On turning a bowl on a medieval kick-wheel

As mentioned in a previous post, I tend to forget to take pictures when volunteering in my museum village and I did so when I was potting on our kick-wheels. Now I have some pictures! So here a brief post:

These are the wheels:

And this is my one successful bowl:

I say 'one successful' because I did try to turn several things, however like on a modern wheel a lot rides on your centering of the clay and I am not any good at that yet. So I do not feel in any way qualified to talk about the turning itself. There is however one thing I would like to mention: my kicking strategy. 

You can see in the image above, that you straddle the axis of the wheel and then below your feet you have a large disk. On my first attempt I was told I could kick with one leg or, if I was good at coordination, I could try kicking with both. Now if you kick forwards with both legs the wheel keeps changing direction and does not build up any momentum, so the challenge of kicking with both legs is to kick forwards with one and backwards with the other. And here comes my kicking strategy... it's a bit like patting your head and stroking your belly... you swing both legs forwards at the same time and both legs backwards at the same time. However, while swinging the legs forwards you lean to the right, so your right foot hits the wheel in a forward motion. And while swinging your legs backwards you lean to the left, so your left foot hits the wheel in a backwards motion - amplifying the spinning direction of the wheel (ideally anticlockwise if you look at the top - at least for a right-handed person). So basically, in the same rhythm as the forwards and backwards swinging you also sway from side to side. 

Luckily, on a kick-wheel, you build up the momentum of the wheel and then you turn, you don't usually do both at the same time because that would be one heck of a coordination.

Even so, look forward to aching muscles! Mine hurt so bad that I found it hard to cross my legs - in a sitting position my muscles did not want to respond and lift up my leg. But all is well again now.

Formalities: 

• Materials: clay, kneaded to remove air bubbles
• Tools: kick wheel, wire seperator to get bowl off wheel, pottery knife to trim ugly edge
• Time: probably 45 minutes, mostly spent on trying to centre clay - could be optimized down to 2 minutes

On upholstering a chest-lid

I use a tiny little viking chest as my loom seat. I once made it to use it in a reenactor context, but since then my standards on authenticity have increased and built a better one. Don't get my wrong, it's a perfectly good chest, however for reenactment purposes it's big brother is preferred. Which is good, because I built the chest several years ago but I never gave it a chest. Instead, when I needed it to be a chest and a seat, I would ensure it was stuffed so full that your bum didn't slip into it uncomfortably.

Using it as a loom seat, I put a board on top, because it's no longer filled with stuff. However, as I wanted to try my hand on upholstery and I didn't feel bad for it because I had built it myself (I have this odd habit of undervalueing things I made myself, because, well, I made them). So I decided this would be my test-case before I start taking apart our chairs that urgently need reupholstering.

First I made the board the basis of my upholstered lid by drilling in and setting dowels such that it no longer can slip around. Also, I sawed it to the right size - just perfectly covering the top of the chest.

Next, I glued on upholstery foam with wood glue. I don't think professionals use wood glue. But it made the foam stick down onto the wood. Regretably I also used the wood glue to glue two segments of foam to each other... I would not do that again, it left a hard ridge. Then, I trimmed the upholstery foam so it has rounded edges.

The upholstery foam was from a normal hardware store and it was the thickest they, had, about 4cm. Again, in retrospect I would choose thinner.

To keep the foam in place I used some scrap cotton fabric and gently stretched it over the foam, stapling it in place on the bottom of the lid.

I realized then that I wanted some batting, because the unevenly cut edges of the foam were showing through quite clearly and also because the foam was quite hard. So what does a person do who does not want to go to the hardware store again for fear of spending far too much money? Well, with all my wool-based activities I do have a bunch of scrap material, partly carded as batts, a good chunk of it from this project. So I padded the top and then stretched a second layer of scrap cotton over that - this time pulling it down tight. and again tacking it down all round - this time to the sides of the board.

Finally, I used Ikea canvas to cover the entire thing in three stages: first staple down little edges to the sides of the dowels - these ensure that the slits needed for the dowels in the bottom cover only show more canvas. Second, I used a flat panel with slits for the dowels, stapling it to the sides of the board. Third, I used selfmade piping and sewed a cover following the curve of the top. This cover I nailed down, using upholstery nails. 

That's it, all done!

Formalities:

• Materials: canvas, piping, thread, upholstery nails, scrap cotton, scrap wool batting, upholstery foam, staples, board, dowels, wood glue
• Tools: drill, staple gun, knife/scissors, sewing machine, hammer
• Time: sawing and doweling: about an hour
             foam upholstery: about an hour
             batting upholstery: about an hour
             final covering: about 2.5 hrs
  total time: about 5.5 hrs, however progressed in stages. With routine this could be faster.

