Mary Ostler http://www.maryostler.com Elizabethan Wood Butcher & Builder of Things Fri, 05 Apr 2013 20:13:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Timurid Disked Bell V 1.2 Final thoughts. http://www.maryostler.com/2012/09/timurid-disked-bell-v-1-2-final-thoughts/ http://www.maryostler.com/2012/09/timurid-disked-bell-v-1-2-final-thoughts/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2012 21:18:46 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2833 Continue reading →]]> Finally re-found my password for this blog.

OK I have finshed the tent, but its been so long ago I kind of forgot alot of the process I did to make it.  So instead I share a picture and some thoughts on the tent.

The tent worled out perfectly. Its just tall enough to stand up in and change clothing. and wide enough that I can stretch out to sleep in as long as I am next to the pole. The pole was made out of 4″ PVC pipe cut to legth with silver pillar candle holders on both ends to be super fabulous. The pole was painted blue to match the details. I also have a kufi poem written around the bottom of the tent. I dont have the transcribed version in front of me but to paraphrase. Drama is meaningless, your rank is pointless, we are all meat puppets, and tomorrow this will all be over…. or something like that. Works for an SCA motto for sure.

Also finally figured out how to close the door in a period manner on these tents. A picture I had already had posted on this project had the loop and grommet method of fastening already shown.

The loops get threaded through the grommet directly across from the loop. The llop then hangs just long enough to have the next loop threaded through the upper loop and then through the grommet… repeat ad nauseum. It makes for a seem that is shut very tight with no massive gapping holes that normal toggel or tie methods have. Trust me it works great.

Thats it.   Next tent on the horizon will most likely be a Chinese/Tibetan Maikhan style tent. I have a stupid awesome idea to make the applique work without any of that annoying sewing.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2012/09/timurid-disked-bell-v-1-2-final-thoughts/feed/ 1 Norse Glauchaus…. now with 30% more squirrel. http://www.maryostler.com/2011/03/norse-glauchaus-now-with-30-more-squirrel/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/03/norse-glauchaus-now-with-30-more-squirrel/#comments Wed, 09 Mar 2011 23:27:07 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2815 Continue reading →]]>

Last May I ran a games tourney. I devised a gluttons tourney, were game played was the only criteria to win… ie: quantity over quality. The Winners of the three categories Glutton (most games of the most varied selection), Obsessed (most played of a single game), and Righteous indignation (biggest temper tantrum will receive a custom made game board to their specifications..

Well Ylas of Lions Gate one the obsessed contest buy playing carpet boules almost non-stop for the event. Her prize was a hand made game board to her specifications. Well she was specific… She wanted Gluckhaus, but based on  Norse… also with tree of life, and has to have a squirrel…

<head met desk> x repeat ad nauseam.

I am not an artist. I am a builder drone. I have the skills to do a decent replica of most things I attempt. What I am not skilled at is making unique art. Ackkk.

So in the countless hours I spent looking at Norse knot work junk and stuff I came across the illumination in the image above.  Dated to c. AD 750, this is a page from an illuminated copy of Augustine’s Questiones in Heptateuchon. It uses the cross as an illusion to the tree of life.  It has four deer like images in the outer wicket, and the eagle up in the tree. The only things it doesn’t have is the serpent/dragon and the squirrel.

I printed out the original image to the size I wanted, and carbon paper copied it onto an oak board. I left most of the fiddly stuff out so I could figure out were I wanted the numbers to sit.

While I was deciding where everything was going to go, I charred in the border bits with a pyrography pen. I did try to do some strictly poker work on it, but it was going to take way to long.

Having decided on where the numbers were going to be, I outlined them with more pyrography, and then filled them in with verdgris, and red oxide in an egg white binder. The green numbers are normal pay outs, and the red numbers are special condition payouts.

Now all the fiddly stuff was burned in. I had to make a zoomorphic squirrel as I could find no images of any online.

Finally finished the front of the board. The only thing not on it from the norse tree of life is the dragon/serpent that lives under the tree of life.

