Dating and placing my Viking Age bling – Mjölnir

When I started looking at my different Viking Age bling, I ended up realizing how much BLING I really had, and had to break up my stash into different categories. I realized that I had a LOT of Thor’s Hammers, so decided to do a separate post just for them. Hopefully this will aid me in creating looks that are more cohesive, as well as identify areas where I may want to look to fill gaps.

Thor holding Mjölnir – Iceland

Viking Age pendant with Thor holding his hammer

The original figure was found near Akureyri in northern Iceland and was dated to around 1000 CE. I’ve seen the original in the National Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The figure was originally bronze/copper alloy, and is described as Thor holding his hammer, seated on a small chair.

Like the figure of Freyr from my post about pendants, there is no distinct hole on the original (shown on the Wulflund website) to suggest the original was worn as a pendant. In my version, a ring has been  added to the top of his hat, but the Wulflund version strings a cord or chain under Thor’s chin. The lack of a clear hole for suspension on the original suggests to me that this may not have been a pendant, but instead a small statue of some sort.

Wikipedia refers to this as the Eyrarland Statue, named for one of two farms called Eyrarland in the vicinity of Akureyri where the piece was found. It also suggests that it was found in either 1815 or 1816, and while it may be a statue, it may also be a gaming piece.

Throwback Thursday – Design school projects – Pandora’s Promise

Design School project – “Pandora’s Promise” – a shirt project in first year.

In the efforts to clean up some of my sewing and crafting area, I’m going through a bunch of my old projects from Design School. I’m going to end up pitching the old posters into the recycling bin (because they’re large, and I need the case I’ve been storing them in for other things) but I thought I’d take a moment to go through them, take a few photos for the memories… and why not share some of them here too?

Dating and placing my Viking Age bling – pendants

I started looking at my different Viking Age bling with the hopes of updating some of my beaded jewelry to be slightly more period informed. When I was trying to narrow things down… I ended up falling down even more rabbit holes, so decided to take a step back and look at my existing metal jewelry – I started with my brooches, but then realized this post was going to be too long if I included everything, so I broke up the post into a few different sections. This post will be about pendants (that aren’t Thor’s Hammers – that will be another post!).

Key – Denmark

Silver plated Viking bling

The key description on Raymond’s Quiet Press site doesn’t indicate what find it was based on, only that it has a lion on it.  However, a further search indicates that the original is at The British Museum, who describes it as:

“Copper alloy key; cast bow a beaded circular frame enclosing profiled animal; short beaded shank with sub-triangular ward; incised linear decoration.
Viking 8thC-9thC
Found/Acquired: Denmark”

In this photo, shown with the other items I bought from Raymond’s Quiet Press at the same time. I chose to have all of these silver-plated for consistency, as well as to better suit my personal aesthetic.

TARDIS painting apron

TARDIS apron – a gift for my mum

All the way back in September 2016 I posted about some TARDIS-print fabric I’d picked up to make something for my mum. Well…. it sat folded up for a while. Then it got cut out. Then it got partially sewn up.

Finally… in the first few weeks of 2022, I finally FINISHED it.

Wow, that’s a journey.

I only got a small amount of this fabric, because it was really expensive for fabric from Marshall’s… (probably because it’s a licensed print…) though I’ve been back a few times since and they haven’t had it anymore, so I guess it sold well!  I think I might have originally been planning on making a tote bag for her art supplies – but then she made one of her own, so that plan was scrapped.

Throwback Thursday – Design school projects – Alice in Winterland

Design School projects – my Alice in Winterland coat project

In the efforts to clean up some of my sewing and crafting area, I’m going through a bunch of my old projects from Design School. I’m going to end up pitching the old posters into the recycling bin (because they’re large, and I need the case I’ve been storing them in for other things) but I thought I’d take a moment to go through them, take a few photos for the memories… and why not share some of them here too?