Cheklov's Stuff

Last month, I decided to was time for MOAR HATS.   So I went to see momma and her beautiful sewing room so I could efficiently cut out the pieces for some more damn hats. Yay! I have the stuff for two ready to go once I stop being a lazy fucking uncreative bum. Then I went SHOPPING for SUPPLIES!   Above are my handstitching supplies for the aforementioned hats. A nice, heavy silk thread in (you can't tell because my light sucks) white, cream and black. I was so tempted to color match but... even black thread is kinda rare in period so I just said screw it, simple colors are FINE.  Also I gave in and got some marking chalky/waxy not chalk/crayon things. Maybe my hand stitched seamlines will be less atrocious this time.    Next, I got a crapton of PAINT (and paint adjacent supplies) and I guess a RULER which I keep forgetting about even though it's RIGHT THERE. I'm pretty sure I don't have enough black paint but stupid Michaels LITERALLY h...

So, for a looooong time I've been planning on decorating this wooden craft chest I've had kicking around for the better part of ten years, and then filling the damn thing up with largesse and inflicting the resulting craft monster on An Tir's Largesse coordinator (because no way am I presenting this thing directly to whoever the sitting royals are when I finally get it filled - it's taken like two years to get THIS far, so lord knows when I'll actually FINISH). I've actually made a start on the contents - the painted drop spindles and the viking hats are meant for this undertaking, after all. A few days ago the bug to start getting serious on at least finishing out the box bit me hard, and I drafted up an initial plan on how this stupid thing would be painted. Promising, but of course later on I ran into problems and had to rethink this, HEAVILY. So anyway, today I found the chest, emptied it out (incidentally I found 1. my missing grey hoodie and 2. some more f...

So, I'm not sure why this never made it on the blog, but for a while I was making some really nicely ugly 6-panel wool and "linen" viking hats for my SCA largesse chest project. I'll probably get more into that later, but suffice to say, it's been in progress for 2-plus years and is proceeding at the speed these things normally do, for me. Hahaha... *sigh* I don't actually know how period these babies are, but they're pretty accepted as a nice, comfortable and stylish hat at events. I think it's justified based on a Birka find, but that might have only been a four panel hat - I'm just not sure, and I'm honestly too lazy to get into the research again. (I lied, I looked, and yeah, there was a 6-panel hat from Birka .) Mine are... okay, so my wool? In these it's basically an old olive drab wool blanket. It's a nice, ugly color that I could achieve with natural dyes if I tried, and my "linen" is (on hat 1) an old linen tablecloth...

Literally just dropping a bunch of whorl pics! The silver on the cat painting should have been a bright metallic teal-blue, but alas, apparently putting it on raw wood just turns it a patchy, unsatisfactory silvery color. Cats look much better in this light! I am surprised by how much I like the An Tir populace whorl, but the derg and the spiral are pretty meh up close. Still, I'm sure someone would like them! The Celtic one was also successful, but very flat. Green Celtic (I started making more of my favorites at this point, can you tell?) in flat, before the sides have been painted. Green is still flat, but you can see how I went in and added highlights on the red with my orange paint, since pink would have looked weird. I wish I had enough colors to do shading to give it serious dimension, but alas, I am limited by the tools I have. Green with highlights! It'a amazing how much of a difference they make! I started doing some prep and paintin...

Drop spindles! More specifically, the drop spindles that I make - usually as SCA largess in little beginning drop spindle kits, but more recently and more specifically, the drop spindle I made for Kira so she can start learning. Getting crafty up in this household! My basic supplies are 3/8" hardwood dowels and wagon wheels - I have two types, and use different ones depending on what I'm doing - one of them can have more weight added easily, though only in the center, and the other makes a better base for decoration. (*note - not actual pics, just the closest I could shlorp out of google) Take your dowel, and after making sure you don't have a shitty one - an all too common issue - you wanna pick out a wheel that is a nice snug fit. If you plan on painting your dowel and wheel later, it doesn't hurt to have it a bit loose instead. Next, you need to carve out the point and the hook. Now, it's fully reasonable to just shove a metal hanger hook ...