I fixed that problem by placing a more period game of talbut on the underside of the board. This time featuring serpents and dragons.

that’s it… now to move on to Mailes for the biggest wobbler of a temper tentrum (it was awesome).

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/03/norse-glauchaus-now-with-30-more-squirrel/feed/ 0 Disked Bell Tent v1.1 In the Beginning http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-1-in-the-beginning/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-1-in-the-beginning/#comments Sun, 27 Feb 2011 05:10:30 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2773 Continue reading →]]> Got material and junk from fabric time solutions and a local fabric store (threads and such).

Proceeded to cut out 12 triangular gores with the use of a card stock template. This time I had triple checked the seam allowance around the template. Did not want a repeat of the cone of shame incident.

With the 12 panels cut out, I proceeded to make templates for the upper pattern pieces. The pattern templates were all made of card stock, and the designs cut out using a scalpel. The 8 point star pattern is in deference to the principality stars… I used this as I could not make out what the original pattern looked liked.

I made these templates as best I could from the small some what blurry painting. I have since found a better, larger and high MP copy of the painting. The upper most part of the tent is now clear enough to tell what it should look like…. but by that time I had started painting the tent…doh.

each triangular gore had the template patterns drawn onto the canvas with pencil.

Here’s a shot of the first section painted. Its a little patchy so a second coat has to be done. The paint is an exterior latex acrylic paint cut 50/50 with tap water. The straight lines were made with painters tape rather than cutting in. Sadly on the second coat I had some bleedage… doh. Still looks good.

Checking out the first two sections to see if the patterns were going to match up right.

Here’s a shot of the better image. The top section is pretty clear, and the middle section shows the frogish finger (how else to describe it?) section on my tent should have been a bit more bell flower like. The 6 different central medallions were printed as large as I could without getting to much distortion. I then place the printed copy upside down on a light box and traced out the patterns.

I then took each one of these penciled patterns and place them on a photo copier, and enlarged then till they were all  ~14″ long.

At this point I made a central line down the pattern, cleaned up some of the lines, and then cut out the pattern, and traced in on to some scrap card stock. I then used a scalpel and cut the scrap pattern to make a template for the template.

The template was traced on a new sheet of card stock that is cut to the right shape of the tent gore. Then the new template was cut out with a scalpel.

The first central medallion template traced onto the canvas.

The bottom section will have Kufic script around the bottom of the tent. My friend in Saudi Arabia is taking a Sufi Quote I found and getting it calligraphied by a professional for me. This will then be scanned and sent back to me. Because the quote will not have repeating patterns, it will be easier to paint it once the panels are sewn together.

Next sewing the roof.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-1-in-the-beginning/feed/ 0 Disked Bell Tent v1.0 http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-0/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-0/#comments Wed, 23 Feb 2011 06:07:33 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2757 Continue reading →]]> Last summer I had intended to start on my 14th century Timurid Empire disked bell tent. I put it off so I could try my hand at making an Ouled Nail Bedouin Tent. That was a bit of a disappointment, but we must learn and move on. That brings us to present were I have been working on the tent for the last month or so…

There is very little evidence for these tents existence. What little we have is gleaned from Persian & Timurid illuminations from the period, and references in Peter Alford Andrews Felt Tents book. What can’t be gleaned from these two sources I have looked to Mughal era paintings from their sunscreens, and Ottoman Tent Complex tents that are still in existence.

This is probably the best image of the tent I want to make. They almost always appear to to 12 sided, short in height, and have very short walls. I have been unable to see any depictions to date that show how the opening is fastened shut.

A more common depiction is this style of tent used as a sun shade. The foot tall wall has remained on the roof.

Yet another depiction of the tent. The one in the foreground is a bright red version instead of the more typically depicted white tents.

I love the art work on the tent in the background of this picture. Due to its position being depicted as higher than the tent in the foreground it probably is closer in style to the later Ottoman tents that have much taller wall section and smaller wooden disks. I love the art, so it will go on to the tent.

Peter Alford Andrews talks about the style of tent I want to build in a section called `Pictorial Evidence: Guyed Tents`. It is far to long to quote so I`ll briefly cover the important bits I focused on.

