Headphones That Don't Actually Work

I really SHOULD make a list of "things I swore I'd never wear but now love".  Might make for an interesting, or at least laughable, post.  Here's another one:

Nice hair, me.  

I've seen ear cauls like this all over the place, and I really love the way they look.  The inspiration for the pair I've made came from here, here, and here, via Pinterest.

☼  DISCLAIMER  ☼ 

THE FIRST RULE OF EAR CAULS IS:  We will not talk about ear cauls!  That is to say, I am not going to discuss or debate the period-ness of them, either to "SCA period" or any point in actual history, nor am I going to discuss or debate construction techniques, artistic interpretation from extant paintings/statuary, or really, any other facet of these things.    

Why did I make these, and why did I make them the way I did?  Because I like them.  End of story. 

Any comments that break the first rule, or begin with the words "actually" or "technically", will be deleted and the posters summarily executed using rabid weasels.  Luv yoo!  

☼  DISCLAIMER  ☼ 

So.  The fun part.  Here's how I did it:  

Clockwise from top left: 

1. After roaming the house holding random items to the sides of my head, which I assume would have looked hilarious had anyone been there to see it, I finally settled on the cooking implement in the first picture.  I laid a square of cheesecloth over the tool, then made a papiér maché form over that. They're green because that's what color tissue paper I had.   The papiér maché medium I always use is just water and fabric glue.  Nothing fancy. 
2. Once they were dry, and trimmed into a neat circle (papiér maché is messy, y'all), I whip-stitched a hoop of 20-gauge jewelry wire around the edges, to stabilize the form and the edge and keep them from bending, or tearing.  
3. Two squares of red faux-silk (both alike in dignity), with strips of gold metallic flat-woven braid sewn in place on my machine.  No, the grid is not straight.  Because yes, I just kinda winged it.  Wang it. Whatever. 
4. A second glue enters the arena:  general-purpose spray adhesive, which is how the red fabric was affixed to the papiér maché caul forms.  I just kinda smoothed and smooshed it down as flat as I could get it. 
5. Once the spray adhesive was dry and set (about thirty minutes?) I trimmed the fabric to about 3/4" away from the edge of the caul forms, and then folded them over and hot glued the edges down to the forms.  
6. More hot glue! After I sewed all those goddamned beads on, and then they all fell off, I hot glued those little bastards.  They stayed put. 

Not pictured:  Last step was to open out a heavy-duty hook from a hook-and-eye set for skirts to about a 38º angle, and then hot glue them in place at the top edge of each caul.  I seated both hooks in a largedollop of glue until it pushed through the holes in the hook where you normally sew them on; then covered the backing of the hook with  glue as well. This was to keep the hooks from popping off.  

The hooks were used to hang each caul from the silver circlet I already wear.  No, they wouldn't have stayed on their own;  but I braided my hair and wrapped it around the front of each caul, both to frame the caul and disguise the rather odd-looking edge, and also so that the hair, pinned in place on my head, would stabilize the placement of the caul.  

Materials used:  

• kitchen spider/strainer with bamboo handle
• cheesecloth
• papiér maché - water + fabric glue, strips of tissue paper
• strong wire for edges of caul forms 
• fabric to cover forms
• trim
• beads/pearls
• hook half of a flat skirt hook-n-eye
• adhesives: 
• spray adhesive
• fabric glue
• hot glue

Ta-da!  

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Fall Coronation 2013

1.  New cotehardie.  Deep navy silk/poly blend -  a "peachskin" weave, turned wrong-side-out to display the shiny, smooth side, rather than the fuzzy side.  Small (less than half-inch) silver buttons from elbow to wrist, and from the neckline in front all the way to the floor.

At this time, the dress doesn't actually open all the way down the front.  I was in a bit of a rush, and didn't have time to do a millionty buttonholes, so I just sewed the buttons on after closing the front seam.

Also, the dress was originally supposed to have a gray-brown faux-fur trim along the neckline and the lower hem, but I canNOT find my brown fur!!  I have no clue what happened to it! For the time being I ran a line of machine stitching in a vine pattern around the egdes of the dress;  if I ever find the fur, I'll put it on, and at that time, I'll fix the buttons down the front.



2.  Ear cauls!  These babies are getting their own blog entry!  Stay tuned!


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Jurry!*

*How "jewelry" is often pronounced in Texas Ansteorra.  


I made a pretty!  

