My Little Beaded Wrist Band

This is one of my most recent little projects. I used Size 13 Charlotte cuts and size 15 Czech beads. This was beaded onto a Brain tanned buckskin background. The border I made more interesting by cutting it out with pinking shears. It is tied using just a thong that I can tuck under the band when I am wearing it.

I used the Cheyenne style as inspiration.

THE TUDOR REVELS

Tudor Revels in Southampton.

The Michaelmas Fair

Well I am getting back into the swing of things again.

I volunteered over the weekend at the Tudor Revels in Southampton. This was held, mostly, in St. Michael's Square in Bugle Street. This was held to promote the work of archiving Southampton's Historical documents.

http://www.tudorrevels.co.uk/

Saturday was an amazing day with beautiful weather. People turned out in their droves and enjoyed the proceedings. The Tudor House was open for free and offered lots of talks, classes and tours for free too. I hear the lute workshop was very popular. The Medieval Merchant's house was also open for free. They had the Tudor Rose Society.
The Gosport Living History Society were there adding a lot of life and enjoyment to the event.

My job was a general meeter and greeter. I helped a little with the queues outside the Tudor house, keeping people entertained with what was in my basket and tales of Tudor life for the ordinary folk. I handed out dozens and dozens of leaflets about the weekend and self guided walk pamphlets. I met up with an old re enacting friend I had not seen for years. It was great to see him.

I had a meal in the Duke of Wellington of frumenty, venison and pork sausage and stewed red cabbage with gravy. It was lovely. I would love to see this sort of thing on more menus around the town.

In the evening I attended a mass. It was advertised as a pre reformation mass but was a modern Catholic mass. This was historic in that it was held in the Anglican church. The walls would not have heard the sounds of a traditional Catholic mass for some four to five hundred years. The chanting was done by Cantores. It was beautiful. I can now see what people would have experienced and how uplifting the whole experience is. The smell of incense is overwhemining even at the back of the congregation as I was.
A lot was in Latin and with out the prompt sheet I would have been lost!

On the Saturday I wore an early Tudor outfit.

The Sunday I was worse for wear. My back was beginning to complain terribly. I was not nearly as productive on the Sunday but tried my best.
There was a procession around Southampton's Historic Churches with banners of the relative Saints called the Procession of St. Ledger.
I met up with the Hampshire Spinners Weavers and Dyers Guild in the Tudor house. There I met some people I have not seen for some time. That was really great. I do miss them.
I did want to attend the dance workshops and the Revels at the Dolphin Hotel in the evening but I was not well enough by then.

On Sunday I wore a more Elizabethan outfit.

 

As usual I was kept very busy and did not have a chance to attend any of the events, But I thoroughly enjoyed the whole weekend and hope it happens again.

My Lumber discectomy and how my life has changed

What has been happening.

Well, a lot, and not on the creative front! All my plans for the year have been put on hold. They may be put on hold for a while longer too.. well, some of them....

It all developed in March-ish of this year when I got sciatica.

I had already been referred to the physiotherapy unit and was receiving treatment. I was given a series of exercises to do. That I did religiously.

The pain became infinitely more unbearable in June/July to the point I was taking two Tramadol (which is part of the morphine family) 3-4 times daily, a massive dose of Ibuprofen, Lanzoprozole, Paracetamol and then Amytriptiline. All these were leaving me pretty much good for nothing. I was even considering taking the lot at once to end it. I was in so much pain I could not see another way out.

When the pain became unbearable we tried to make an emergency appointment with the Physio department but could not because  my physio was away. My Husband was told that I was not allowed to see a different physio or that no one else was allowed to read my notes so were unable to treat me.

At this time I had another visit to the doctor (I was almost living there). She noticed right away that I had a dropped foot. Now, if the front desk at the physio would have relented for 30 seconds A physio would have noticed immediately that there was a problem.

It was a long and difficult saga to get the needed CT scan. The doctor tried moving mountains, My husband was on the phone three to four times a day to various people and departments. He managed through strength of will to arrange one for me. After that the scans kept going missing! Eventually they turned up at my GP's desk.

A colleague of my doctor got in touch with a surgeon. By the time the surgeon saw the scans he said that my condition was urgent. I was in hospital within weeks. The surgeon was great.

I had no time to think about it after that. I was in bed one morning and I was woken by my Mother in law to be told that I was going in right away for the pre op. That was the Friday morning. I was first on the surgeon's list for the following Tuesday.

The operation should have only taken three hours but took five to six hours. I began to wake because the dose of anaesthetic was calculated for three hours. I was re sedated but I did not know anything about this. He found what he referred to as 'an impressive' herniated disk in my L4-5. One of the surgeons visited me almost straight away to say what a difficult case I was! This disk has done permanent damage to my right leg and foot. I have a weakened right leg with little control. My right foot is well, pants really. But I can waddle about. The unbearable pain has gone but I am left with back pain. In comparison to what I had before I am happy about that.

All this happened between the Olympics and Paralympics.

I kept trying to come off the painkillers but could not. But finally the pain had subsided enough to succeed. I could not wait to come off them as I could not see properly and this stopped me doing the creative things that keep me going. The medication is addictive but I had this incentive to come off them and that was more powerful than the addiction!! Creativity can save us in many ways this is one of them!

