Lampworkers Guild stuff & Lampwork 101

Here are the finished sets of beads for the Lampworker's Guild to be given as gifts to various Royals at Pennsic.  I will need to mail these to the appropriate person soon...


While I was making beads, I got a little silly and made this little bee.


I also tested a few combinations for fun and to see if some colors were happy working with one another.  Green and yellow is very tricky.


These were sets that I was putting together for largesse, however, due to the Lampworker's Guild needing more beads made, they got re-allocated to that project.  Just means I need to make MORE BEADS!

I'm looking forward to teaching my beginner's class in a couple weeks!  I think it's going to be very popular and my co-teacher and I are going to have to try to get many people to work the torches, and hopefully they'll be able to make at least one bead each.  In a conversation tonight, I thought I'd put a little bit of my Beginner's Lampwork information here for you to peruse.

Equipment:  Here's a list of the things you will need to start bead making.



1.  Blue tank of propane.  Not only is it portable and clean, but it also is the right size for clamping down.  If you have the know-how, you can also refill these from the propane tank on your BBQ...
2.  Hot Head torch.  This piece is necessary for melting the glass at the right temperature.  Craft torches and things you get at those home hardware places will burn your glass and turn it grey and gross looking.
3.  3" C-clamp
4.  6" L bracket
5.  3" hose clamp (the circle thing)
6. SAFETY GLASSES (most bead makers will recommend tinted lenses to save your eyes from damage staring at the bright flame)
7.  Flathead screwdriver
8.  A cookie sheet with a lip on it.
9.  Pliers
10.  Lighter (I recommend a long lighter--the kind you use to light your BBQ)



11.  1 gallon bucket.  An ice cream bucket is the perfect size.  Just what you needed--an excuse to buy a bucket of ice cream!  Go ahead...eat it while you read.
12.  Fine grain vermiculite.  Found in your local garden department.  You can get a small bag of it and share it between a couple lampworkers.
13.  Bead release.  This jar of goodness will keep the glass from sticking to the metal rods.  I recommend the Frantz Bead Separator; it runs $7 or $8 for a 4 oz. jar which will help you make several hundred beads.  It's also flame-dry or air dry; some air-dry types will pop if you put it into the flame when it's still damp, which means you have to scrape it off and re-dip.  (Also, you will have to add a bit of water from time to time--it tends to get really thick or completely dried out.)
14.  Mandrils.  These are the metal rods that you need to dip into the Bead Separator.  I would start with small ones, like 1/16".
15.  Glass rods.  It's VERY important that you get glass that has the same COE (coefficient of expansion) or you will end up with broken and cracked beads.  Most lampworkers use 104 COE.

It seems like an extensive list, but a lot of it is little things that you might even have kicking around your garage.  The rest you can mail order or pick up at your local hardware store.

Where to order glass and torch heads:
www.Frantzartglass.com.  They're located in Shelton, WA, will pack up your order quickly and bubble wrap the heck out of it!  If you have questions or concerns, they get back to you fast to help you.  I can't say enough nice things about them!
http://www.devardiglass.com is another company my husband ordered from a couple times.  They're also a good place, but I haven't worked with them myself, so I recommend Frantz. :)

If you are looking for heraldic colors to make beads, here are some part numbers for glass that I have found to work really well (they're also all 104 COE, so you'll KNOW that it's right!):
White 591204
Black Tuxedo 511872
Red Dark Effetre 591436
Yellow Lemon Medium 591408
Green Grass 591216 (although this can be hit-and-miss with other colors--work with lower temperatures to make sure it doesn't bleed into others, and/or use a blob of clear between layers)
Blue Lapis Cobalt Pastel 591246
Purple -- this is a tricky one...there really isn't a *good* purple, but you can get pretty good results from Grape Ape 511654 or Thai Orchid 511632
Clear:  591004

Other part numbers to look for:
Hot Head:  110137

Mandrels:  1/16" 324316 or 3/32" 324332

Fusion Bead Separator:  332104
Graphite Paddle (a shaping tool):  301212 or 301302
Marvers, Probes, Picks and Rakes:  other tools you can search for that can help you make fun shapes and manipulate glass.  This is for the 201 class, however...  You can pick up a cheap set of dental tools that you can start with--just remember that the metal has to stay cool or the glass will stick to it.
You can find videos on YouTube on how to make glass beads.  

