Viking Striped and Raked Beads

Recreation of a bead inspired by the historic bead found on this post of the Text and Trowel Blog. On  the blog the author says the red/white waves were completed by "tracing wave patterns with the red and white rod." I don't believe this was the case. I found that I could get this wave pattern by raking a line created by a red/white flattened cane of glass. If you look at the tip of the waves on the historic bead, you will see that the red seems to disappear. I found this happened during some of my tests as I pushed the striped cane out.


Another bead made with that same wave pattern. This one came from a picture in  Callmer's bead typology . It was originally dark blue, but I made the base  it black for the person who had asked for this bead. It is similar to some of the beads pictures on this post from the Text and Trowel Blog.

Modern Pendants

Pendants- Made by raking stripes of glass on a core bead and then mashing the bead flat.

necklace made with one of the pendants

Beads made as Tokens/Gifts for K&Q A&S

Laurel pendant given to my co-champion

Beads for TRM's

Judges Tokens

Largesse for Birka

Student Token

Broach made for my student Aibhilin

Necklace for Kelly

necklace made for my friend kelly in requested heraldic colors.

Bead Furnace at Atlantian Royal Easement (Pennsic)

Tinker, Irene, and I had a lot of fun making period furnaces at Atlantia's Artisans Easement at Pennsic this year!! Thank you Atlantia!

Below are a few photos of the furnace built by Tinker that I used to made beads. 

Volcano style bead furnace. This was build around a basket with a small hole cut in the top, and another small hole cut in the side as a bellows port. The clay mixture used was Irene's recipe-- two parts ball clay, two parts sand, and one part peat moss. As you can see, there was some cracking, but we patched it up with clay as we went along.

The channel on the side is likely not necessary. We used it to add in some coal, but dropping it in from the top was easier in the end. We had also hoped that the channel would help create more of a draft, making it possible to use the furnace with no bellows, Tinker read about another furnace design where this worked. However, that furnace was MUCH bigger. Our small furnace did not work this way.

In the future, we could create a removable clay lid with a narrowed top to make adding coal in even easier. I have seen an image of a furnace like this online in the past.

We also did not create a base of clay. The basket was placed directly onto the paving stone, but as the clay dried, it pulled up from the stone somewhat, causing a bit of air to escape from the bottom. 

Making a bead.

Adding and marvering in dots.

Second layer of dots

Final layer of dots.

Completed evil eye bead

Cute picture of me using the furnace!

Demonstrating for an audience!

Having Fun Cooking Lunch!
You can also see Irene's furnace in the background.
Her's uses a beehive shape.  The other two use more of a volcano shape.

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A few pictures of Tinker making her portable furnace. This one was not used at Pennsic, but it was built to showcase the process. I made this type of furnace with Erica a few months ago using Tinker's instructions (see previous blog post). I can't find my photos of the making of the furnace, so I've included these here below for reference.