Silver, Silk And Sewing

Back to blogging, finally. After Yule I had to do a lot of paper work. Next week I will write tests, so after that there will be time again for crafting. Oh how I wish I could already try out all my ideas ;)

Now I can show what I made as presents for my dear ones for Yule.

Here's a little naalbinding needle for my dad's partner. She's very interested in learning historic crafts and in summer/autumn I showed her how to spin yarn and naalbinding. So I thought I would make her a needle with her name on it. I pressed the horn myself from some waste cow horn and I hope it will stay in that shape.

And I made this Birka inspired belt pouch for my dad. As I forgot to take the right leather with me on holiday, I had to send hin the finished pouch after I had returned to Marburg, but he's very happy to have it now :)

In summer I showed him how to make knives, HERE you can see what he made as his first pieces :)
As he is now able to make knife handles on his own, he wanted me to show him how to make sheaths for his knifes.

This one is inspired by viking age finds from Gotland and Birka, but I used just leather and no metal sheet. I adapted some patterns and added them to the sewing lines, plus some stamp design.

The blade my dad used to make this knife is made by Matthias Barkman from the Vikingr-Kontor (attention, way too many beautiful things there!)
The handle is made from brass fittings and goldfield burl.

For his first knife ever, we decided to adapt a sheath form from a find at Lund, Sweden.

And I was able to finish the tablet woven brocaded band from my last post. Brocading is no difficult technique, but it tends to get boring after a while, as the only thing you do seems to be counting threads.
But the result is worth the time and effort.

The silver sparkles and the soft silk shimmers, pure viking luxury.

As I wanted to stick to the Birka patterns but didn't want to do a brocade again after just finishing the last one, I made another band from pure silk in kivrim technique. So much faster than brocade ;)

There was some silk left on the bobbins, but not much. So I looked for another narrow Birka pattern in kivrim again. This one is still on the loom, I think I will finish it by the end of next week.

Awww, aren't these braids just beautiful together? Oh, how I love these patterns and the shiny materials :)

Little Seax

My love gave me a lovely three layer laminate seax blade which he made out of mild steel and carburized spring steel. Some time ago he used to give complete knives to me, now it's only just the blades. So, work had to be done ;)

First I gave the blade a bit of etching and polishing.

 Then I put on a handle from pieces of reindeer antler, walnut, olive ash and some leather.

 Going artistic ;)

To give some highlights I put in some garnets and a bit of nickel silver.

The patterns are based on fnds from Birka and Gniezdowo.

So, now it seems I have to think about a decent sheath design ;)

My very first knife!

 All the time I see those beautiful knifes everyone makes. Now I finally worked up the courage to do it myself and give it a try.
As materials, I chose a Lauri70 Blade, a brass fitting, reindeer antler, walnut wood, buffalo horn and leather. And a little mother of pearl thingy.

I measured and cut everything and wrote numbers and marks on it to be sure the direction of the grain was right in the end.

Then the smelly part ;) I set the parts in plce with epoxy glue and clamped the knife. To make sure that the preassure didn't affect the blade, I cut a slot (just a bit longer than the blade) into a strip of wood and placed the blade in the slot.

After drying, I rasped, filed and sanded the handle. Looked more like a knife now! ;)

I decided to carve the antler part. I found a beautiful pattern from the Isle of Man (fig. 28 - 3).

 when the carving was finished, I tanned it with an experimental mixture of vinegar, iron sulphate -which I normally use for plant dyeing- and coffee.
Then I set a little drop shaped mother of pearl chip into the back of the handle and oiled the whole thing.

Well,

I have made a knife!

Huzzah! :D