Progress!

You remember this? well, I´ve gotten alot further down the road with my mug. To make a long boring story short; I´ve drilled a hole, chiseled out as much material as i´ve dared, cleaned it up with a knife to get a smoother surface on the inside and made a bottom piece of another, dry piece of wood. The idea is that as the wet birch “mug” part dries, the already dried bottom piece will be locked in place in a small groove inside the mug. The outer part will shrink approximately 5% when drying so I hope I´ve gotten my measurements right. If something went wrong, the mug might crack or the bottom piece will not be locked in place and leak or even fall out.

So fingers crossed!

Ive also gotten my materials for my iron age outfit! We had a little accident when drying the linen so it is a tad…discoloured but oh well! I sure recommend NOT drying wet cloth on wood that is treated with something unknown – it just might not be waterproof.

I did take the time to pin down my woolen cloths on a mannequin just to get a feel of what the outfit will look like.

Bad picture, I know, but it serves a purpouse. I will add decorations; bronze spirals and maybe som decorative stitches but Im not quite sure about what it will look like yet. I also made a hood out of the same material as the cape and I just love it!

From one thing to another, I started a new project in todays workshop! I´m making a plate by *surprise* carving with hot coals! I did´nt get that far before it cracked at one end, might have something to do with the material itself but it is hard to say at this point. I´ll see what I´ll do with it at some other time.

I might have told you about it before but it is worth mentioning again. We have this thing called Mute Workshop. When we have the workshop in our timetable it means that someone of us will teach the others to do something that we know to others that are interested in learning. As an example we have one that does historical swordfighting, so she had a demonstration or a short beginners lesson in fencing for those that were interested. Each one of us have different interests and backgrounds and this way we have an opportunity to teach and learn things that we could´nt normally do in school. It is just perfect! I could go on and on about this but I´d better stop here before I get too carried away!

 

Pictures!

So here are some promised pictures from the Ancient technique days in Kurala!

Tällaista mutelaiset tekee

Meidän leiri

Kauniit rakennukset

Kuralan Kylämäki

Mahtavat perinnemaisemat

Näyttää jo melkein lusikalta

Selvästi lusikka, mutta ei valmis vieläkään

It has been a interesting day  at Kurala. It has been quite windy, our tent was lifted off the ground at one point, and that had some impact on todays work. I desided to make myself a spoon. So I startet with half a log from our stash (a piece of the birch we cut down last week) and split it to get just the material i needed. Then i started to carv out the rough shape of a spoon with an axe. I got it quite close to the shape I´m aiming for, the rest I have, and will carve out with my knife. There´s one exeption though. The spoon shape in itself, the carved out bit where the food is supposed to go, that I´ll do by burning it out with red hot coals. I got a lot of help with keeping the spoon in place, the wind out and not setting fire to the tent by classmates and the occational passer by. I hope I´ll get more pictures later but it is kind of hard; taking pictures while holding hot coals on a spoon while blowing air to the contactpoint with a reed. It is a lot of fun though!

Chop down what now!?

A Tree.

It is not every day your teacher tells you to grab the axe, bring the saw and do´nt forget the knives! In this case we went out to the little patch of woods next to the school and chose a birch that will become mugs and spindles, among other things. We had one hell of a teamwork going on, taking turns with the axe and sawing the tree in pieces, not to forget the cleaning up. We put some material aside to be kept wet until next time and the rest to dry. I will put up more pictures as we get going!