After looking at this gorgeous necklace on Pinterest for like a year, and wanting one like crazy, I finally made something kinda similar:

I DO have an iron key around here somewhere, and when I find it, I WILL put it on this necklace. Thing is, I mislaid it several months ago and am still waiting for it to turn up.

For now, I've used a medallion that I had made at the renaissance festival by the folks with the big coin-stamp machine, with a knotwork star on one side...

And a Scorpio symbol on the other. There's also a medallion jewelry plaque, just to make things jingly.

The smaller medallion is the closure, in the back, with a lobster-claw clasp that hooks to it.






The beads are a mix of green glass beads, most of them Czech glass beads in a translucent mint (from here, where I get most of my nicer jewelry supplies). They were actually FAR too bright a color for me, so I put some gloves on, covered my hands with gold nail polish, and rubbed the beads around between my hands until they were nice and randomly spotted by the gold.  I also mixed in a few scrap brass pieces and other random green glass beads.

I may wear this; but honestly, the texture of the whole necklace feels so nice in my hands, I may end up just carrying it around events to give myself something to fidget with that looks period, rather than using the pink pearl almost-paternoster that I made a few weeks ago.

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Anyhow, fall Coronation is in two days!  I have a new dress!  I have a new hat!  I can't wait to show you!  But I have a VERY busy coupla days coming up, so it'll all have to wait til next week (when hopefully I'll have some decent shots of me in my new outfit).


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Okay, One More Box, and Then I'll Start Sewing, I Promise.

Sadly, I didn't have the presence of mind to take a "before" picture of this, but it was basically just a brown wooden box.  Light brown.  I "stained" it with watered-down red craft paint, sprayed it with a super-shiny gloss clearcoat, and lined the inside with some scraps of a vivid blue uncut corduroy (feels/looks like velvet, but sturdier).

It's hard to tell except in the last picture, which is horribly over-exposed with flash, because it's the only way I could get the red edging to show - the box edges are highlighted in a shiny red lacquer paint, to hide some flaws in the stain, and to better blend the edges of the wood and the blue "velvet" visually.  

Okay, NOW I'm going to go sew.  Two weeks to go from first-draft-pattern to completed 12th century side-laced pendant-sleeve gown.  No pressure. 

σ_ô

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The Big Black Box

I needed a six-panel chest.  You know the one, it's ubiquitous in the SCA.  It comes in all shapes, sizes, colors, finishes, and types of detail.  It's SO handy.

Enter this guy:  

This is a wooden toybox that my grandfather built for me when I was only a year old.  It's as old as me, and like me, it was showing a bit of wear.  It's been useful and beloved throughout it's thirty*COUGH* years, but lacking a hinged top made its use a bit limited.  Eventually it was relegated to storage, tucked on top of a shelf in my garage.

I was hesitant, at first, to refinish it at all (even though I hated the paint job - it's green/yellow on the other two sides), because it was my grandfather's work, I finally decided that I'd rather change it and use it and love it anew, than let it rot on top of a high shelf - and why not look at it like this: he put loving work into this thing, so why shouldn't I? This is as close as we would get to having worked on it together.

The paint was old enough to have been lead, possibly, so I did no sanding.  I spent weeks scraping and peeling and covering it with liquid and foam paint remover, before finally giving up once I realized that even where I'd gotten through the paint, it had long since soaked into the wood, and it would never be stain-able.  So I scraped it smooth, applied a wood conditioner to re-hydrate it, sealed some slightly separated joinery, and painted it inside and out.

From there, the rest was all fun.  I've been working on this guy all summer (you saw the background on the lid, and the smaller box which was kind of a dry run for this one).  Here's the finished product:

Black outside, and mint-green-blue inside (because that's
the color I had, hehe.  The top is stained because it was
cut from an old desktop, and was already finished.  

A close-up of the decorative mountings, which are
just jewelry plaques bent and nailed on with small tacks. 

The handles on the sides, which are simple drawer pulls,
backed with more jewelry plaques.   Not remotely period,
but, as with all facets of this project, I used materials
I already had on hand. 

On the outside of the lid is a mural that took me like three weeks to paint.
I absolutely love it, warts and all, from the derpy little deer to the appalling
mélange of artistic styles used  (this is a learning project, you guys).

See?   I do love how all the colors came out, though, and overall I'm quite
pleased with the finished chest. 

I do have to say that the sky is my favorite thing, though.  It doesn't show
well in these pics, but all of the gold is metallic.  Not leafing paint (my jar
of leafing paint is stuck shut!), but my trusty gold liquid paint pen. 

