Vein charm

  The third in my series of modern charms, the vein charm. I have copied a bifurcated vascular stent in silk organza and thread with enamelled wire and gold plated beads. These are in fact made by hand for surgeons in Mexico by workrooms of women stitching by hand using gortex and suturing thread:the gold is so that it can be clearly positioned under x-ray.
  I began reading the Kalevala a few years ago and was struck by how many charms were used during the saga.These are generally poems or songs requesting help from the natural world and one was particularly fascinating; the hero's mother has to reassemble her son(!) and sings him back together, at one point singing a vein charm.Remarkable in itself but more so the level of anatomical knowledge in the song !
 Mine was not easy, a case of wrong tools and wrong materials but nevertheless I produced this little number (3x8cm).

Gleipnir, a magical rope

 The rope to bind Fenrir the wolf is complete and now becomes the next piece in my series of charms,the first being 'Sheela-na-Gig', a charm against crazy people. Gleipnir is a binding charm for beasts of all kinds.

more charms to come..........

Happy Christmas to you all!

Gleipnir: a bear's nerves

Nerves look more like white elastic but here I made a furry bear coloured twin stemmed piece.

Now the set is complete and the rope to bind Fenrir is ready to be made.....

Gleipnir: a fly's saliva

'difficult not to be a little disgusted by this one! But then I got to use some super fine stainless steel thread and my favourite off centre beads.

The steel thread is caught into the stitches all along the stem, gathering in the bends and meanders.

(if this is you first sight of this piece please read the previous posts to make sense of it all!)

Gleipnir: a fish's breath

  Embroidering a fish's breath ...........air passing through red gills,bubbles rising.

Gill red thread stitches between each silver bead as it loops around,some grow into gills of their own.

Gleipnir: a cat's footsteps

and so we come to the footsteps of a cat. A silent thing, an invisible thing. Four little shadow paws grew from the stem using chaining buttonhole stitches and they don't make a sound.

Gleipnir: a woman's beard

 The second part of the mythical magical rope requires a woman's beard but how to represent that in needlelace? I wanted elegant linear structures which symbolised their 'ingredients' so with this one I imagined what womens' beards would be like if the beauty business got hold of them! 

  This piece has a looped back chain structure hanging from the main stem and a single glass bead at the very tip. The subtle shades of this deep red cotton gave it some female wisdom......

Gleipnir: the roots of the mountain

 I have been fascinated for a while now by the tale of Gleipnir in Norse mythology. It is a magical rope made to bind the great wolf Fenrir and is made from six extraordinary things:

1.the roots of the mountain

2.a woman's beard

3.a cat's footsteps

4.a fish's breath

5.a fly's saliva

6.a bear's nerves

so I made them in needlelace.....or rather decorative cordonnet work with raised sections along the length. I used cotton covered wire from a cake decorator as the cordonnet and simply covered the lengths with buttonhole stitch. For the first time I used vellum as the backing.

  Here you see the first of the six, the roots of the mountains, made using space dyed threads with french knots scattered along the branching stem.

Miser's purse

   An unfortunate name for a lovely thing! I was given a fantastic book 'The Accomplished Lady' by Noel Riley and read that misers' purses were a popular pastime for women of the 19th C. It seems that it wasn't considered appropriate for a lady to hand over naked cash when she paid for something and so the purse was left discreetly.This was especially true when paying the doctor and many collections of these purses have been passed down from relations in the medical arts.
   As a gift for a friend (a surgeon) I decided to make a miser's purse in needlelace with a few old pennies in it.They were usually netted for the purposes of payment, the fancier knitted and beaded ones were for personal use, and so a simple needlelace one seemed right for someone whom I had taught the basics to.
  I chose a space dyed thread which I then worked in repeating rows of single, double and then beaded brussels stitch. The rings were worked onto brass curtain rings to match and then I put two tassels on the square end and one on the round end. I read that this shaping developed from coins originally being kept in stockings!
  The bag itself is a rectangle seamed partly down the long side, the centre being left open. Then the bag is slipped through the rings and money is put in one end first.Sliding both rings down to the coins then leaves the other end open (gold in one end,silver in the other) and one ring is drawn back to seal both ends.
  In this case the payment is only tuppence ha'penny!

here there and everywhere

 

 In case you're wondering where I have been don't forget to read  Museum for Objects of Vertu  and  Thread Management too!!