My father spent much of his life in Europe, as a member of the Scots Guard at the French court, then as a hired soldier and engineer-trader in Italy. I found this string of Baltic amber chips in his coffer after he died and had them made into bracelets. I had a very long string of Baltic amber chips waiting for a suitable project. I don’t play Viking so didn’t expect to use them, but a mention of amber bracelets in Shakespeare has inspired me into action. So I have strung on silk groups of the chips interspersed with freshwater pearls; this is a common style for the 16C in both Venice and Scotland. Bracelets were generally worn in matching sets, so I made two for me; an additional one was a tad long so it has been donated to Baronial largesse.
Mistress katherine has been very busy indeed, submitting several projects to me at once.
These three are a Travel Coronet (Remake, Reuse, Refashion, and Show Us Your Arms, and Embellish It), a Coif (Embellish It) and the Kerr Necklace (The Neck Best Thing)
About the travel coronet, Mistress katherine writes: This tablet-woven mini coronet was inspired by Viscountess Mountjoye’s spiffy example at Faire. It uses one of the lovely tablet-woven garters Mistress Catherine d’Arc gave me which displays the curs’ heads and tower from my arms as well as my livery colours or red, white and blue and my motto. It is embellished with the six pearls of a Court Baroness; the copper and brass mounts are actually letterpress printers’ thins used to make leadtype tight when setting text, a reference to my Laurel speciality.
The coif details are: Adding pearls, beads and some couched gold thread and trim has blinged up a plain commercially made hairnet.
Finally, the Kerr Necklace: This necklace is based on the well-known portrait of Anne Boleyn from the UK’s National Portrait Gallery, in which Anne has a capital B suspended from a pearl choker around her neck. I’ve had a craftwood initial K for a number of years, but delayed making this, hoping to be able to find a metal K rather then use a wooden one. Some slathering of gold paint has produced something that may pass in low light and I finally found a use for the large string of big freshwater pearls I’ve had for a while. The portrait of Anne Boleyn can be found here.
