Finished ave beads

Somehow or another I've got the hang of this lampworking thing well enough to finish the ave beads for my paternoster project!  I ended up being able to produce enough 7-9mm beads for a Seraphic rosary, or Franciscan Crown, which has seven decades (72 beads in all once you add the bit at the end).  Yay!

I'm super excited about this for a couple of reasons.  First of all, it's a really interesting form of paternoster and one of the few that can be documented to a specific time period.  Franciscan historians date it to 1422 (see http://www.shrinesf.org/rosary.htm), when a young friar had a vision of the Virgin.  Second, the focus is on the joys of the Mary rather than the more common (at least today) sorrows or wounds that you tend to see in "special" forms of the devotion (though if you do the standard 15 mysteries only 5 of those are sorrowful).  I'm all about some extra joy right now, so I find this particular form of the prayer really appealing.  Lastly, I really like St. Francis.  My grandmother, who was a huge force in my early life had a particular affinity for St. Francis and when I visited Assisi in high school I found the experience particularly moving.  I wasn't even Catholic yet, but I found it to be one of the most peaceful and prayerful places I've ever visited.  The brothers that we met there were some of the kindest, warmest people I have had the honor to met.

When I set out to make the beads for a paternoster I was really hoping I would be able to do a Franciscan Crown, but I wasn't sure if the actual glass working was going to go well.  I took the time to practice, and didn't try to do anything more ambitious that 72 simple beads that are more or less the same size (which is, I hope, ambition enough for my eventual judges), but so far it's looking really good.  Here you can see everything laid out, waiting for the gauds.  I found that if I sorted the decades into similar sizes you notice the variations in size much less.

The plan is to find some nice 12mm (or so) silver beads for the gauds, and order a cross or some other medal from The Rosary Workshop.  Hearts were quite popular and they have a couple of suitable sacred hearts that should be about the right size.  I'd like to avoid a tassel, though if I don't find a cross or something else that goes well with whatever gauds I end up with that's what I'll use.  I had planned to tablet weave the cord for the beads, as something similar is shown in one of the MOL books, but the hole in the beads is a little too small so I'll thread them on a heavy linen cord.

More fun with fire

The lampworking thing is sort of addictive! I've been practicing, with an aim towards producing uniform, round beads so that I can eventually make a paternoster. I think I'm ready to start working with the actual glass I want to use, it seems that each color rod behaves a little differently, which makes sense since different metals and minerals are used to make the colors and each one melts and burns at a different temperature. They also seem to wind onto the mandrels a little differently. If I was good at this, I would be working all the glass at the coolest possible temperatures but I've got to figure out what that is for the glass I want to work as I am not good at this yet.

Anyway, the result of my practice is, as you see, a lovely Viking-ish bead swag! With some dangley bits of things that went terribly wrong but I could not bear to throw away.

 And some close ups:
The stacked beads in the center are the first beads my husband and I made (he made the silvery blue one and I made the red one).  I'm pretty pleased with the clear one with red spots and the amber one with a black stripe, my first attempts at embellishing.  The whole thing has been a learning process but it's fun and oddly relaxing.

Madder dying results, and fun with fire

Here are the results of my latest attempts to dye with madder:

The small skein in between the silk and the wool is from the original, pickle-tainted attempt, to show the differance in color.  It's actually pretty close to how the skeins came out of the dye pot, so I'm thinking the pickle jar ended up not making that big a difference in the end.  I did end up using an iron modifier on the wool, just briefly, as they skeins came out pretty bright and orangy-red to begin with.  The color is a sort of terracotta/rust red now, which is pretty but still not quite what I was going for.  I will be able to wear it as a flat cap though, with a buffer of linen cap, which is the main thing.

So, I am no closer to understanding how to get a true red from madder.  It may be that with alum, you just don't get a true red, more of an orange based red.  Maybe I need to change my mordant?  Possibly it's the water from my tap and I need to check the Ph and/or mineral content there?  Or maybe I'm doing something wrong?  I kept the temperatures low, and according to my book if it had got too high the color would have gone dull, which it certainly did not, so I'm pretty sure that wasn't my problem.  Maybe madder just gives you an orange based red and I need to accept that?

The yarn ended up fulling a bit in the dye pot as well, which is rather to be expected but a major pain to deal with.  Since there are bit of madder root floating around in there too, they got all stuck to the yarn and it's been no fun trying to wind the stuff into balls.  Maybe less stirring next time?  Though if I stir less, I'm not sure I would get such an even color on the yarn.

I was quite surprised by the color I ended up with on the silk - it's a really pretty champagne/orange, which I like but was not at all what I was expecting to get (the silk did not go in the iron modifier).  The silk will probably get used for some tablet woven garters, which will look lovely in that color.  I'm guessing to get red, or even just brighter color on silk, you need to either use a different mordant or leave it in the dye longer.  Or possibly use a different dye altogether.

And as a total random aside, here are my first six attempts are making lampwork beads.  The seventh bead got stuck on the mandrel and had to be smashed with a hammer.  The process is quite exciting, what with the large flame and all, if a little scary.  Hopefully I will get the hang of the technique well enough to make enough beads for my paternoster project.  These will probably end up on a Viking bead swag (or garland as I prefer to call them):