1.The disk is evidently rigid and made of either wood or leather

2. The disk is perhaps 30cm across

3. White velum is cut into triangular gores is dodecagonal (12 sided) instead of round

4. the seams are drawn out on guyed ropes at an angle of roughly45-50`

5. eaves over hang the wall a little

6. the walls are 25-30cm high.

There is alot of variation between all of this style tent, but they generally fall into these guidelines.

So out came the graph paper and calculator. Trig is your friend and started to crunch numbers.

My tents specs will be 6ft tall, 8 ft in diameter, and feature a 11″ disk. I haven’t decided if the walls will be attached by toggles or permanently sewn on.

The door opening will be closed by toggles at the seam of one of the triangular gore openings. The pattern to be painted on the tent will determine how far down the roof seam will lie before the door opening starts. An overlaped section will be also toggled to prevent rain from getting in.

The ropes will be attached to binding that will be sewn on the seam lines like in the following photo.

There are no good images of the wooden disk on the Timurid bell tents. There are a few good under side images of 18th century ottoman tents in the “Ottoman Tent Complex” book. These are far smaller then the ones depicted for my choice of tent. Better based on out of period tents than rampant speculation on my part.

Thats about it at this point.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/disked-bell-tent-v1-0/feed/ 2 glass stuff for sale http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/glass-stuff-for-sale/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/glass-stuff-for-sale/#comments Sun, 20 Feb 2011 21:33:54 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2648 Continue reading →]]> I am selling off my stained glass stuff.

45 partial plates

22 full plates

5 oversize plates (longer than ~12″)

2 Large containers of scrap glass (clear, pale in color, different textures)

1 tub of white/pale scrap glass

1 tub of misc colored glass

1 tub of cream/brown  glass

1 tub of grey glass

1 tub of green glass

1 tub of red/orange glass

1 tub of light blue glass

1 tub of bright blue glass

1 tub of purple glass

1 tub of amber glass

1 tub of misc blue glass

1 tub of misc black, and mirror glass

1 tub of  glass marbles, and drops

box of misc lead free/leaded solder, flux, swabs, copper foil, came stretcher, came rollers, soldering iron…etc

4 metal lantern metal frames

Lamp base

beveled glass pieces, and beveled mirror pieces

Lots of books and back issue magazines.

Wooden cabinet, and record (glass) holder

glassstar glass grinder

Gryphon Diamond bandsaw.

Asking  $550 with everything.

42vince@gmail.com

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]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/02/glass-stuff-for-sale/feed/ 0 Turkish Carpet Project v1.9 Yellow http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:49:43 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2628 Continue reading →]]> So First Dye job up to bat is the yellow wool. It is the smallest individual color on the carpet, and since I am not that familiar with dyeing, I figured it would be a quick tutorial on how to dye. That and if I totally munk it up, its not going to cost me a fortune to redo.

I got 100g of weld from Maiwa and put it into one of my V.V. pots. The amount of wool I have for the yellow is ~120g. So in this case the dye will be  about 85%wof. They recommend 100%wof, but the price of weld is $15 100g, and the next size up is 225g that sells for $30. Double the price for a small amount more that I need… no thanks.

I poured boiling water over the weld and let it sit over night. In the morning I heated up the brew to ~150′F and kept it there for a full hour. I then poured this tea for into my dye pot, and repeated the procedure two more times… trying to get as much dye out of the weld as possible.

I eventually put the weld into a paint strainer bag (Not my cheese making strainer), and steeped it all one more time, and then squeezed out the weld as hard as I could. I then put a ground up tums tablet into the water (as per instructions from maiwa).

I then plunked the yellow down into the dye bath, and kept it at 150′f for a good hour.

It turned yellow, but only a faint shade. I need a bold yellow to stand out from the surround white areas. I left it sitting over night and checked it in the morning… still pale yellow.

This was what I got after rinsing out the wool. No good. It was then I found a book I borrowed from Morweena ages ago on natural dying, and figured I had acidic water.

