Nålbound bag

Finished naalbound tote bag

In an earlier post, I showed off the work-in-progress photo of a bag I was making using the nålbinding technique, that I displayed at an indoor Artisan’s “village”.

Hedeby/Haithabu bag handles

Hedeby style handles before staining.

A Hedeby-style of bag has been on my wish-list for quite some time. I’ve used small totes to carry around my things, because I can’t do without my phone and other necessities on my person when at a costumed event. However, there are a few period-informed/speculated bags… and the (commonly called) Hedeby (or Haithabu) bag is one of them…

Of course, no actual bag survived… and there are no depictions clearly of the bag – but several objects in similar designs did survive in wood and bone, from multiple areas in the Viking world (not just Hedeby) – theorised to be handles to this bag style.

Red purse shaped like a lute

Complete red velvet lute-shaped purse (front)

After making two new purple velvet “lute” shaped purses, I decided to make one with a slightly different shape, and this time in red and gold.

Three different purses, the two phallic-shaped ones, and the red lute-shaped purse

You might remember that my other “lute” shaped purses are very phallic. This is actually a documentable style, as per my previous research post.  However, there is also a similar purse that is much more “lute” shaped, and a lot less phallic shaped, so I opted to try that design as well.

Celebration – lute-shaped purses

Large and small “Lute” shaped purple velvet purses (front)

About a year and a half ago I made a purse shaped like a “lute” for an A&S competition. When we were trying to think of what kind of largess to make to celebrate Caterina’s elevation to the Order of the Laurel, I offered to make a purse shaped like a lute similar to the one I’d already made. The purse is late period, from a variety of sources in Europe (England, the Netherlands, Italy, and more) so is mostly suitable for her late-period Italian persona.

My original project can be found here.

While my documentation with extant examples can be found here.

Tournament Prizes (part 2)

A number of bags and things made for tournament prizes

In my previous post about tournament prizes, I mentioned that I’m hoping to help host some Arts & Science tournaments, challenges, and displays this year. (As the SCA Avacal Kingdom A&S champion.) I want to have prizes to give away for participants/winners, so I needed to build a little stock of prizes to give away. Friends said that they were worn out of requests for largess (gifts), and instead would be much happier with a little crafting ‘sweatshop’ instead, making a number of items, assembly line style.

We already made notebooks, and then on May 7, 2016 I invited people to come over to help once again with a new project. Unfortunately two people who had come up with ideas were unable to attend, so it defaulted to a purse/pouch/tote ‘assembly’.