I wrote a bit about my lace chapes project before the summer break already, but I think it's time for another bit of info on them. So for those of you in need to catch up: Lace chapes, historically speaking, were the equivalent of the aglet on shoe laces. They both protect the end of the lace against fraying and make it easier to thread the lace through a hole. When holding clothes together, such as doublet and hose, easy threading and un-threading is a very convenient thing.

Today, most of the lace chapes (or aglets, or aiglets, depending on who names them) that are sold as supplies for Living History are more or less cone-shaped, rather large (with a diameter of, usually, about 5 mm at the top), and often of a form more frequently found in the early modern age than in the Middle Ages. They are usually bought separately from the lace and then attached by sewing the lace to it through a pair of holes on the top. Here's a typical example, 26 mm long and 4.7 mm wide at the upper end, taken from the shop outfit4events.com:



The modern chapes you can buy always have a hole to attach them to the lace - obviously necessary, since they are sold empty.

Finds of medieval lace chapes sometimes have these holes, sometimes not. In the cases where there are holes, we often still have their original filling - which was not thread, but a rivet. Medieval chapes are also much smaller - often only 2 mm in diameter - and made from very thin material.

Since I've been asked time and again whether I could also offer "proper" medieval lace chapes, I finally got "Project Chapes" underway. I did some research, I asked some colleagues for info and good pictures (thank you again for your support, Beatrix and Gary!), I found a metalworker who said he'd be willing to make chapes. My plan was to have them made, then offer them both fitted to a lace and separately (with rivets to mount them the proper way), just like the other shops do.

Well. There's plans, and there is reality. The metalworker that I contacted was, basically, willing to make the chapes - but he would have to ask a much higher price than would be feasible for me to actually sell them on. Part of this was that when we did the tests together, we did not have the proper (very thin) brass sheet material, which did make a lot of a difference.

So in the end, I found the proper material, I sat down, and I did a few tests myself. With results that make me very happy, but - again - sort of shredded my plans...

Making lace chapes is like so many other craft tasks. If you have the proper materials, the proper tools, and you know which steps to do and how to do them, it is not a big deal. It took me a while to find out what I have to do to get proper results, and to get the tools together that will help me do the job. Especially the riveted versions are still rather fiddly, and I don't have all the proper materials, but I am getting there, slowly.

What I found out is this: You really don't need a lot of material, or thick sheet. The original chapes were often made from 0.1 mm thin brass sheeting, and that works wonderfully. The trick for making proper chapes, however, is that you have to work the chape directly onto the lace. There's no "making, then attaching" - it's both at the same time. Which also explains why in many cases, no rivets are needed; the chape is hammered around the lace so tightly that it will stay. In addition, the upper edge gets a slight faceting inwards at the end of the process, securing the chape even better. (It took me a good while, by the way, to fiddle out how best to do this faceting.)

[caption id="attachment_4804" align="alignnone" width="1023"] Chapes on a silk lace, braided, 26.5 cm length overall - that is the length from a find from London, and about exactly what you need to make the half-bow knot often seen on late medieval images that holds tunic and hose together.


This means, however, that I will not sell lace chapes on their own - because that would be useless. In theory, I could sell chapes with holes and accompanying rivets, but riveting these things is such an incredibly fiddly task that it would only result in disappointed, frustrated customers (and that would in turn disappoint and frustrate me). Also, getting the band into the empty metal sheet is hard, and the tighter the fit (which is what you want, the harder it is.

The way I see it from my trials now, if the lace in question is sturdy enough, it is sufficient to hammer the chape around the lace end, and be done. In cases where the lace is rather "untrustworthy", or when you want extra security, it's possible to add a rivet to the whole thing. I haven't got a real idea of when rivets were usually added yet, but I can definitely say that they are not always necessary, and that they are very, very fiddly to insert.

 

So what else is there to tell about my Dublin adventures? There was a talk about medieval textiles and textile crafts, which was very well received according to what I heard afterwards. I had the pleasure of sharing that panel with Jeannette Ng, who later during the convention accepted her award for Best New Writer (congratulations again!).

I also enjoyed my two other panels (proper panels, not talks, this time) about archaeology in SFF, and about costume research and documentation.

I also got to meet (and hold, for a short time) this guy:



and I got to meet a real Lady Astronaut, as Dr. Jeannette Epps was at the convention. Which was a "wow" moment as well.