On painting water-colour 'photos' when on holiday

We have this amazing family friend named Margaret. She is has an immense wealth of knowledge, we don't know how many different subjects she has university degrees in (at least four) and at the same time she is the most gentle and caring person you could imagine. Also, she is a fantastic crafts person. From building and rowing her own coracle to being probably the most prolific person in Britain on traditional local corn dollies and collecting traditions on holy wells, she has always taken special care to keep alive regional traditions and to emerse herself fully in every place she visits.

I have tried to find images of Margarets designs online, however I wasn't able to. You'll have to take my word for it and you never know, you might meet her at a county fair or similar.

That's enough gushing about Margaret. One of the many ideas I have adopted from her is the idea of trying to sit down and paint. Ideally with a scone...

However sometimes it's just a patch in the shade and out of the way.

During this summer I had a week where I set myself the challenge to try to do a painting a day. I ended up with 6 paintings where the time I spent was anything between an hour before dinner (the Court Lodge Ouest painting) and 15 minutes while the others were eating their picknick (Seven sisters seen from Seaford head... the others were so impatient that I wolfed down most of my picknick while walking because they had finished theirs while I was painting).

None of the paintings is finished, but I intentionall pushed myself to try and be bold. Looking at the photos now it feels as though I could have added more paint - they look much more nuanced in person (well, at least to me) but in the photos it lookas as though most colour detail was washed out.

I haven't done this in years, so considering my lack of routine I'm really quite happy with the results. I can also see some progression and noticed some development in how I approach my painting. And it made me look and notice things in much more detail. For example how absurdly tall the cliffs really are, or how sun standing behind a scene really generates a halo around everything and even if I did not convey the learning in the paintings, at least I learned it.

On other medieval potters... or, well, turners.

Last week I got to do some medieval pottery. Annoyingly, I once again forgot to take pictures - as usual when I'm doing a medieval craft in a medieval context, I feel silly about pulling out my phone when I'm dressed historically and am acting in a museum context. So I run into this annoying problem that I end up not documenting the most interesting crafts I do. I will try to improve this. However, in the mean time, when I'm dressed in modern clothes I have no issue taking pictures of other craft peoples such as this amazing thrower, Jim.

I met Jim at the Herstmonceux medieval festival, where he was with his 15th century gear. Not only could he turn a plate in 2mins and a flask in 10mins, but he can explain and answer questions while doing so. Things I learned that I didn't previously know:

• 15th century pottery was glazed not to seal it but rather to reduce the firing temperature (no seperate firing for bisk and glaze!)
• There were three common wheel types: a standing wheel for throwers (used for more delicate items), a low standing wheel for large clay storage vessels (can't remember the name of the craft people) and a kick-wheel for turners (used for large bowels - this is the form I have worked on before)
• by the 15th century the potter didn't actually make pots but sold them - like the tinker sold tin things
• The glaze was ground up metal oxide

Now based on this I am collecting iron slag from the blacksmiths so our potters (well, turners) can try their hand at glazing. I'm really curious as to how this will work out!

On processing a very matted fleece

In June I was presented with three fleeces from Easy-care sheep. Now I had been given wool from Easy-care sheep before, but only in matted fragments full of vegetable matter and often mouldy. The reason is that Easy-care sheep naturally shed their wool and so, once the wool starts falling off, it ends up in all the bushes and each part at a different time.

So with this background I was initially quite puzzled when I was told I would be brought entire fleeces. However it turns out that the previous owners of this wool managed to get it so felted that the entire fleece came off in one piece. 

Two of them I gave to other volunteers immediately, so I can only show you the fleece I kept. This 

sheep was so skilled in felting it, that the fleece begged to be turned into a capelet or waistcoat of some kind. Just look at it's shape!

Fleece after washing and brushing with a brush with few teeth

So to process it, I cleaned it out by washing it with water and gentle wool wash. Then I started working out the locks with a coarse brush and stabilizing the bits that had not been too well felted. Specifically, I used wool yarn (loosely spun and of a type that is prone to felt) and wove through the felted back side of the fleece if I thought the felt was a little unstable or the felted fragments were not working together as a closed fabric. In addition I sewed over the edge to create a stable constant line. At these picture in the half-point the difference between the unstabilized and the stabilized half is very apparent.

Bottom half and edge stabilized, top half and edge still raw

Top half brushed and carded, bottom half only brushed

Once the surface was stable I carded and combed the wool to make it fluff up. Then finally I sewed the sides together under the arms and pulled stitching around the edges of the shoulders tight to make them round a little. And that's it - waistcoat done!

If a material this desperately wants to be an item, who am I to say no.

Formalities

• Materials: fleece, wool yarn
• Tools: Hair brush, card, needle
• Time: I can't really remember... maybe 7-8 hrs?