Nordskogen 40th Anniversary Twelfth Night Site Tokens: Material Culture 28: A&S50 Challenge

Nordskogen 40th Anniversary Twelfth Night Site Tokens: Sterling silver rings in a period New Years style
Material Culture 28: A&S50 Challenge
Created by the Barony of Nordskogen
Julia May

33 dozen rings, sorted by size. A mallet and an mandrel are available for minor resizing.

Dame Siobhan stewarded the Twelfth Night celebration with heralded the 40th Anniversary of the Barony of Nordskogen. She put out a call for volunteers to design a memorable site token for the event with a budget of $1,200. Baroness Samia al-Kaslaania, the Honorable Lady Niamh ingen Dhomnail, and Lady Lleucu verch Gwilim submitted the selected bid.

Silver finger ring. 15th century. Winchester Museum Collection Object number: WINCM:AY 204. Adorned with foliate and reads "en bon an". They were given as New Years gifts in the 14^th and 15^th centuries.

More examples of this kind of ring can be found on our Pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.com/jm0358/en-bon-an/


For ours, Lady Kolfinna Hrafnkelsdottir was the calligrapher, and Lady Lleucu was the designer. We utilized Rolling Mill Resource to laser engrave paper plates.We then used the paper plates to make an impression on  sterling silver sheets.

Testing the pattern and pressure on copper first.

The plates were annealed and cut apart into strips. The edges were butted together, and three-four people began soldering the butt-edges together. The rings went into the pickle (chemical cleaner to remove flux residue). Two people used mandrels and mallets to make the rings round.Several people cleaned up the rough edges, then the rings were bound together by size and put in a tumbler to polish. Finally, Max Black was added to darken the lettering, they were stamped with "925", and the rings were given a final polish.

From right to left: 1. stamped and annealed ring strip 2. ring strip folded for soldering. 3. ring just out of the pickle 4. ring being polished 5. finished ring with letters darkened. In the background is a charcoal block, used to reflect heat back to the object being soldered.

 

1. Soldering the joints: the rings are covered with flux and laying on a charcoal block. 2. Out of the pickle: the rings are shaped so they're easier to solder, and now need to be rounded. 3. Solder joint. 4. Rings cut unevenly need to be filed smooth.

Volunteers spent dozens of hours working on the rings. 

33 dozen rings doesn't look that *that* many. 

But it does take a lot of volunteers to make 408 sterling silver rings for an event. With the support of Baron Edward and Baroness Deja, territorial Baron and Baroness of Nordskogen, and Dame Siobhan, the event steward, over 35 people contributed time, materials, love, and effort. 

Lord Bastien and Lady Coquette; Master Cadwallon and Baroness Amalia; Lord Wulfstanus and goodwoman Renee; Lord Bazyli and Lady Helena; Lady Nezzetta; Lady Lleucu; Baron Thomas and Baroness Angelina; Lady Jenne; Lord DelNefre; Mistress Angeli; Lord Geirfold; Duchess Petranella; Baroness Jutta; Lady Ulricka; Lord Marcus and Lady Kate; Lady Kolfinna; Lady Ysabel; Lord Finn and Lady Cynthia; Lord Byron; Honorable Lady Una; goodwoman Kathy Unasister; Lady Niamh; Baron Fredrick and Lady Gwenllyn; Lord Oswald and Baroness Samia.

Using the bias of woven fabrics: Advanced T-tunics

Using the bias of woven fabrics
Advanced T-tunics
Sayyeda al-Kaslaania
February 2013

Clothing is amazing when we stop to think about it. In the middle ages, someone spent hours weaving threads back and forth to carefully craft yards of fabric. Plus there was all the time taken to spin the fiber—and even to harvest it. People then decided they had enough extra time to make curtains, blankets, napkins, mattress covers, and rugs! Textiles were considered liquid assets in the middle ages, as good as money. They were passed on in wills, recorded as taxes, and gifted in dowries.

Woven fabric is composed of warp and weft threads. Warp threads run the length of the loom and are strong enough to be worked under tension. Weft threads are passed up and down through the warp (or through a warp shed) to bind the fabric together.

The grain line always follows the warp of the fabric. Conveniently, this can be identified by the selvedge edges, which also follow the warp of the fabric. Selvedges typically don’t unravel. Measuring from selvedge to selvedge yields the width of the fabric (modern fabric is typically 44/45”, 54”, and 58/60”).

The crosswise-grain follows the weft of the fabric. On modern cotton broadcloth, warp and weft threads are generally identical. On other fabrics, the crosswise grain is considered weaker than the grain.

The true bias is 45° from the grain. This cuts across both the grain and crosswise grain equally. When cut, this edge will distort quickly when handled. Caution should be used to keep a bias edge from stretching while one sews.

The garment bias is anything other than a 45° angle. An isosceles triangle is an example of a typical bias used in garment construction. Caution should still be used to guard against stretching the bias.

A gore is a triangle with two edges sewn into place, and one edge left free as part of a hem. As a triangle, at least one of the sides will be cut on the bias. A garment will tend to fall in folds and “flow” towards the bias edge of the gore. You can use this to your advantage to accent or diminish aspects of your body shape.

“Side flow” is applying a gore so the straight edge is stitched to the body panel. This keeps straight lines down the center of the body and visually creates more fullness toward the outside of the body. This can balance a natural fullness in the center.

“Center flow” is applying a gore so the bias edge is stitched to the body panel. This will smooth the fabric over the hips and draw the weight of the fabric toward the center

Teaching at a class day
February 2013

I volunteered to teach two classes for this past weekend. One on sanbūsaj, or meat-filled pastries, and the other on advanced t-tunic construction.

The sanbūsaj class fell flat.  Two people stopped in for handouts, and one person showed up for the class. When he tentatively asked if he was the only the one, I suggested he take a handout and head to another class (classes were stacked 10 deep per hour, so it was easy to have a second and third choice). Several people approached me before hand to say mine was their second choice class. Sigh. I felt loved with the pre-apologies, but I had been excited about the idea of working with others on redacting recipes and learning pastry tricks.

The t-tunic class was well attended, but I fear I was just low enough on spoons that people did not come away with as much knowledge as I had wanted to share [learn more about the Spoon Theory for people with auto-immune disorders at butyoudontlooksick.com]. People asked good questions, and I have my contact info on my handouts, which included measurements and sewing directions. It was suggested I do more with how the layout looks before cutting. Not a bad suggestion, but I hesitate to share my layout, which works for a luxury-sized 5’10” woman. There are many more people who don’t fit that description than do. I suppose I could give mine as examples. Cataloging all of the tricks I talked about may not hurt, too.

I also thought about making a small tunic with each of the different pattern pieces colored differently. And maybe serged pieces that can be played around with….