October, a Medieval Month
Aurora Simmons
It's been an incredibly busy month for me. We had a visit to Kentucky for Days of Knights, a fairly large medieval tournament and living history event. And I also attended Hoplologia's much smaller medieval trek in the Adirondack Park of upstate New York. If anything in the coming post really doesn't make sense, the Hoplologia website should offer some solid background information.
I was able to create some belts and belt fittings as well as garters and some brooches and rings to sell for Days of Knights and it was great to get a chance to meet so many engaging medieval reenactors. I was especially impressed with Cedric The Potter, who makes beautiful reproduction medieval pottery. I had to seriously refrain from buying everything he had for sale.
The most epic thing I think I made for this event is this medieval belt. I made reproduction brass fittings mostly derived from finds in the River Thames. The finished belt has 45 fitting including the buckle and belt end, and took about 8 hours to assemble. Each fitting was hand finished and hand riveted to the belt by me. I can't help but think of it as the uber belt, but in reality it is a pretty standard middle culture piece of medieval bling. Maybe we should take some fashion tips from our forebears and bring back the epic belt as fashion accessory. Seriously I have to stop myself from wearing it around every day.
45 fittings. Wow.
Our Medieval Trek was a lot more of a roughing it sort of situation, but my work still got a lot of use. For example these custom buttons and this ring, made it into and out of the woods.
A brass heraldic button on the cuff, and a silver gilt enamel tournament ring.
And this pair of tablet woven garters with silver medieval buckles held some stockings in place. I am just beginning to learn to tablet weave, and it is super fun and challenging.
That's all for now. There's lots happening in Handmade Revolution land, and I hope to have some fun new work of a more modern persuasion to post soon.
Keep trekking...