There also was cake (because life is better with cake, even if it is only store-bought chocolate cake from Tesco's), and weird chocolate both from Ireland (Cadbury's Mint Oreo. Delicious, if you ask me.) and from Germany (I brought some Knusperflocken for people to try) and from New Zealand (which will host next year's convention) and, if you are generous in what you count as chocolate, choc-covered malty caramel Timtams from Australia.

Finally, one of the really nice things about WorldCon is how easy it is to meet people, and chat with them, making new acquaintances and learning things about their bits of the world. I was delighted to see again quite a number of people I'd last met in London, back in 2014 (one of whom saved my voice by bringing me a pack of Fisherman's Friends). Even though there's never a load of time to catch up, it was wonderful to see them again and chat. It was also totally delightful to see so many authors, whose work I love to read, and it felt like so many of them stopped at my table in the hall and enjoyed seeing (and, in some cases, buying) something completely different. (Which were the moments when I silently went "squeee!" in the back of my head. As you do. Right?).

All this would never have happened if not for Gillian prodding me to come to London in 2014 (because apparently, London is right around the corner from Erlangen, if you ask an Aussie) and for my wonderful Irish friend helping me out at the table, making it possible for me to sneak away to my programme items, the Escape Artists Live panel, and, occasionally, even to the toilet:



Thank you! (Also, I'm still bad at taking phone selfies. Obviously.)

 

It's fully feeling like summer here, I'm working on the lace chapes and on fiddling some more (and better) with metal stuff and doing some fun tablet weaving on the side and sending off orders... and there's the summer break coming up sort of soon, and before that, I need to get all the things done and prepared for Dublin.

Dublin! WorldCon! It's all very, very exciting - if everything goes according to plan, I might get to be in a bit of the programme, and I will (that is definite) have a table in the Dealer's Hall, and I'll be able to spend time with some wonderful friends, and get to stay in a room at Trinity College (which is exciting all by itself). There will be tea, and Irish food (and I'm so looking forward to that already, too) and I will have two huge suitcases to lug with me.

So, to be all honest, it's not only extremely exciting, it's also a little bit scary at some points. For instance, it meant registering for VAT in Ireland. It means lugging two huge suitcases into a train and into an airport and through Dublin (not too far there, though, fortunately). It also means I have to decide what to bring to my sales table... as not everything I have will fit into the suitcases, and there's a weight limit too, and you'd be surprised at how much some things weigh, and how bulky some other things are...

Anyway. Hasn't someone somewhere at some point said you should do at least one scary thing per day, because it's good for you? That's what I sort of tell myself now. That it's good for me.

And you know what? I actually do believe it. Plus I'm so looking forward to this weird wild sell-things-at-WorldCon-Shenanigan!

Something that has happened to me time and again:

I look at some medieval Thing. I sort of try to figure out how it was made. I read up on more details of the Thing, and the Type of Things. I find out that there was quite some variation, and that some of the assumptions I made when seeing only Thing are not correct.

I read up more on Type of Things. I find something about it that sounds... weird. Like "how on Earth can that work" weird. "Whyever would you want to do that with this tool/material/method" weird.

I fiddle around some more with doing stuff. I try the weird-seeming tool, material, or method. I find it works brilliantly - much better than my own ideas that I used in my first tries.

I stand there, humbled, and realise again that living a couple of hundred years later does not make anyone automatically smarter, or better at doing something that was already successfully done, and developed to best efficiency, back then.

At least these days, I've been humbled often enough and learned enough about this that it does not take me very long to try out the original materials or (possible) methods... as opposed to when I was a teenager and getting started with Living History.

In the most recent case, by the way, the Things are the lace chapes, and the Weird Thing About Them was the indication that at least some chapes (possibly not all of them, but this is a tiny detail that may be hard to see or evaluate anyways, due to several different reasons) were riveted with an iron rivet.

Now, those chapes are tiny. (I mentioned that, right?) They are made from very thin brass sheeting, so once they are bent, they are a good bit stabler than the flat sheeting, but it's still a relatively soft material. Iron is much harder than brass... but I did find that using a soft iron wire to make the rivet does work better than using a dedicated brass rivet (yes, you can get them in so tiny).



So. I stand humbled, and corrected, and will happily go on pounding the heck out of soft iron when riveting. (Very carefully, though, rather softly, and with a very small hammer. I lovingly call it my "Mädchenhammer"... my girls's hammer.)

