In Detti's Madonna della Pergola (painted in 1523), a young child holds a light chain which carries a piece of coral, a cross, a token, a coin or pilgrim badge and a dog's tooth. The coral and the tooth were used as teethers; the remainder were to call upon less physical aid.
This charm from my swaddling days holds coral to ward off the plague, a cross from Rome, an angel, and a pilgrim's scallop from Santiago de Compostela.
Arabs and the sea-farers of India use these sticks to determine their latitude while upon the waves. da Gama and the Portugeuse have recently brought this knowledge to our seas. The ka-mal is held out at arm's length matching the horizon at one end and the celestial centre of the sky at the other. Knots in the string are set for the latitudes of desired ports. Hold the port knot in your teeth and the ka-mal will tell you your required course north or south.
In this case, the knots have been set for the latittudes of the important settlements in the Crescent Isles, and will be tested against the sky during my travels.
These are naalbound baby booties. Our (non-scadian) flatmates have a baby, who needed warm socks for the winter to keep the chillblains away. Since we had leftover homespun from some other projects, this seemed like a good opportunity! Melissa prepared the fleece and spun the wool, Nathanael did the naalbinding. The booties have a linen re-enforced toe.
The plan was quite simple: paint the Hous Amberhearthe badge on to one of those big white pieces of fabric I got from Kutwells. The execution was complicated by the intervention of the feline, eventually requiring the white of the ermine border to be painted in due to green pawprints. However, I am pleased with the final effect. In the end the whole banner had about 7 coats of paint!The white was trimmed down, a backing of heavy linen tacked on, sewn, inverted, pressed and hand finished. Pole inserted and braided cord attached.
The plan was to make a muff to keep hands warm at winter events. That got upgraded to make a fancy muff as a gift for Her Excellency, with who I had discussed my muff plans in the past.Muffs become popular in Europe towards the end of our period. They were typically lined with fur, the outer being either fur or some other fabric. I chose some jacquard I knew Her Excellency would like due to colour and pattern, and some black synthetic fur I had already. Embellishments were done in white so that the outer was blue and white, the colours of Her arms.The pattern was a simple rectangle. The outer fabric was beaded first then lined with heavier fabric to give the muff some structure. The fur was pinned on, and the pieces were sewn together, turned out and finished. Buttons were added. These were added a little in from the edge as I have discovered joining the muff at the edge lets the draft in – a little overlap keeps one’s fingers nice and toasty.