Beads and Weaving Update

I've made a bunch of beads lately.  This set of 10 (11) were made for my dear friend, Heide, who wanted to make bracelets for her sister and mom.  Heide grew up on a cranberry farm near Aberdeen, so when she saw the first bead I made, she said "CRANBERRIES!" and commissioned 10.  I was happy to make them for her and threw in the 11th bead free!  OK, technically it was the first bead, and it wasn't the prettiest, but she loves them anyway.

Then I was messing around with different colors and techniques, tools, and trying out some stuff with clear glass.  I don't particularly care for working with the clear stuff--it seems to need a lot more heat and takes longer to melt.
  This one I call the Diversity Bead.  :)
    

I love the chemical reaction I had with these two colors--I need to get more turquoise.
 

I finally got the weave done--it's so lovely!  I don't know what I'm going to do with it...although I think it'll end up on an apron dress.

Since the loom was now free...I warped up some yarn on the inkle loom to make the band for Frigga the Loom.  I'm thinking I need to get it on the rail and start attempting to weave.  I need to figure out where to set it up in the house--probably the front room, but I need to rearrange some furniture first.

A few weeks ago, I was greatly anticipating entering Kingdom Arts & Sciences in 2015 with my warp-weighted loom--something I had never seen anyone work with in An Tir.  Last weekend was the Kingdom event and I started eagerly looking at some of the entries that starting appearing on Facebook.  I was a little discouraged to see an entry this year that included...yes, a warp-weighted loom.  My first reaction was "dang it!  I wanted to be first!"  Then it was, "Now it's going to look like I'm copying."  It was, admittedly, a little disheartening.  Now, the loom she used was for card weaving, not for fabric, but still, I felt like someone had stolen my master plan and built it faster and presented it.  I had a nice chat with my Foster Laurel (whose identity shall remain a mystery for now)...she has been a great sounding board when I have questions or get discouraged on my Artisan Journey (let's not say Laurel Track...who the hell knows where this journey will end?).  I relied on her greatly when I had a personal issue with another member, when I had frustrations with a judging panel, and yesterday, when I was stung by the surprise of someone else doing stuff with the loom.

After she talked me down off the ledge, and I had a night to sleep on it, I realized that my journey and her journey may cross paths, but we are on different journeys.  Hers was to do card weaving on a warp-weighted loom; and mine is to make a sheep to shawl project.  I even have the sheep!

Many thanks to HL Godith of Goosefoot Mead for providing this bag of goodness!  This award-winning fleece needs to be washed, carded and spun and will -- hopefully -- be a finished garment someday.  

Away to bed...long day tomorrow!  I have two quilts to finish for other people, and on Friday, I get to pick up two more.  In the meantime, I have 7 to do for myself.  Gaaaaahhh!

G'nite.

A&S Plans Set in Motion

I've made quite a few beads!  Some are really nice!

And some are pretty ugly...they are rather experimental, so don't abuse the artist too much.  I was trying to make some Islamic Folded Beads, but found that they are tediously long to build and don't always turn out right. In other words, my skill level is not yet up to that standard.

I started another technique that involves using a pointy tool, much like a dental tool, but thicker and stronger.  I made the core of the bead then added stripes and dragged the tool over the surface of the glass, deforming the stripes, which looked very much like the folded beads, and took a fraction of the time.  Many of these turned out pretty cool, but others didn't do as well...a bit lumpy and coarse.  One had a fatal flaw that caused...well...

...sudden bead death.  I didn't get this one into the vermiculite fast enough, so it cooled down too quickly, causing stress fractures.  I could glue it back together, but there's no telling if other fractures might appear later.

The perle cotton tablet weaving is coming along.  I have about a yard done so far on this particular piece.  The threads are pretty fine (#8 DMC perle cotton, found at any fabric or craft store) and slick, which makes the cards turn so smoothly...like buttah!  The cost of materials is a bit higher, but not astronomically high.  We're talking about $12-15 spent for this project so far...maybe more if I need to use another $3 skein of thread for weft...instead of $5 for an entire project.  Yeah, it's about triple or quadruple, but still cheap for what it is.