Now what is left to do is figure out how to offer these in the shop - which kinds of bands, which lengths of chapes, which lengths of bands. (Obviously, I'll be able to make specific lengths on demand, but setting up the shop attributes for that might not work...) If you do Living History, use laces with chapes (or laces without them) and have comments for me, they are very welcome!

The new spindle whorls have arrived, and they are lovely!

While I make the hand-formed whorls myself, I have a professional potter who throws the whorls for me, after "inspirational pictures" of finds of spindle whorls that I send him. I always order a large batch (as that makes things more efficient), and it is a special pleasure to write there, as he lives close to the place I was born... so I am, in some way, buying "native soil".

This time around, I had done some more research and found that light-coloured whorls seem to also have been rather common. So I did ask for a second, light colour clay for the whorls - and I got a third colour thrown in for good measure.

I also asked for some lighter-weight ones. Fun fact: The current production of wheel-thrown whorls happened to peak in the same weight slots as my last production of hand-formed ones, which is in the 20-22 g slot.

So now I am fully stocked again with whorls! I even have them all weighed and sorted already. When I started selling spindle whorls, I kept them in one large box, and I picked out one when somebody ordered. But since some orders are for a specific weight, I've found that it is much easier for me to weigh them all once and keep them into some kind of sorting box, organised into 2 g slots. That way, if someone asks for a 21 g whorl, I only have to look at the 20-22 g whorls to find the right one (and yes, I will put them onto the scales again and see if I can't find one that is somewhere between 20.7 and 21.3 g... just because I can).

If you feel like you need one, the shop is updated, and I'm all happy to sell these new colours and new old shapes!

After showing you the dead whorls yesterday, it's probably time to also show you the survivors - so here's part of the yield, hanging out in a basket and feeling decorative:

By now, the whorls have all been weighed and are sorted in boxes - they range from below 8 g to almost 70 g in weight. The heavy ones are modeled after prehistoric whorl finds - and yes, it is astonishingly hard to match a given size and shape, as you can see here:

I find it really hard to make some shapes, among them the longish ones and the ones with a sort of T-profile. Roundish or double-conical is much easier for me, and I'm wondering if someone else would have a different experience, or if there's some special technique to making these other shapes easily. You can see in the picture that I didn't really match the original shape of whorl no. 14 - even though I tried really hard!

In some cases, with some shapes, I am quite happy with how close I got, though. Like with this one:

As a final note, it might amuse you that I managed to get only a few whorls within the weight range I was mostly aiming for - while I happened to (again) hit spot-on a few other ranges with a lot of whorls. If this continues, I might have to make a sale for these weight ranges!

The spindle whorl firing is done - so now I have plenty of hand-formed spindle whorls again. This time around, there are some decorated ones, and quite a few of these are formed after actual examples from prehistoric finds. Though, of course, I cannot guarantee that their shapes and weights are close to the originals - especially their weight will probably be quite different even if the size and shape matches, as different materials and different amounts of water and temper make a huge difference in the density - and thus the weight at similar size.

This is one of the many reasons why making whorls and pit-firing them never gets un-exciting. It may be boring (forming whorl after whorl after whorl can be really mind-numbing), but there is always a good amount of insecurity left. Especially regarding firing.

Will they all get enough heat? How many of them will be completely black, or completely light? And most importantly:
How many of them will come out undamaged?

As the pit-firing procedure is only sort of controlled, some whorls in the batch usually come out more or less of damaged. The most common cause is probably a small air bubble that has gotten trapped inside, followed by adverse conditions when heating up, such as getting too much heat too quickly, or too much heat only on part of the piece. Or the clay being still a little bit too moist - even though I try to make sure that the whorls have enough time to really dry out.

Obviously, all these things are more probable on the really large whorls - and this batch, one of the big ones did die a spectacular death, giving out two very loud bangs right after I started the firing. It was accompanied in its venture to explode by two smaller ones... so a total loss of three whorls for the firing batch.

While this is, obviously, a total loss, there are always some whorls that only lose a little chip off their surface. They are otherwise still okay, and they can work just like undamaged ones - but of course they are not making their way into my for-sale stash of whorls.

I call these whorls "Salamander Snacks" because, as every reader of medieval bestiaries knows, the salamander can live in the fire unharmed. So obviously, the reason for how these whorls look is that a salamander living in the fire got a little peckish and took a nibble (or in some cases, a bite) out of a whorl.

While last time around, I had quite a few salamander snacks in the batch, this time it was only a single one - but the salamander has been quite hungry, it seems, as it took a large-ish bite:

I hope it enjoyed its snack!