snakes

I was looking arounf for somewhere to take pictures of my snake arm rings, because it’s quite difficult to take a picture of your own arm, and it all went biblical

“yessss, eve, I hazzzz applessss, tassstieee applesieesss. JUssssst wait a few monthsssss for them to grow”

I’ve been meaning to makae a snake arm ring for years, because they’re really common (we’re talking claire’s accesories common as muck common) throughout Greek, roman, and hellenistic jewellery. I’m not really a snake person, but they’re so ubiquitous I wanted one for my outfit. There are some very  fancy gold and garnet jobs with a matching pair of snakes, right down to fairly plain bronze ones. there are also some gormless looking silver ones.

As you can see, I made the gormless snakes.

Mine have stayed a bit wibbly round the edges because I hammered tham out from ingots of scrap silver I melted down. I decided not to refine tham because I sort of liked the wibbly edges.

Little snake was a small 10cm ingot hammered out to 35cm (he’s maybe a little thin though) Big two headed snake was a heavy (130g) chunky ingot who went down to 95cm via six rounds of hammering – big snakes heads were meant to line up, but they sort of don’t. It was hard to tell how long he needed to be, and tbh he was getting a bit too long to handle easily in his flat form, so he stayed the lenght he is

THey’re quite bouncy, so they fit easily onto the bicep – far more easily than the more solid viking arm rings.

shirty (easter) Sunday

UNsurprisingly, gareth got some new shirts for Easter.

The beer short is his favourite, he’s been whinging for ages that he has nothing to wear to the beer festival (Because obviously the sixty or so bespoke handmade shirts already in his wardrobe don’t count).

But hvae you ever treid to make a beer shirt? Not easy. I spent months trawling ebay for scraps – literally – those two panels on the back I paid four quid each for and they’re only about eight inches by ten. So by this point I don’t care whether he hates gold buttons or not, they say Muprhy’s brewery on them, so he’s bloody well having them

THe star trek shirt is perhaps a little plain, but I did make bespoke silver buttons for it.

you cannot buy star trek buttons. You could probably sell them at Sci fi cons, esp if you offered to sew them onto a regular shirt

And sticking with our space theme, lightwieght cotton lawn with astronauts. I’d run out of little rocketship buttons, so he has to make do with the steampunk ones that sort of look like sapce debris

And now I’ve opened up two compartments in the buttons stash boxes I have an excuse to go button shopping

 

final fanfare

Perhaps he’s playing the last post?

I forgot to take his picture before I took the finished piece off the frame, which is why he’s a little wrinkly, but it didn’t seem fair to deny him his moment in the spotlight.

And I’ve just realised I put a stones reference in but no beatles, my mum will be upset – she like both

nottingham

Some pictures from Saturday’s class at Nottingham Lakeside arts

Everyone tried a bit of everything, basic laid and couched, trellis couching, and a bit of trailed couching as well, with some lovely results.

 

There are still some places availabale on the gargoyles course at the AShmolean, where you can work in wool or silk, laid and couched or opus, depending upon your ambition and ability

https://www.ashmolean.org/event/medieval-embroidery-gargoyles

And in other news I made myself a new roman hairpin, identical to the one I just lost – for alas such is the fate of hairpins. I’m particularly fond of this design, despite the danglies that knot into my hair, becuase it makes an interesting talking point as the crescent moons are oft interpreted as evidence for the cult if Isis having reached Britannia.

sterling silver, with garnets adn eye beads from tillermans

Aulos

In Greek this double flute is called an aulos, but I don’t know what it is in medeival.

I’m still loving his fat pink toddler legs though

ffs

trying to do some laid and couched work wrong for troubleshooting common problems for a set of instructions.

really struggling to do it crap enough.

might have to pick it out and try again

perhaps I should drink the rest of the bottle of wine before I have another go?

penultimate roll along

Up to the last roll of the frame now – nearly there!