Shaman Cap Makeover, Before and During

After familiarizing myself with the "lazy stitch" beading technique used on the medicine bag (covered in an earlier post) I determined that the Native American inspired "shaman's cap" (honestly, there isn't anything to distinguish this as a shamanic artifact-- it more closely resembles some examples of Apache warrior's caps, though I didn't know that at the time, and so dubbed it a shaman's cap and shall continue to refer to it as such) that I had made some 15 years ago might benefit from some lazy stitch beadwork to cover the seams where the sections of deerskin were stitched together. Upon closer inspection I determined that a number of elements comprising the cap were quite unacceptable by my current, more stringent, crafting standards, and set about deconstructing the artifact in preparation for some structural and aesthetic changes. Following are some images of the cap before any changes were made:







The hair drops evident above were among the details of the cap that troubled me: the locks of hair (mine, from when I had long hair) had been rather crudely "hot glued" into cones I had formed (very crudely) from heavy-gauge sheet tin and attached to the cap using unnecessarily thick wire, so that they didn't move or hang particularly gracefully, but poked out rather awkwardly. I have now completed most of the beadwork with the exception of the front strip, which I had finished in the black and white striped pattern like the others before deciding that I might prefer a wider strip of a different pattern. I have started the new front strip, but don't feel satisfied with the pattern or colors, so will probably try something different. I added some red deerskin trim accented with old cobalt blue glass trade beads attached with sinew, and a silver concho against a red antique blanket-wool circle to the front also. Here is the cap in its current state:









The image immediately above shows the new hair cone-drops. I loosened the hair from the old tin cones by gently heating them until the old hot-glue became liquid enough to allow the hair cluster to be pulled out. I was then able to pull off all of the excess hot-glue so that the mass of each hair cluster base was greatly reduced, allowing it to fit into new, thinner store bought jingle cones. Before using the new cones, however, I gave them a quick dip in a metal darkening patina solution to give them a nicely aged appearance. I set each hair cluster into its cone this time with a touch of heated pinon resin after first securing a strip of sinew to the hair cluster and passing it up through the tip of each cone to attach to the cap, which should allow the drops to move more naturally than the thick wire I had used for attachment previously. I also added 3 antique green glass trade beads (in additional to the original abalone disks) to each drop. In the photo you will also notice a thick cluster of horsehair; I had dyed one quarter of the hair red, and was considering using the white and red dyed horsehair instead of the brown human hair in the drops-- I may still do a horsehair version and see which one I like better. The original crown feathers were in pretty poor condition after having suffered a great many surprise cat attacks. They were wrapped in antique red blanket wool and wire, then attached with wire to the crown. I will probably add some new feathers and wrap them differently, and attach them all to the crown with sinew, though I haven't yet started on that part of the reconstruction. I Thank You for joining me for this segment of the "shaman's cap makeover" and hope to have a completed project post up for you before long!

Happy Independence Day!

When Anne and I lived in Chicago and embarked on the occasional little journeys out of the city, we often stopped at the big fireworks markets in Indiana to poke around and hunt for fun novelty fireworks. While fireworks are certainly fun to ignite, we really enjoy the delightful colors and designs of the fireworks themselves (like colorful little presents, exquisitely wrapped!) and have held on to some of our favorites! Above are a few photographs I took of novelty fireworks we have collected... I hope you enjoy them! If you'd like to look at some more fun vintage fireworks images, visit here and here (you Brits have some great vintage fireworks sites!)

Below is a wonderful screenprint entitled "Celebration" that I first saw with my sister while visiting the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia. Made by Clay Huffman in 1991, it is a very complex screenprint comprised of 31 different ink colors; I was quite captivated by the subject matter, vibrant colors, and technical excellence of the print! A few years later, my mom and sister went back to the Torpedo Factory and bought me one of the prints (print #85 of an edition of 190) and surprised me with it on my birthday! I haven't had it displayed in a few years, and went into quite a panic this morning when it wasn't where I thought I had packed it; I found it, however, and am pleased that it looks just as colorful, dynamic and fun as I remembered it! I hope you all have safe and fun celebrations of your own on this Independence Day!!!

Medicine Bag Makeover

The ceaseless drizzle and pall of grey clouds that has descended upon New England and refuses to lift has taken its toll on my spirits of late, kind reader. Though I have been mostly house bound, and thus surrounded by craft materials and dozens of worthy projects, somehow all of these things fail to inspire, mired as we have been in all of this damp gloom. What to do, then? Well, I have been enjoying perusing the online collections of the National Museum of the American Indian and Harvard's Peabody Museum of Anthropology, and was inspired to dust off my beading supplies and small sack of loose dentalium shells and engage in a bit of Native American style craft work.

Following is an image of a small buckskin medicine bag that has been in my possession for some twenty years and has acquired quite an aged patina.



Many years ago I adorned it with a cowrie shell, and a strip of beadwork that I had done on a loom and (gasp!) glued onto the front of the bag. It didn't take long for the beadwork to fall off, leaving ugly patches of glue behind. This morning I decided it was high time to try out a beading technique I hadn't tried before: the so-called "lazy stitch", so as to cover the scars left over from the earlier adornment, and add a touch authentic Native American flair. The lazy stitch is a classic method for applying beads to leather; beads are stitched right onto the surface in tidy rows that may comprise a simple decorative strip or encompass a decorative expanse of beadwork on a vest, saddle bag, pair of leggings or the like. In learning the stitch, which is not difficult but does require some patience and an adherence to time tested techniques, I referred to Steve Nimerfro's guide entitled "Sioux Style Lazy Stitch Beadwork" published online by craft retailer Matoska Trading Company. I started by drawing a grid to represent the bead strip and then decided on a pattern, filling in the squares on the grid according to the bead colors I had chosen to use. Then I just translated the pattern I made up on the grid into actual beads, row by row, and stitched them on according to the instructions! I like the way it turned out-- not too bad for my first try!



I have a few more items I am eager to do lazy stitch on, most notably a buckskin shaman's cap I made about fifteen years ago that will benefit from strips of beadwork to cover the seams where the leather is sewn together. I will definitely post photos when I begin that project! I have a few other medicine bags that could use a little sprucing up... perhaps I should start a new FinderMaker segment called "Pimp My Medicine Bag" and invite readers to send in before and after photos of their medicine bag creations and alterations!

My second project, completed just last night, was inspired by this old necklace in the Peabody Museum's collection made by a member of the Karuk tribe in California:



Dentalium shells come from a type of Mollusk, and were used as an early form of currency by many Native American tribes. They were commonly strung on natural fiber thread and traded by the strand for goods or services. Strands were also bundled together and worn both as decoration and an outward symbol of wealth. I had a bag of small dentalium shells I had ordered online without any particular project in mind, and was delighted to finally be inspired to put them to use!



The shells are naturally hollow, but the pointed end is quite narrow, and needs to be nipped off so that a waxed thread may be passed through; they also tended to have bits of gravel lodged within, so it was necessary to run each one through with a stiff wire to clear the gravel before stringing. I was able to get seven strands from my one ounce bag ($3.50) which I then attached to a seven inch strip of rolled buckskin that would rest against the back of the neck (as the little pointy shells would be fairly uncomfortable against bare skin). This is how it turned out:





I really am quite thankful to all of the fellow FinderMakers who follow my blog. Knowing that there are folks out there who share my interest in finding and making things encourages me to stay active. Thanks so much for joining me here... I have so many projects to work on, and I look forward to sharing them with all of you!!!