My plans in the not-too-distant-future (say, summer) is to build something like this:

It goes with my sheep-to-shawl plan.  You know...take the fleece from the sheep and turn it into a wearable garment.
1.  Make loom.
2.  Spin fibers.
3.  Weave into cloth.
4.  Full cloth.
5.  Make something from cloth, like a 10th century Danish apron dress.
If I can finish all that by next January, I can enter things into Kingdom Arts & Sciences.  I was told (by a supportive Laurel friend) to enter three things:  loom, woven stuff and beads.  I think I can do it...but I'm going to have to do some serious work over the summer.

This goes well with the advise I received from *another* Laurel friend, who said to stay within a particular scope of time/culture when you enter Kingdom-level contests.  In her experience, being "all over the map" doesn't show as well as being a bit more focused.

I'm thinking I should build a prototype of the loom first; try to build it out of really cheap materials, like 2" x 4" and 1" x 2", then make a more 'natural' product out of cut trees.  I can't even imagine what I'd need to do to cull trees from the neighborhood or out in the wilderness somewhere.  Maybe someone in the SCA has a piece of property they're willing to let me cut a tree from.  First things first...build the prototype.

End of January Stuffs

The end of January is nigh upon us and I have several things to show...at least in beads and a bit of weaving.

First, there's me...I set up a table at Ursulmas where I made beads for the weekend.  While there was a demo display booth contest, there were significant limitations as to what I could do given that I was going to be actively demonstrating beadmaking.  Where the booth was located (unknown prior to set-up)?  What I can display that isn't flammable?  Is there a banner and how do I hang it?  I can't bring a tent or pop-up with a roof, so what can I bring for ambiance?  So many questions.  I brought the color copies of Callmer's beads and brought all the old beads I could find that I store in a small treasure box.  Unfortunately, there's a lot of old & ugly beads from my first months of bead making; I had strung them on dental floss and hung them over the treasure chest on the table.  I need to pull those aside and keep them somewhere else...like decorating the garden or something.  Some of my later beads were loose in the box, and the newest ones were strung on mandrils on the table.

I was told there was a banner for the Kingdom Lampworkers Guild, and it would be delivered Saturday morning.  I found the current banner design posted on the Lampworker's web site; the banner was made for a previous event, but the design was not fully vetted by the Heralds, so it is currently an unofficial banner (not passable, apparently).  Since the Lampworker's Guild does not have a device registered with the College of Heralds, I had some discussions with a couple of them at the event to come up with a new passable design.  In any case, the banner might not be understood by the public, so just to make it clear to passers-by, I made a lettered banner that simply reads:  "Lampworkers Guild" in a font called King Harold, matching the lettering from the Bayeux Tapestry.  I hung it using the packaging tape I had with me on the exposed pipes in the frigid hall.  It ended up being the only banner, as the Lampworker's banner ended up not arriving after all.

Although I didn't mean to be the exclusive lampworker working the booth, I was the only one there for more than half of the weekend; Aenor joined me for a while on Sunday, making a few beads in the frigid hall.  It was so cold on Sunday that the bead release was not drying and we walked around with our plastic buckets of vermiculite looking for a heat source.  The portable heaters outside were turned off to save fuel; they said they were only heating the building at night (which didn't make any sense--no one was in the building at night).  I dipped the mandrils and more than 90 minutes later, the bead release was still wet.  If you heat them using the flame, the stuff dries too quickly and either cracks or explodes off the mandril.

Because I had more than 16 hours of uninterrupted time to make beads, I was able to finish almost 40 beads over the weekend, using just under two tanks of propane--I was able to make several more after returning home.  I finished all the beads I needed for the Kingdom gifts to Caid and Glen Abhann--they're not due until July Coronation, so I got the Gold Star from the Guild head. :)  There are more than I need here, so I will send on the best 20 of each colorway.

Here are a few that I made over the weekend, in addition to the Caid and Glen Abhann beads...the four on the lower left were made as part of a commission for Jadwiga.  She chose six others that I failed to photograph before she came to pick them up.



I am also doing a little card weaving. I finished the weaving for Tyrssen of Middle Kingdom and warped up a new one on the loom.

