied with the colours available from the traditional alcoholic based leather dyes.
Partly because the colour-range is limited (althoug the coluors can be mixed) and partly because the dyes are far from being historicly acurate (In must admit that I don't even have a clue as to wich pigments are used in the alcoholic dyes).

Therefore I have done some experiments with "natural" dyes. Two different dyes to be specific.
One based on iron and one based on tannins.

The reason for this experiment is also that I am currently working on a "reconstruction" of a purse found at Helgeandsholmen in Sweden.
I want this purse to be as authentic as I can make it... within the reach of my capabilities.

The picture above shows the two kinds of dye that I have used. The leather in the background is plain, undyed vegetable tanned leather (from a cow). The black shoe in the upper right corner is dyed with iron and the brown piece og leather in the middle is dyed with walnut leaves and shells (the green shells of the fruit, not the brown hard shells of the nut).
The paper in the background is there to give you some idear of the real depth of the colours.

Iron oxide (black):

this i made very simply by dissolving iron in an acidic liquid. The iron is dissolved and absorbed into the leather. When the leather is dried the iron oxidises and turns the leather black (a blueish black).
I used steel wool wich i immersed in water with a dash of vinegar. The tannins contained in the leather should be enough, but i added a bit of vinegar to speed up the process a bit.
The leather should be left in the water for a day or two and stirred about at least a couple of times daily.
The leather will slowly turn black... and when it is greased the colour will become somewhat deeper and darker.

Walnut leaves/shells (Dark brown):

by boiling leaves and shells of walnuts the tannins in the plant is drawn out and can be used as a dye.
The process is very simple.
Pick some leaves or shells fra a walnut tree. Put them in a pot and add as much water as is needed to barely cover the leaves. Boil the whole thing for a couple of hours until the water turns brown (like very strong cofee). Filter the dye to remove the leaves and shells.
When the mixture is cooled, it is ready for use.
The leather that is to be dyed, is then immersed in the dye and left there for 8-10 hours. Maybe longer if you desire a darker tone.
When you are happy with the colour the leather should be rinsed in running water for a short while and left to dry.
The result is a grayish brown, wich gaines a lot from being greased. This will deepen the colour (the tip of the brown piece of leather in the middle of the picture has been greased).

Medieval silk embroidery

2008-09-16T12:21:00.000-07:00

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)

Birka wallet

2008-09-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

To start up this new blog I will post my latest project.
It is a 9.th. century wallet from Birka. Not an axact repliccation, but a wallet inspired by the findings from Birka.

The wallet is made from ca. 1 mm thick goatskin and the dark parts have been dyed.
I didn't have alot of sources on the this type of wallet exept for a small notice in "Purses in Pieces" and some pictures i found on the net.
So the decorations are mostly speculative.

Some say that the braids were made from gilded leather og metal bands wowen into the leather. but i wasn't abled to werify one or the other. So i just used leather strips.

The leather strips were drawn through the laether using an awl. I tried just pushing them througt, just using my fingers, but that was way to complicated.

Here are some pictures of how i fastened the braids to the wallet. The straps are made from one single strap, wich have been cut into three strips held togeather in one end.

These are all the parts of the wallet. The two big pieces are the front and back and the three small ones are the pockets for the inside of the wallet.

And here are the pictures i found og one of the original findings. The first picture is a drawing of an original and the second i a reconstruction. I don't know from where these pictures were taken, but i'm guessing it is from some book...

All in all i think the results came out pretty nice.