Nemeton Erithan

I spent the May long week­end at my family’s cot­tage in North­ern Ontario. It was great to get out of the city, the weather was won­der­ful, and it was the per­fect oppor­tun­ity to poke around the wooded parts of the prop­erty while the under­growth was still man­age­able. What at first glance appears to be just a car­pet of indis­tin­guish­able leafy greens is actu­ally a highly diverse com­munity of plants. Some are food sources for the local wild­life (and treats for us if we can get there in time!), oth­ers have his­tor­ic­ally been used to treat a vari­ety of ail­ments, some just look pretty, and a few of them are poten­tially quite dan­ger­ous to us and are best left alone.

Herb Robert (Geranium rober­tianum), a wild geranium thought to have medi­cinal properties.

Thank­fully the bugs were not bad at all. Nor­mally it would be death by bug bites to go wan­der­ing into the woods at this time of year, but a dry winter and spring so far have meant the mos­quito and black fly pop­u­la­tions are low. I only got a couple mos­qui­toes try­ing to nibble at my hands, noth­ing I couldn’t deal with.

White Tril­lium (Tril­lium gran­di­florum), The pro­vin­cial flower of Ontario.

I’ll head back north later in the sum­mer when even more has grown. There’s plenty more to pho­to­graph, from mul­lein to yar­row, to milk­weed, and more. For more images of the inter­est­ing flora from the woods and shoreline of our place in cot­tage coun­try, please check out the gal­lery of images.

Last year I came across a fab­ric on Etsy that I fell in love with. I did not pur­chase it at the time as the fin­ances did not allow for it. It’s a beau­ti­ful Japan­ese cot­ton print, and this past week I finally searched for it again; this time with the intent of actu­ally get­ting some of it. Thank­fully, some was still avail­able and today it arrived and was there wait­ing for me upon my return from work this afternoon.

For those of you that know me, you know that there are a few anim­als which I hold par­tic­u­larly dear that play par­tic­u­larly spe­cial roles in my life. Amongst them are turtles and tor­toises (which both look par­tic­u­larly awe­some while eat­ing things). Under­stand­ing this, it makes sense that I would have to have a piece of the cutest turtle fab­ric on Etsy (and argu­ably anywhere).

Japan­ese cot­ton turtle print.

I’ve already got some plans for this won­der­ful fab­ric. I will be start­ing with a pil­low­case and then prob­ably go on to make some accessor­ies. I may, depend­ing on the amount of fab­ric left over after I make my pil­low­case, even make some small items to share with oth­ers in addi­tion to those I make to enjoy myself. I most likely will not begin work­ing with my turtle fab­ric until I return from Three Rivers in June, but once I do I will post any inter­est­ing pro­gress notes and fin­ished items here on the site.

Finally some more pic­tures of what I’ve been work­ing on!

Alu­minum byz­antine weave necklaces.

More neck­laces in more colours!

Black stain­less (far left) and alu­minum byz­antine weave bracelets.

The black stain­less fades to a won­der­ful dark sheen with con­stant use. The alu­minum are nice and light­weight, and match many of the neck­laces I have avail­able. These brace­lets have no clasp and are instead rolled over the hand to get them on the wrist. Their siz­ing can be eas­ily adjus­ted for a cus­tom fit.

Euro 4-in-1 and Half Per­sian 3-in-1 bracelets.

A nickle sil­ver micro­maille euro 4-in-1 clasped brace­let, gal­van­ized steel hp 3-in-1 clasped brace­let, and titanium euro 4-in-1 clasp­less brace­let. The titanium brace­let fea­tures rings that have been heat col­oured by hand.

Black stain­less steel hair sticks.

This match­ing pair of hair sticks fea­tures black stain­less byz­antine weave and scales. They are topped with hem­at­ite beads.

Alu­minum stitch mark­ers for knitting.

This set of col­our­ful flor­ette mark­ers is great for keep­ing track of key stitches in your knit­ting pro­jects. The mark­ers com­fort­ably fit a US10.5 (6.5mm) needle and will prob­ably work on a US11 just fine.

Wrist prayer beads.

This small string of prayer beads is per­fect for when you don’t want to carry a lar­ger set around with you. It has a clasp so that it may be worn about the wrist when not in use, and allows for it to either be used as a strand or in a loop for prayer/meditation pur­poses. It fea­tures white, blue, and green semi-precious stone beads with metal spacers and is fin­ished with a simple steel flor­ette on one end and a large hem­at­ite bead on the other.

Byz­antine book­mark with purple scale.

This is one of a few book­marks that I have cre­ated. They all vary in design but gen­er­ally fea­ture micro­maille chains with dec­or­at­ive embel­lish­ments of either chain/scalemaille or bead work. A great way to per­son­al­ize either your books, journ­als, or path-related notebooks.

A tree full of earrings!

I’ve also made a num­ber of pairs of ear­rings in a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent metals. Pic­tured here are ster­ling sil­ver (left), gal­van­ized steel (front), nickle sil­ver (right), and bronze (back).

I’ve made a gal­lery page for the site where you can eas­ily browse all of the images I have put on the site. It also includes a num­ber of works that are either sold or that are a part of my per­sonal col­lec­tion and there­fore not for sale. I will per­haps put a post up with details on these par­tic­u­lar items in a bit.

I have cur­rently shif­ted my focus away from the chain­maille for the moment and I am work­ing on cre­at­ing some herb scen­ted bath salts, incense and tisane blends. It is my hope to have these ready for Three Rivers Fest­ival as well.