PH strips are awesome. I had very acidic water. 4.5ph was the problem. Used soda ash to raise the ph to a 8.5ph.

and this happened over night. Wished it was a bit more goldy yellow, but I cant totally live with this bright color. I may  do some tests with iron to see if I sadden it, I could get a golder color.

Yellow wool started to felt a bit after so much mucking about. Drip drying above the laundry tub

and then drying next to the fire. I used EB’s swift to roll it into a ball. with the yarn starting to felt, it worked wonders at keeping it all organized and knot free.

Finished product.

I saved the weld tea, and put it into a jar, and have a large skein of cotton in it just to see how much color I can still get out of the tea.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/feed/ 1 Turkish Carpet Project v1.8 Mordanting the Wool http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:13:33 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2606 Continue reading →]]> I have finally bought most of the wool I need for my project. I still have a bunch more to buy, but I want to spread the cost of the wool out over a few pay checks. I will be dying the wool four colors, and the fifth color i will be leaving the wool natural so no dyeing there. The colors will be dyed with Weld (yellow), Madder (red), Indigo (Blue), and the Black will be a tannin/iron process. I will have to do a second mordanting process for the black as I have yet to buy more wool, plus the pot I have is only so large.

So here we have all the skeined up wool samples. I have different amount of wool on each colored skeine so I color coded them by different colored yarn. The green skeins were going to be for the indigo dye (no blue yarn), but at the last second I decided I wanted even more of the red. The yellow and blue are relatively small amounts of wool compared to the red, black, and white colors. I can always get more of the white, but I want to make sure I do not run out of the black and red colors, as it will be difficult to color match the yarn after the fact.  If I was to run out of the blue or yellow, the difference in color of a different dye lot wouldn’t be nearly as obvious. I could even try to blend the colors by slowly mixing those colors at small points in the pattern.

So the mordanting recipe I am using is from the Maiwa Dying sheet.

After scouring the wool with orvus paste (7ph wool soap), I added 15%wof  alum to very hot water, made sure it was completely dissolved and then added it to the large S.S  pot of warm water. I then added the scoured damp wool to the bath ans slowly brought the temperature up to ~90′C and left it there for and hour, gently moving the wool around periodically.

My super Duper massive SS cook Pot. Takes up most of the stove top. The thermometer was just barely long enough to reach the water. Once the hour was up I let the pot cool down for a couple of hours. That pot can hold heat for a long time.

So the pot had cooled down a fair bit, and I took the wool out to drip out . I had originally had them hanging over PVC pipe over the laundry tub. Rearranging them periodically to keep them equally damp. Then someone decided to use the washer, and I rescued the yarn seconds before the dirty washer water flooded the laundry tub (The washer discharges water faster than the pipes in the house can handle, and the back up puts a few inches of dirty wash water into the tub). Do to my fast actions… no one had to die that day!

So next choice was using a laundry basket, and PVC pipe (and a few tongue depressors). I carefully rearranged them, and made sure none of the wool dryed out, but all the dripping was done. I then store them in a damp pillow case waiting for the dye bath process.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/feed/ 0 EB’s Swift http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/ebs-swift/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/ebs-swift/#comments Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:44:33 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2600 Continue reading →]]>

I have had a commission for building a swift I had completely forgot about. I had started it months ago, and then quickly forgot about it. Well the most excellent Mistress EB finally inquired about her swift, and asked if she could pick it up next apprenti meeting. That lite a big old fire under my procrastinating butt.

The plans were from Clayton Boyer’s Clock website, and I had previously made a yarn winder for EB. I made a few minor adjustments to the plans to accommodate the lack of the same metal fittings Clayton asked for in the plans.

The frame and arms are made of red oak, the yarn pins are made of rose wood, and the handle (which spins and is not fixed as in the plans as per EBs request, also has several holes for customization) is made out of a bit of my dwindling supply of mystery bright red wood. All it needs now is a quick coat of Poly-urethane.

I tried it out one my yellow dyied wool (balling the slightly felt mess was a breeze, and making large skeins of 100%cotton 2/16 thread was super fast, and way less taxing than using the niddy noddy. I must put this on the list of things I need to build for myself.