I am in convalescence. I am not supposed to do any housework or sit too long. No standing for long periods, leaning or bending. This is hard to stick to as a lot of what we do is automatic. I have to really concentrate on my posture now. I still keep falling and tripping over as I have no control over my right foot and little sensation there either.

Yesterday I was fitted with a foot brace. This is an ingenious little device that fastens with Velcro around the ankle and attaches to the laces of your shoes by a piece of elastic. This pulls my foot up, otherwise it just flops. I can now put my heel down first and can try to walk better. I still need my crutches but in time I should not be dependant on them at all.

One of the paralympic Cyclists who won two medals (One of them gold), Mark Colbourne, has two dropped feet. He got his in a more exciting way than me! But, he was being interviewed on the Paralympics as soon as he said what condition he had and then showed us his foot supports my attention was grabbed even more than usual. Those moments are permanently etched in my memory now. I cried. I have always loved the Paralympics even more than the Olympics. I now have a hero to inspire me.

I have not been able to do any exercise for a year now and I am feeling it! I used to cycle everywhere so that is my aim now. I want to be a good cyclist. But I have to recover first!

The strange this is I dreamt of the Paralympics whilst I was anaethnatised....


http://www.markcolbourne.com/

My Woman's Painted Buffalo Robe.

This was a very ambitious project I undertook Three or Four Years ago.
It is a fairly heavy hair on Bison robe. I used modern paints and materials to achieve the finished project as at that time I did not have access to the earth paints I have now.

I wetted the hide as I painted the design on. This gives a better coverage.

This photograph is actually upside down. The head is worn to the left of the wearer.

The design is exclusive to women (so I have been led to believe). It is called the box and border design and traditionally represents the internal organs of the bison. I have heard that there is a very old story entwined around the shapes used too. I do not know anything about this though.

It took the best part of a week to do. Before starting this project I did a vast amount of research with what I could. I tried to lean it towards Sioux tradition. I do not have any actual full pictures of Sioux Box and Border robes. I had to use a lot of modern examples to help me.

The colours as you can see are very vivid, characteristic of modern synthetic pigments. As well as being a very bold design I love the delicate details that are not obvious from these pictures.

I have not had the opportunity to use this robe at all. I have displayed it occasionally at dances. Most of the time it is on display in the spare room over the guests bed. Guests that have slept here have used it more than I have!

Naturally dyed Porcupine Quills

I thought I should get some pictures of the naturally dyed quills. All the quills were pre-mordanted with alum. Various things could have been used eg, roots from the female dock or something very tanin rich eg, oak galls. I have not used these before so can not say how successful they are!

Above are the quills dyed with madder. There is a range of lovely shades. From orange through to red.

I am really made up with the colours I got with the madder. To get the red I added a modifier. I used washing powder! The middle ones match the old orange quills I have seen very well.

Here are the quills dyed with onion skins

The yellow is lovely and bright. It gives a glimpse of how bright the original early quill work may have been. Yellow is the most common colour achieved from vegetation. To achieve yellow the wood from the oregon grape could be used. When I get hold of some of this I may give that a try.

To the right of the onion Skin dyed quills are the ones dyed with oak galls and iron along with walnut husks. Most of the quills came out grey.

The quills here were dyed with walnut husks.

And this is the quill work in progress.

I am very out of practise with quill work. That and my blurry drugged up eyes have made it quite scruffy. I am still not very good a quill work. But practise makes perfect. I have been practising for years now!

To make the most of what brain tan I have left I have sewn bits together bits left over from other projects.

I have taken all the stretch out of the hide. I wetted the hide after I had sewn it all together then pinned it to a board to dry. That makes it quite thin and stiff. I have found this easer to quill on. Although I do not know what may happen if the hide gets wet again. I am worried that it may shrink back to it's actual size.

Porcupine quills

Before the pain became unbearable I did some more natural dyeing. But this time I dyed some porcupine quills.

I have been very inspired by early Native American art. I love the beautiful mellow colours of the natural dyes they used to add colour to their porcupine quill embroidery.

Having a lot of experience with natural dyes I thought it about time a attacked this new challenge! I thought I would treat them the same way as I treat wool. I first cleaned the grubby porcupine quills. The next stage is to mordant them, I used alum.

The quills I dyed with onion skins came out as expected, a lovely shade of yellow. It is actually quite bright.

My next challenge was madder. I have always had difficulties with madder on wool, especially getting a red. But I knew I would get a lovely colour. I actually achieved a number of great shades of orange through to an amazing red! I have never managed to get a red with madder!

Next I tried to get a black. I used oak galls, Iron along with walnut husks. I dyed these for hours and hours but did not manage to get a black! I did get a lovely grey with one or two black quills.

I plan to use these quills to make a trail bag. I love walking and spending time in the New Forest and I wanted a bag to take with me. I do not want anything commercial or artificial on this bag. I have a lot of brain tanned buckskin bits. I have sewn lots of these pieces together to make a large patchwork. This will be my bag... eventually.

Thes rosettes are not naturally dyed. I used a commercial dye.



Still Ouch

Still struggling with my Sciatica.

Had a relapse a couple of week ago when the pain became unbearable. I have been given all sorts of drugs to help with the pain but they make me very sleepy!