Fun with olden daysy stuff

We've been having a good time today messing around with the ways I want to treat my two lyres, which are currently at this stage:

 Holes all drilled for the zither pins to go in to hold the strings.  Phew that was a bit of a mind bender but with Roo's help it got done.

As I said before, I want to use watercolour stain on one and then paint on it, and kolrosing on the other.

I think both will work!

The blue stain is just to die for, and the kolrosing is so lovely.  It is amazing how, once oiled and burnished, you can't feel the scratches full of cocoa or coffee or cinnamon any more.  They become once more a part of the wood, and yet they stay dark!

Andyroo made these while messing around deciding which of our tools worked best and which dark powder to rub in for best effect. How cool are they?

So, I will go ahead and do both as I'd planned, so long as the varnish over the watercolour stain and paint works.

It will be easy to slip during the scratching of the kolrose design, but I think a little roughness is part of the charm of such an ancient technique.

The blue-painted one will now be the boar one, Torc. With 8 strings, it isn't traditional anyway, so it might as well be fully modern, and with six strings, Fréowine will be more trad in style.

Torc's design currently looks like this: 

I'm still not quite sure how it will look when on the lyre.  More working out to do yet on colour use, line work compared to solid spaces, etc.

In other oldy-timey news, we got a couple of photos that were taken at the Norse storytelling night.  I just adore them, especially the one of us both!

They're dark but that suits the theme of the evening.  We off to another one soon, this one about medieval tales of King Arthur's court.  I'm really looking forward to it, especially since some more of our druid mates will be coming too!

          

Dirty Stop-out!

Sorry, missed my monday post.  Been so busy working on a new website and an outdoor table, and goodness knows what else.  (May have been some socialising in there too!)

Miss Chick the tea cosy is still holding pride of place on the groaning board at my friend Fifi's place. 

The real chicks are growing so fast that they have graduated out to the chook dome, causing much excitement all round.  These are the lengths I was going to to to give them some meal-worms without being mugged by the big chooks.  Rover would then perch on the roof and I would have to lift her up with the roof when I wanted out!

Meal-worms are chicken crack, no joke.  Very good for baby chicken taming!  (But this is very bad for old-lady knees!)

    
The table is done, apart from more olive-oiling, and two more screws on the bracing that we forgot to put in once we bought more screws.   It look and feels totally schmick!  All that sanding was worth the effort!

Underneath.

Unoiled

Oiled (with feathered decorations.)

   
It apparently has the chicken seal of approval, though no-one has blobbed on it yet!  (Dare they?  You bet!)

Like a lot of the bespoke projects we undertake around here, it is probably the only table like this that we will ever build, but we love it, and it was worth all the work getting the old timber ready.  Those bits of Karri were 60 years in a house roof, and now hopefully they will be a table for another 60!  (The way Andrew engineers stuff it's a cert.)

Next timber project for me is to make another Anglo-Saxon lyre, just in case I sit on Mondream or something.  Then I'd have nothing to practice on for months!  It's not like you can pop down the local music shop for another one...

The other new project this week is the next afghan, but I won't be able to show you it until it is done now because the recipient might look at the blog.  Sorry about that. Here's a teaser, since they do know what colour combo they asked for...

Isn't life full of interesting things to do?   If you're bored, go find a new thing!  What will be new for me this year?  Maybe morris dancing and maybe tracking with the dogs.  Time will tell what sticks and what doesn't!