Beads at River Wars 2013

At River wars I  participated in an artisans row style demo at this event. Below is a picture taken from the spot where I was sitting at this demo.

















Part of the demo involved giving out the favors shown below to people who stopped by to learn more about bead making!



















Also, below are favor tokens that I made and gave to the Baron and Baroness of Iron bog. A few of these were given out at River Wars this year.

Glass Pins

Making Modern Glass Pins

I learned this  from talking to other bead makers and from watching YouTube videos. To make these pins with glass heads, I took plastic straight pins bought from JoAnn's and pulled the plastic bit off. I then wound a small ball of glass onto the pin, and cooled the pins slowly in a fiber glass blanket as I would any other glass bead I made.


Glass Pins in Period
After making the above pins, I because curious to know if glass pins were made and used in period. I found one very useful reference to glass headed pins in the book, Dress Accessories, c. 1150- c. 1450 (Medieval Finds from Excavations in London, p. 297-304) . This book describes two glass pins "made from a blob of glass which was placed on the shank [of the pin] in a semi-molten state without the use of solder." Solder is not needed because glass will naturally stick to the metal of the wire used to make the pin. This is why lampworkers apply bead release to our metal mandrels, so we can pull the beads off the mandrel when we are done!

The glass headed pins found date to the late 12th century. The shanks were made from fine brass wire with a gauge of .5mm (equivalent in width to the 24 gauge wire one might find at a craft store).  One of the glass pins is green, the other is "near black" (perhaps a very dark green, as most black glass in period and modern practice is actually a very dark form of another color). The green glass pin was colored with copper, and it had a high lead content.

In reading this book I found that Pins actually have an interesting evolution. Before the 12th century pin shanks were rather thick, and as a result they were used as broaches to fasten thick outer garments. Once technology allowed for very fine wire to be mass produced, pins heads became smaller and their shanks thinner. Their use correspondingly changed from being decorative fastenings on outer garments, to being used in less conspicuous ways on dresses and fine veils. As a result, most of the pins found  and documented in this book did not have very decorative heads.

 Link to a picture of historic green glass pins


Green Glass pins made using store bought pins

Melon Beads

Brief documentation for Melon Beads. Because this bead does not involve adding designs to glass (just shaping the glass), it would likely have made a better project earlier on for me, but, I found these to be fun beads to make!

Documentation Link

Recreation of a Bead String from Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cemetary

The main source used for this project is an archeological report published in 1987.  Evinson,Vera I.. Dover: The Buckland Anglo-Saxon Cemetery. London: Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England. 1987.

Documentation 
added 12/13

Commissioned viking bling necklace

I was asked to make a necklace for a friend to wear with her Viking. The request was for heraldic colored beads (black, red, blue, & white). All of the beads here are either documentable, or very close to period practice (i.e. similar decorative technique/designs can be documented, just with different colors).

The bead choice was influenced by beads found in early Anglo-Saxon England, as these are the beads I have been working to recreate for the last 6 months or so. Before making the necklace, I asked the recipient to look through a list of historic beads, and point out a few that she liked. I then used ta few of the beads she chose as the basis for my inspiration. In period, most necklaces were not strung with the level of modern symmetry and the use of small metal spacer beads that I used in this necklace. However, early period necklaces might have been organized with a central focus bead as I have done here (see Castledyke necklace), and many of them do have some symmetry, if only a more vague symmetry of color/form (see Buckland partial necklace string-->documentation in progress).

When I tried 4-5 months ago to make beads for other people, it was very hard & stressful for me, because I could not always reliably create the bead I wanted to make, or keep my beads a consistent size. I would go through many beads until I created a few that satisfied me. Creating this necklace was MUCH easier. There were only a 2 or 3 beads I rejected during the process of making the 27 beads on this necklace. To me, this is a huge sign  that I have gotten better with my bead making, and I look forward to being able to make things for people in the future!

Teaching Handouts- on making and decorating glass beads

Here are some handouts I have given out at classes I have taught, or that I have used at A&S displays.

Materials
Making a Basic Wound Bead
Methods of Decorating Beads 
Period v.s. Modern Tools and Techniques



edit: this post was updated 10/2014

Mucking Excavation Bead Typology

Recreating the bead typology from the Mucking cemetery excavations was a change to make many different beads,  many of them new bead types which I have not created before.

Link to Documentation