Busy, Busy

I finished up my penner late last month.  I did indeed make a longer cord for it to get the hang to look better. The following picture has the shorter test cord that I tied at the bottom to test hanging.

Also, on May 31st my lovely wife gave birth to our son.  He’s a great little thing and we’re just now getting back to working our crafts during his time asleep.

I’ve been able to get a few really good quills cut to use for calligraphy. It’s gotten a lot easier to cut the quills with some practice.  I've also been doing research into making brushes lately.

Isaac

Leather Penner - More work

With rampaging tornadoes around the OKC area yesterday evening, I sat in the living room with the TV tuned to the local weather and worked on the leather penner.  I got the designs carved into it and everything stitched together.  For the designs I decided to go with a plant and tree from Bodleian Library MS. Junius 11 p 13.  I combined elements from both trees and made the dog look more like a wolf.

I also tested fitted everything this morning after the leather was dry.  I might need to make a longer cord, but that's it.  So, now I just need to dye the leather and maybe add some paint for details and I'll be able to call it done.  It's not perfect, but I've learned a lot from making the penner.

I'm planning on getting some pictures of it soon.

Isaac

Anglo-Saxon Culture Interest

With all the time I've been spending looking at the manuscripts I've gotten interested in the rest of the Anglo-Saxon culture.  To further this I've picked up two books, Dress in Anglo-Saxon England Revised and enlarged edition by Gale R. Owen-Crocker and Anglo-saxon Food and Drink by Ann Hagen.

Both have turn out to be really nice reads.  Both authors managed to give a lot of information is nice ways to the point I didn't feel like I was reading a typical history book.

Dress in Anglo-Saxon England references many of the manuscripts I've been looking at while it tries to put together the picture of how the Anglo-Saxons' dressed.  She mentions several times about items that are alluded to in the illuminations, such as decorative trim on sleeves, as well as objects that do show up, such as cloak pin, and how minor changes in things such as hair style, beard, shoes, clothes can help distinguish who is involved in the scene, older men tend to have beards, a halo and lack of shoes for an angel.

The History of English Handwriting book did prove to be a short read.  I really didn't get "oh that's cool" moments from it, but I'll let it sit awhile and read it again.

I have been working on a few leather working projects.  My wife now has a belt for her garb and I've been working putting together a ring frame pouch. The Dress in Anglo-Saxon England talks about rings found in graves are now thought to be pouch rings instead of suspension rings or bracelets.  My internet searching didn't turn up much of anything on the subject, so I'm currently going with a general design for the pouch that's seen in the Manesse Codex and a few latter manuscripts. 

Isaac