CNC router – block printing blocks – Ottoman Crescent

Doing the detailed pass on the CNC router for the Ottoman crescent design

If you’ve been following my blog for a few months at least, you’ll know that I’ve been spending a good deal of time exploring the different tools and machines that the Maker Space has available. In early February I finished my first project – a set of three block printing blocks (based off a 12th century design) and liked the process so much, as it was finishing… I was already designing a few more potential blocks – including this one, based off an Ottoman Empire Crescent.

I started out at the Tie Dye Travels Etsy store (aka Cat Man Do Designs woodcuts by Grav Weldon) to look for design inspiration. While I didn’t copy this design exactly, I was inspired by a crescent shown here as a solo block, as well as here as a “Adorned Crescent Triplet with Cintamani” (the three little dots).

Grav is using a laser cutter now for his wood blocks, and is able to get a lot more detail than I was able to get with the CNC router (at least in a reasonable time frame… I could have had a bit more detail if I had done the whole thing with a MUCH smaller bit… but that would have taken 3x the amount of time!)

CNC router – block printing blocks – Ottoman Carnation

CNC cut Ottoman Carnation

If you’ve been following my blog for a few months at least, you’ll know that I’ve been spending a good deal of time exploring the different tools and machines that the Maker Space has available. In early February I finished my first project – a set of three block printing blocks (based off a 12th century design) and liked the process so much, as it was finishing… I was already designing a few more potential blocks – including this one, based off an Ottoman Empire Carnation.

I started out at the Tie Dye Travels Etsy store (aka Cat Man Do Designs woodcuts by Grav Weldon) to look for design inspiration. They have a carnation like this one, listed as a 15/16th century Ottoman design.  I have a number of their blocks, and they’re awesome, but I really thought this would make a great design to try to make myself – so it’s similar… but not quite the same.

Black and white striped Ottoman Entari

Work in progress – Striped Ottoman Entari – a black and white striped cotton trimmed with blue silk.

While going through my sometimes overflowing collection of fabrics, I started sorting out some of them into boxes of what kinds of fabric they were (green suit-weight wool, pale linen, etc) but some lengths of fabric quickly made me think of particular costumes, so I ended up bagging them together, hoping that they’d inspire me to SEW…

One of those fabrics was a black and white striped cotton that I received from my former teacher. There was about 4 meters of it, which was enough to make a late-period Turkish (Ottoman) Entari. When I was originally making my first Turkish costume, I wrote in my overview that this coat was:

“Medium-weight A or bell-shaped coat. Fitted to the waist and shaped with side gores with an overlapping front gore. Usually floor-length. Round or v-neck. Closed down the front with small buttons and loops or long frogs. Often depicted unbuttoned from neckline to chest and waist to floor. Most often with wide, elbow-length sleeves, though also shown narrow and wrist-length. Occasionally extremely long maunche-like sleeves with slits. Most often made of silk, lined in cotton. Rarely trimmed, but the inside edge was often faced with silk.”

Small Ottoman inspired woodburned box

New small pyrography decorated bling box with an Ottoman design

A while ago I made a large bling box with a design inspired by Ottoman garments to hold and transport the bling for my costume.

Simple circles on the woodburned box for my Ottoman Empire Turkish costume elements.

Although I love the garb for this costume, and am in the process of making more – I don’t have a lot of jewellery for this costume. Although I have a few accessories (hat, belt), they’re too bulky to all fit in the box.

Which… kind of makes the box less useful right now until I make more bling for this costume!

With that in mind, I figured I’d make a smaller box that can just hold the few pieces I do have – and it will fit inside the bigger one if I want. 

Pyrography Ottoman bling box

Simple circles on the woodburned box for my Ottoman Empire Turkish costume elements.

Right now I don’t have much that could go in an Ottoman-themed box to accompany my Ottoman-inspired costumes (16th century) but since I was on a wood burning (pyrography) kick I thought I’d do one for this costume as well.