norsegirl | Good day at the torch

Didn't accomplish much of anything else, but had a really nice, relaxing day at the torch.

Started on a set of blue, yellow and white beads for myself (those were the colours I taught my sister on, and I found them quite striking)

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The actual colour is somewhere between these two extremes. The yellow isn't quite that bright and the blue is blue, not black, but not quite "electric blue" either.

Only had one heartbreaker. The first bead I worked on was a stacked dot bead that I managed to get 6 stacks. Broke while cooling. Going to glue it back together once I buy new crazy glue.

Also experimented with totally non-period SCA heraldry beads. Decided to experiment with my old kingdom, Ealdormere's trillium. Not overly impressed with how it turned out, still much to learn, but not likely to do so as I have absolutely no use for such blatantly out of period beads. NEVER going to experiment with my current kingdom or principality's arms as I think I can do neither a lion nor a griffin on a bead and I'm not going to try.

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The first bead is actually a flatish medallion-like thing, with the trillium on one side only. The trillium is mostly raised, with only the green leaves melted in. The "flatish" is because it was flat when I decorated it, but afterwards I was trying to even it out and thus made it kinda strange on the back-side. The second bead is your standard round bead with a trillium on each side (2), with the leaves entirely melted in and the "seed" in the centre left raised.

Like I said, with my wanting to stick to period beads for my own use I have no use for these myself. If anyone out there wants them, speak up!

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i am really enjoying seeing your work. you really seem to have grown and blossomed in this art form. the trilliums are very nice. would tangwystyl enjoy being able to gift them to someone as a example of the work that you are doing? just a wondering thought

grown and blossomed

Too funny, trilliums, blossomed LOL

I'm honestly not sure why I made them. I fought with Ealdormere this war, but I'm not sure I really consider myself Ealdormerean any more as it is somewhat uncertain whether I'll ever return there to live. I mean, I'd like to, but my husband really likes his job and I'm not sure it would be fair to him to make him walk away from it and return to the yucky stuff he was doing before. And Tangwystl is most assuredly NOT Ealdormerean. She converted back to being a Midrealm citizen this war amid much pomp and circumstance (being carried in to Midrealm royal on a sedan chair with all her ladies in tow).

Anyway, if I was going to give Tangwystl examples of my work to show off, I'd pick period pieces, not fanciful modern things. Even if they include SCA heraldry, they're still REALLY modern.

you know stacked dots are also modern? i can't find any evidence of anything 'raised' in any of the bead finds. i was astounded by this when i worked it out. annoying also, as they look great.

as much as i can work out, most 'period' (viking) style beads have all the features sunken. The photos i took of saxon beads (when we visited West Stow, which is a 5C village) are very basic with only a few swirls on about 1/8th of the total string (of beads).

i will upload the the pics i took and message u again. {standby}

Hmmm, interesting since many people at Pennsic seemed to think raised were okay, lemme go documentation hunting and get back to you...

I totally have pics of stacked eye beads right here. They are, unfortunately, bad B&W photocopies of a colour plate from a book. I'm working on obtaining the original book (out of print) and making colour copies of these plates. I'll be happy to send them to you if you want. The book is either
Trade Beads and Bead Trade in Scandinavia ca800-1000 AD by Johan Callmen/Callmer - curse my bad handwriting
or
Prehistoric Glass in Bohemia by Natalie Venclova

I'll confirm when I know for sure which book it is.

sure they are slightly raised, but this is as much a product of not being able to get the bead hot enough. From my own experiments it is extremely hard to sink things in all the way.

so yes i agree, there might be slight raising, but they sure aren't 'protruding' intetionally.

*grin*

Yes, some in the series are only slightly raised like you're describing, but others look downright "horny". It has to have been intentional.

i stand corrected then.

which find is it from? (where and when ?)

I'm looking at Pennsic hand-outs with stuff reduced to fit four pages of original book on a single piece of 8 1/2 x 11, so bear with me. I've taken a digital photo of the page just to give you an idea what I'm looking at. Sorry the details are all shot.

The first plate of horny beads says "Hallstatt period to modern times. Stradonice, /nm, beads." and then lists each individual bead by number (catalogue number in the dig maybe?

The second plate also lists beads by number and says "La Tene period. Stradonice" Scale is 2:1 and you can get an idea of size by the hole punch, remembering that it's been reduced so 4 pages fit on one, so it's probably about to scale.

http://www.will.net.au/lj/2005/sep/6

there's a number of examples of west stow here.

Yeah, but none of those are close enough to see the individual beads - whine

Good day at the torch

wow

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