I also am feeling guilty as I have yet to build the spinning wheel from the plans Clayton gave me for free. Nor have I started building my calendar clock/oreray.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/ebs-swift/feed/ 0 PVC NEY http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/pvc-ney/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/pvc-ney/#comments Thu, 06 Jan 2011 17:34:08 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2583 Continue reading →]]> A while back I asked someone what a good Turkish instrument I should play, taking into account I have difficulties trying to reestablish a set finger position once I have moved my hands. I took guitar for years, and always seemed to have huge issues with getting lost on the fretboard. I was told I should look into the NEY flute. I was even pointed to a web page where a guy tells you how to may a PVC  Ney. After reading Kees van den Doels webpage I have been meaning to try my hand at making one, and I finally got around to it. Bonus Points for Mr. Van den Doel living in Vancouver.

I had a massive amount of white pvc pipe from the bender tent experiment kicking around. Its not the same as the pipe that the instructions call for, but its close. Why buy when you can recycle.

I cut the pipe down to size with the band saw. Used a piece of paper wrapped around the pipe to keep the end  line straight.

He askes for a taper to be filed away on the inside. My normal taper reamer that fits the drill press was just a little to narrow for the job. I used this monster instead to slowly cut the inside taper. Never had the chance to use this bad boy before. It has a ratcheting mechanism in it. Did a fairly decent job, but could not get right to the outside edge as it started to bow outerwards from the weight and pressure.

The next step was to burn finger holes into the pipe using a 9mm drill bit end. Well I tried it, heating the bit with a lighter, then an alcohol fuel lamp and then a torch. They either didn’t work (not hot enough) or worked too well (torched bit  over melted the scrap piece of PVC pipe I tried it on)…. so….

Thank you Drill Press. Fast, Clean, and relatively quiet. You are my second favorite tool.

The holes were drilled as acording to instructions. I believe the hole on the back side is a slight bit off dead center, but I don’t think it really matters. I put a dowel plug in the back hole to prevent it from rolling of the table saw.

Next was making the pvc pipe look like a reed by adding narrow waisted points to simulate where the leaves on the reed were. Alcohol Lamp and some twine did the job. Roll the pipe near the end of the flame to heat it up. Then while its still flexible twist the rope around the heated section and keep the rope turning around it intil the pipe gets ridgid again. If you dont keep turning the pipe the narrowing will be lopsided. Strangley the soot deposit works to make it look a bit more non PVC pipish.

I seem to have missed taking a photo of the mouth piece part. I cut up a clear bottle of pop and wound it around the mouthpiece sectionand fastened it with a bit of scoth tape. This is to help get the reed to index between your front teeth. I have very little gap between my teeth so this was a must for me.

 The final thing I did was add some whip lashing around all the narrowed sections, and the mouthpiece was also lashed to hide as much to the shiny pop bottle material as I could.

So thats my attempt at a PVC Ney Pipe. I have since spent about 5 hours trying to make it work. I have got one squeak out of it, but thats it. I did take it out to the shop and try the air compressor line on it to see if there is sound. Yep there is a nice sound out of the thing… but its hard to hear over the air lines hissing.

Next up a KABAK KEMANE or a Coconut rebab (inspired by Shareefs rebab)

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/pvc-ney/feed/ 0 niddy noddy v2.0 http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:24:24 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2568 Continue reading →]]>  I finally decided to just buy the wool for the carpet. I have been waffling on the exact wool for ever, and if I don’t start soon, this might turn into a 4 year project. I calculated how much of each color of wool I needed, and had to wind them to the right size for the dye pot. To do this I made myself a niddy noddy (6ft) out of some rosewood billet cuts I had picked up recently.

I turned the handle and put on two beads so my hand wouldn’t slip while winding. Rosewood finishes so well it was easy to make the handle kind of slippery.

I have one side pined in place, and the other side is free to twist around.

I wish I had curved the arms a bit more. When starting the skein its easy for it to slip out from the ends.

The yellow is wound (yellow ties), and so is the Blue (green ties), and the red has 6/10 wound (red ties). I still have 12 skeins of black to wind, and the white wool will need to be cleaned too.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/feed/ 0