Yes indeed, I am having an amazing time with this new art!  Here is this weekend's progress. 

I am also thrilled that I am actually going to be taking an actual lampwork class in early April!

I have jumped into another research project that I am very excited about.  Hopefully I will have some bits of info to post along the way for that one.  In the meantime, I am going to keep playing with glass and start some new garb (that is actually part of the research project).  Cheer!

This weekend was a long weekend, so I had a good bit of time at the torch.  I am still working on getting consistent shape and getting an idea of how to put the right amount of glass on the mandrel for certain sized beads.  I also got to anneal two batches of beads in my mini-annealer.  Yay!

This weekend I got to go to the Tournament of Love and Beauty in Atlantia.  A member of my household was accepting a belt as a Protege and I wanted to be there for the ceremony.  The event itself was a bit on the cold side, but it was a great day.  I got to geek out with people over garb and glass and watch several performers in the bardic competition.  I even did the dancing in the afternoon which was a blast!

As soon as I got back home from the event, I fired up my rod warmer to play with glass (and make some awesome mistakes, which will be detailed below).  I have a long weekend this weekend, and am planning to hook up a 20lb tank of propane rather than continuing to use the small tanks for lampworking.  I hope to really make some improvements with lots of time to work!

For my glass work - I got to go out and play twice.  The first time out I had some issues that I had not yet encountered.  I overheated the glass to the point of burning it on the bead in the center between the two blow ones in the left hand photo.  That glass was a clear bright blue and it ended up with crazy opaque orange streaks.  It looks cool, but I either got it way to hot or just heated it for way too long.

The red one in the same photo was also over heated to some extent.  It was a clear amber rod (I have several) and it came out a rich red, that was not so clear.  I realized after the fact, when I looked at the rod it self, that it was not one of my normal amber ones, as the tip had changed to a bright clear red.  I tested that one again in the next batch, and you can see the clear red bead there (with an orange twisty stringer applied to the surface rather badly).  So many things to learn!

Still working on shapes and dots and hope to make a great deal of progress this weekend.  :-)

Often people ask me how to improve upon their wardrobe or over all look.  There are a million individual responses, but I think one of the most universal things one can do is to eye each component critically and ascertain exactly how "common" it might have been in period.  In my article about Viking age plaids, I talk about how small the checks were and how narrow the stripes.  What is also key about it is that in all of the materials I have, I could only find those few references.  Certainly they used this cloth, but it does not appear to have been common practice when compared to the overall number of finds.

Another example of this is in the use of tablet weaving.  In the article "Tablet Weaving on Reconstructed Viking Age Garments – and a Method to Optimise the Realism of Reconstructed Garments," by Lise Raeder Knudsen (from the book Refashioning Viking Age Garments. SAXO-Institute, University of Copenhagen), the author has a chart that shows the prevalence of tablet weaving in graves from different time periods.  During the Migration era, it ranged from 20-30% of graves in various parts of Scandinavia, but during the Viking age less than 5% of graves have evidence of this practice.  

What I take away from that is that this form of trim should be used sparingly, if at all.  Not every edge of a kit should have it, and perhaps it should be used only for high status personas.  If I use a tablet woven band, which would have been rare, then I would perhaps not also use plaid in the same kit (another less common item).

Another, earlier example of trends, is in this fantastic article on early cloth by Karina Grömer.  Textile Materials and Techniques in Central Europe in the 2nd and 1st Millennia BC.  

In this she has a fantastic chart showing how common things such as weave structure, use a dye, plaids and embroidery are.  They are displayed as being important techniques of the period down to single evidences.  It generates fantastic food for thought for the reenactor.

Those who have taken my Viking Age textiles classes know that I love to talk about scale.  Things like how tiny plaids were or how tiny the diamonds in diamond twill were.  The cloth used by high status individuals was quite fine.  It is, however, very hard to find broken diamond twill at all, let alone in a fine cloth.

Well, someone is stepping up to the plate and offering some BEAUTIFUL fabric to reenactors.  You can go directly to the Facebook post from this link, and I included images below.  https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=401269506889989&id=100010208285904

I did three sessions (about an hour each) with my glass this weekend.  I am starting to get a better grasp on how to shape and am learning more and more how each color of glass works differently in the torch.  I am currently using Devardi glass, which is considered a more stiff 104COE glass.  A lot of people dislike it, but many also say that if you can learn to work with this, you can work with anything.  The clear cobalt, bright blue and spring green flow amazingly, especially the cobalt.  The clear lavender bubbles like crazy, so next time I use that I need to try to work further from the flame.

Previously, I was mostly using my assortment of marvers to shape my beads, but I did several this weekend just using the hot glass and gravity.  I am also starting to work on dots.  I now can make dots without stringing hair thin strands of glass every where.  Now I need to just work more on spacing and size!

And because I LOVE getting ahead of myself, I tried to make flowers on a colored base, encased with clear.  They are a mess because the bead was too hot when I applied the clear and trying to get the clear smoothed out smeared them, but they were definitely fun to try!

Been exceedingly busy with mundane work lately, but managed to finish a draft of the current research project, play with glass twice, and attend a wonderful event in Lochmere in Atlantia.

The event had two fantastic groups of singers performing medieval music, and the Spanish feast was absolutely amazing.  Mistress Lisette posted her documentation on her site and it can be found here:  https://lisettelarouxblog.wordpress.com/2016/05/02/torquemadas-trans-%c2%ad%e2%80%90iberian-winter-tour-feast/

I am hoping to make it to another Atlantian event on Feb 11 to be there for a household member who will have something special happening.  :-)

I am hoping to soon start some new hand sewing projects, in an effort to step-up my garb game, and plan to photograph some Norse headwear concepts that I will be adding to this blog once finished.

Below are is the photos of my continued glass puttering.  I was an idiot last weekend when I did not put my beads into the blanket, but instead laid them on the rod rest in a cold room.  Three of of them have cracked (and that is sad because I was actually happy with the shape on a few).  I will know better for next time!