So, this is going to be my nightstand in my tent, and very likely full of underwear and socks, hehe.  Very few people will ever even see it, but that's okay with me.  I'm really pleased with it, and I want to keep it where I can see it all the time, and where it won't be damaged by the elements.

Next up, woodworking-wise, is another, smaller chest, that I'll be building from scratch; but with the first event of the season only weeks away, I need to lock myself in my sewing room for a while.
See you guys on the flipside.



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Hippies With Tattoos Like Historical Recreation, Too

Once upon a time, many pious folks carried with them a rosary, or paternoster (lit. "our father") to assist them in their daily prayers.  Much like the Buddhist japa mala, the idea was that passing the beads through your fingers helps you keep track of how many prayers have been said/have yet to be said.  The mala is made with beads in multiples of 108; a paternoster usually in 10s or 50s.

(the priest standing behind the seated Madgalene)

While I'm not so into role-playing in the SCA that I need to assign my persona a religious affiliation, I DO like:

• making jewelry, and
• shiny things, and 
• keys

I also happened to have a quantity of large, pink, freshwater pearls, as well as some metal pieces I've been meaning to use for something pretty (I cleaned up my jewelry-making supplies and organized them all more efficiently recently, and I came across lots of things that gave me ideas).

I also really love the look of pretty things hanging from my belt.  I have a number of purses now, a cigarette case (and I no longer smoke, but I can keep other small items in it), and my search for the perfect belt hanger is ongoing.  I wanted something shiny.

Ta-da.   I like it.


The chain at the top will loop around my belt.  Period paternosters would simply end in a bead or finial of some kind and be carried in a pocket or simply tucked into a belt; but I'm not willing to risk this thing falling out of my belt and getting lost at an event.

(And if I decide I don't want the chain, it's easily removed.  Tbh, I'm still not sure I won't go back and close the loop, making this a circle with a key hanging from it).

The key at the end is just a little pewter thing from the craft store - I picked up a pack of them once for another project.  I love old keys.  I have a lovely iron one which I would have used instead, but I lost it several months ago.  :(

Thank goodness for bead reamers. I used up the best of this strand of pearls on a necklace a while ago; what was left had holes too small for the wires to go through, so I can to enlarge every single one.  Bo-ring.

For those who would ask, my "paternoster" IS actually a mala in disguise (12 beads, counting the key at the end).  Not that I get much meditating done while at SCA events, hehe, but it's meaningful to me, and while it's not 100% period, it enhances the overall costume.

Peace, y'all.










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Progress!

A

Remember the little painted black box?  I'm doing a much larger version - a 24" six-panel wooden chest.  The box itself is nearly finished, and painted; now I'm working on the box top:

(part of the upper right corner)  

B

I've also decided I need a Tudor corset.  I don't have a pattern, and I don't feel like drafting one from scratch, so I'm drafting one from an old renfest corset that still [mostly] fits me.  The first part was getting it on and laced up, and then marked with a chalk pencil where I'll be making shape and sizing adjustments:

C

And just for fun (because I'm still in the process of re-organizing my sewing and craft/art rooms, and because I had to re-organize my jewelry supplies into better containers and had the beads out anyway), I made a little necklace to wear with...whatever!  To me it says "rubies and pomegranate arils", even though it's just glass and tiny tumbled garnets.

More soon.

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And Now For Something Completely Different

I've reached that point where I'm in the middle of several things, but with nothing yet to show off here, so today you get to see my garb closet.

This is the closet in my master bedroom, which was my ex-boyfriend's closet.  (My closet is actually inside the master bathroom).  I've always wanted two things:  a dedicated garb closet, and not to have towels in my clothing closet.  

So now I have that!  Gowns on the left, chemises and braies folded on hangers underneath behind the gowns, a little dresser and some baskets/boxes for bits and pieces, and all of my towels on the lower shelf.  (Top shelf is boring storage for random stuff) .

On the right side is this double café curtain rod set which I purchased at the dollar store for a whole whopping *dollar* (guess that's why they call it that).  Here are my veils, belts, and pairs of sleeves, clipped to the rods where I can see them at a glance, and grab them easily and quickly while I'm picking out my outfits for an event and packing them up. Ta-da!

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Meanwhile, I will continue work on:

1. another small, painted box
2. a large painted box
3. a 12th century pendant-sleeve gown
4. a Tudor corset

Back soon!  

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