It is New Year's Eve 1852 and Henry HYDENWELL sits at his desk by candlelight. He dips his quill pen in ink and begins to write his New Year's resolutions.

1. No man is truly well-educated unless he learns to spell his name at least three different ways within the same document. I resolve to give the appearance of being extremely well-educated in the coming year.

2. I resolve to see to it that all of my children will have the same names that my ancestors have used for six generations in a row.

3. My age is no one's business but my own. I hereby resolve to never list the same age or birth year twice on any document.

4. I resolve to have each of my children baptized in a different church--either in a different faith or in a different parish. Every third child will not be baptized at all or will be baptized by an itinerant minister who keeps no records.

5. I resolve to move to a new town, new county, or new state at least once every ten years--just before those pesky enumerators come around asking silly questions.

6. I will make every attempt to reside in counties and towns where no vital records are maintained or where the courthouse burns down every few years.

7. I resolve to join an obscure religious cult that does not believe in record keeping or in participating in military service.

8. When the tax collector comes to my door, I'll loan him my pen, which has been dipped in rapidly fading blue ink.

9. I resolve that if my beloved wife Mary should die, I will marry another Mary.

10. I resolve not to make a will. Who needs to spend money on a lawyer?

I know I haven't been posting much lately, and I know a lot of folks are having tough times, so I present a dose of weapons-grade cuteness courtesy of the Weaselking:

I just found my camera cord after several weeks of it being AWOL, so pardon the sudden explosion of photo posts.

( Not safe for work if your work frowns on artistic glass nudity.Collapse )

So I posted about the Viking-era swastika bead a few days ago. albreda said she'd wear it if I made it, so I turned on my torch tonight and gave it a shot.*

Original: And my version:


Mine came out a little shorter than the original, but still recognizable. Heh.

( Other recent glassworks: barnacles, murrini, and the Northern Army's heraldry.Collapse )

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Disclaimer for those just tuning in: I make reproductions of early medieval glass beads. The Norse (and many other cultures) used the swastika as a luck or fertility symbol for millennia before the German Nazi Party. I reproduce this item as a piece of Viking-era archaeology, not a modern political statement. Just wanted to clarify that.

My personal challenge as part of the A&S 50 project has been to identify and recreate 50 different period glass bead designs. So far, I'm more than halfway there, but this is the first documentation I've posted online.
( Documentation below the cut.Collapse )

There's the first ten. I just need to clean up the documentation for the next ~30 patterns, and then get pictures of the new ones I did the other day...

I spent most of my afternoon in the online collections of the Swedish National Historical Museum, looking at the glass beads in their collections. If there's one thing historical lampworking has taught me, it's how to say "glass bead" in half a dozen different languages I don't actually speak.

It was immensely useful. I'm confident that I'm now at least half-literate in Swedish written museum terminology, and I found hundreds of beads from various excavations over the years. One of them was this beauty.

Yup, it's definitely covered in swastikas. I don't think that'd be too popular an item to recreate, despite the ~1000 year time difference between the Norse residents of Södermanland and the fun-loving psychopaths of the 20th century Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

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Mary Rose Reproduction Fiddle

English, circa 1530s.

Joint Entry: Master Ekkehardt of Oakenwode, OL and Lady Elinor Strangewayes, OM.

Categories: 17. Woodwork; 22. Sculpture and Carving;   30. Toys.

 

          

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Baker's Mark Stamp

English, 16^th century.

Lady Elinor Strangewayes, OM.

Categories: 25. Heraldic Display; 22. Sculpture and Carving.

 

Photo by Alexandr MacLachloinn.
Plate contains the three experimental loaves and stamps. (Note the bottom right stamp and loaf just above it - that was the one using lard as an anti-stick device. Didn't work.)

Right side: Beeswax initial mold to cast the clay stamps; a stamp that failed in the firing; and the fragments of one that exploded while firing.
 

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Hnefatafl Board and Pieces.

Hiberno-Norse, circa late 9^th century – early 10^th century.

Lady Elinor Strangewayes, OM.

Categories: 17. Woodwork;   20. Glass;   30. Toys.

 

        Photo by Alexandr MacLachloinn. I will try to get some better detail shots myself later.

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