I brought the loom with me to the event, but didn't do any during the weekend.  The booth next to mine was occupied by Demo Winners, Emma and Nigel, who covered their table with weaving and leatherworking items.  I placed my loom on the edge of the table, next to hers, to add to her display.  This one is strung up with Perle cotton, using just over four balls of strings--one yellow, one black, and two red--in #8 floss.  I had quite a time finding extra red floss, and ended up having to replace it with a readily-available color.  Red 666 was available during the holidays, apparently, but not later, but everyone was carrying Red 321.  I had to un-warp six cards, and I'll use those threads in a later project, I suppose.  While this is more expensive than using the cotton warp, the cost of materials is still under $20, it comes out lovely and shiny, and the cards turn smoothly.  I have a couple other projects in mind that I might try, using these threads as a substitute for silk.

I made a deal with a local lady to buy some roving from her that I will be turning into a sheep-to-shawl project.  I don't know what I'll be doing with the fabric or how much fabric the spinning will create, but I'll figure it out in a bit.  Probably more than a hat.  Maybe enough for sleeves or maybe an apron dress.  I'd love to try to make a warp-weighted loom, but somehow I don't think that'll get done this year.  Although....

More to come!

Long time...no...whatever.

I can hardly believe that it's been 8 months since I posted last.  I've done quite a lot of stuff lately, but I'm not always good about posting about it.

The last couple of days, for example, I've made a pair of under-trouse, and have another one partially assembled.  I also made a body block (muslin) for an English early-Tudor gown/kirtle/waistcoat.  I hope to make all of these things in the next few weeks.  The gown I would like to finish before 12th Night...now just to figure out what I'm going to be making it out of--I have some beautiful peacock blue linen or some tawny-beige lightweight wool (possibly a blend).  I'm thinking of going with the blue and making the waistcoat from the beige--I'll have lots left over, so I can also make something else, like a Turkish coat or Apron dress, too.

I finished the Turkish entari that I was working on earlier--you can't see much of it here, but it is nice.  Very comfortable, hangs well, and I put my own woven buttons on it that I made.
 

Going backwards in my posted photos on Facebook (which is like reading backwards in a diary), I've done a lot of bead-making; these ones for the Lampworkers Guild to be given as gifts to the Kingdoms of Drachenwald and Calontir:
 

Made a bunch for my own fun or for commission:
  

Dyed some yarn with pomegranate peels (alum mordant):
 

Did some more beads for the guild from 6 months ago or so (a few of these were made by a friend, but I couldn't tell you which ones now):


Did just a little embroidery at an Ithra...just for fun:


And painted a ceramic mug...which broke almost immediately:


I'll try to post some more pics in the next few days as I finish things up before 12th Night.
Toodles!

Last Few Months of Stuff

It's been quite a while since I posted anything, but I actually have been working on a few things.  This month I'm doing the "Costuming Olympics"...an event I made up modeled after the Knitting Olympics that are held during the Winter Olympics.  I really needed to update my SCA wardrobe and this was the perfect opportunity to do so...by creating an incentive!  My plan is to make garments for my family to wear at September Crown.  The rules are that they don't have to be FANCY or SHOW QUALITY, but finished & wearable.

Since I noticed a distinct lack, I decided to start with some base garments for everyone.

Making Salwar pants for SCA undergarments.  I have two new ones for myself, a pair for my husband, and a pair for each of two kids.  The third kid will have to get some made from another material...I ran out.

After that, I have fabric to make a few lightweight tunics and a couple of warm surcoats for the men in my life--husband Kellach and son Benno, and I've been promising to make a pretty dress for the big girl, Ophelia, who wants something 15th century.  Lottie got a couple of tunics made last year, but I think she wants to have a pretty overdress that laces up as well.

Coif made for Tyrssen to go with his newest tunic.  I will have to make this more rounded at the top of the head...it was a little pointy.  Ah well.

Tyrssen's Salmon tunic...hanging next to a RED tiny tunic for an American Girl Doll.  I need to finish the red one yet.  The pink washcloth on the left was just to show that the tunic wasn't pink... :)

All seams were hand finished and was sent out to Tyrssen's work place in Ohio in preparation for his trip to Pennsic.  He was so excited to get them that he put them on at work.

Did I show this before?  The Pile o Yurt.  I'll have to build up my Turkish clothes a bit to go with the Turkish kinda ger.  I also need to make a blue tono cover...

 Beads made for Pennsic for Northshield and Middle Kingdoms.  I got a new hot head to make these beads and the scorching problem pretty much went away.  I may try to wash the old torch to see if I can remove some sediment that may be causing the problem.