Silk ribbon bracelet tutorial

***Tutorial in english can now be found here***

Due to circumstances (which include being bitten by a tick, which have made me slightly hypochondriac, and having had a jaw ache that's made me cranky), I haven't been able to blog much lately. However, I did get around to publishing my first summer project on my other blog: Manekis sidenarmband.

It's just a very simple bracelet project for all ages and skills. Planning on making an english version to publish on this blog too, but for the moment I'll be referring you to my other blog for instructions. There are many pics and the project is so simple that it shouldn't be hard to just follow the pictures. And then use Google Translate to try and make out the tips. Key tip, which I didn't even write: pick out the loveliest ribbon and button you cand find as it'll make all the difference!

I'm hoping my second blogiversary project will be more about bead-weaving. Or perhaps I'll do something embroidered... Well, we'll just have to see what happens.

Hope you enjoy it!

Solder and tin paste experiments

So step one was to clear space at the worktable. Last night and today I got some time to play a little at that very table. Got to make use of the workspace now that I have it, right? Keeping it simple, I just picked up a few things to dabble with: little copper pendants, solder, flux and tin paste. Things that require that special workspace as it meant lighting that micro torch for the first time in ages.

Now, I should say that I've never soldered anything (if you don't count that copper spiral I added some solder to just to test if I'd be able to do some sort of solder joint). Have pretty much just melted solder from time to time, wondering when I'd make a project requiring this particular skill. And I don't have any good instructions for using tin paste so it was basically about playing around and see what happens. Of cause using due precautions as I'm using stuff that comes with warning labels.

These were my first two experiments. On the one of the left I used some plumber's silver solder I got from my dad. Don't really use it much since it didn't say what's in it and I do prefer to know that. It took time to melt, that much I know at least -- which is why I accidentally created the big dollops of unmelted solder. Drops that turned out to add a nice texture so it was a pretty good mishap.

The one on the right is tin solder (tin/copper/silver). The idea was to try this technique -- also see this link -- but I don't have the right stamps (clear stamps is a bad idea, don't ask me why I say that!). So instead I just melted solder and then hammered it a bit. All copper pendants are heated and hammered prior to solder application, by the way.

Both pendants were then oxidized using a tiny bottle of stink -- AKA liver of sulphur -- that I've had for ages, but actually use sometimes. Just a few drops are needed so the little bottle last a long time.

Then of cause I had to test my tinning paste (99,9 % tin). In theory I know how to use it, but I've never read any clear, detailed instructions. I didn't want to just tin the surface, but create a water drop effect described by Fleur Grenier in her book Pewter: Designs and Techniques. Unfortunately her instructions are really scarce, the only time she mentions tin paste and it's when describing how she made a project of hers, not one of the step-by-step projects in the book. It pretty much assumes you know your way around tin paste weirdly enough for a beginner's level book, which it is. Anyway, these were my first two tries at the water droplet tinning techniques. Far, far from perfect (I want the copper surface to show through between drops as in the book), but at least it's droplets. Not bull's-eye, but at least somewhere on the target.

The right one is oxidized.

Then just a few hours ago, I made these two samples. Same as above, just less paste and more dotted onto the surface than above. Both pieces where then oxidized soot black.

A fun time playing, even if not all samples are what I was striving for. But, hey, I am a newbie at solder and tin paste so what else is to be expected? I need to learn and practice -- and, besides, some of the pieces are cool and I do really like them. Below are my top 3.

Those results are really worth working more with, see where it will take me and what potentials there are in the techniques. Just need to polish my technique and read up on some basics while I'm at it.

What do you think?

~*~

Just a little footnote, which is pretty OT: Have you seen that I've added a new pinboard on my Pinterest page? It's called Colour it! and is all about painting, dyeing, drawing and in other ways adding colour to materials such as fabric, paper, metal, wood, glass etc. Not including patina, faux finishes and crackle as there's already a board for that. (It's amazing how fast you get up to over fifty boards -- Colour it! is board no. 63. I'm conservative when it comes to adding more boards and now there's over sixty anyway.)

Tin thread resources

Tin thread bracelets are a search query that keeps popping up in my blog stats. I've also received several e-mails about where to buy tin thread (or pewter thread if you prefer) as it's not readily available outside Scandinavia. So for some time I've been thinking about writing an article with resources concerning this type of jewellery. And why then not do it already today? I did and here it is -- all about tin thread in english.

What is tin thread?

Tin thread or pewter thread is a gimp, that is a core around which fiber or fine metal wire is wound. In this case it's a fine silver-tin wire spun around a cotton core. There are also gold-plated thread aswell as copper and enamelled copper threads available today.

Metal threads made like this were common throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, but mostly they were made using precious metal. In Scandinavia, where gold and silver threads were used, it seems like the Sami where the only ones making tin thread. Originally reindeer sinew was used as a core, but nowadays a textile core is used. While the threads can now be made with machines, some sami artisans still make their own tin thread by hand.

The thread come in different sizes and to make it complicated, the width measurement is often based on the thickness of the core, which determines the width of the finished thread, not the whole tin thread. If the thread is said to be 0,3 mm then it will in fact be about 0,7-0,8 mm. 0,35 mm tin thread is 0,9-1,0 mm thick and 0,4 mm thread is 1,05-1,15 mm in diameter.

What's the history behind sami tin thread bracelets?

Tin thread has been used in traditional Sami embroidery since at least the Middle Ages. Nowadays it's mostly used in bracelets and jewellery where tin thread braids are stitched onto reindeer hide. The jewellery is often called a traditional Sami handicraft, but isn't as old as the embroidery. It was most likely first made for the tourists that began to holiday in the northerns mountains around the early 1900's. In Sweden this type of jewellery, mostly bracelets, is made by non-Sami and Sami crafters alike.

Making these bracelets was popular when I was a kid (80's, early 90's). I also think it had a certain rise in popularity during the 70's as well, when all things traditional craft where in vogue, but I'm to young to know that for sure. Some years years ago tin thread braiding again became popular, but this time it was more about colours. Instead of just natural or dark brown or black dyed hides, craft stores began selling dyed and patterned strips of hide. And there was also a wide variety of colours in the threads, not just the traditional tin threads, but enamelled spun copper threads. The "tin thead bracelet trend" seem to be constantly evolving: a couple of years ago I noticed that the red, moss green, black and blue was gone from the craft chain catalogue I got. Instead there was silver and lilac hide -- lamb, not reindeer -- matched with the silver-grey tin thread. They pitched it as"folklore gone glam". And last year I could find bright, almost neon tin thread and hides as well as patterned reindeer hide. Of cause, there's still the more traditional dark brown and black reindeer hide too.

I do not know how many more years it will be trendy for crafters and hobbyist jewellery-makers to make these bracelets, but I do know that it never really seems to fall out of fashion: there are always a few people making these, especially in the North.


How do I make tin thread braided jewellery?

As far as I know there aren't many instructions in english for making tin thread bracelets. I have found three project in english at Not Only Quilts: Sami bracelet -- the tutorial, Simple Katarina bracelet och Macrame. Some years ago I did spot a US place that taught tin thread bracelet making, but I can't recall their name and don't know if they still do it.

As you can translate websites using Google Translate, instructions and tutorials in swedish can be useful too. You can find a couple of how-tos at e.g. Slöjd-Detaljer, YLE and Min Fritid. You can also make braided or knotted jewellery without the hide foundation -- see Med glimten i ögat and YLE.

Panduro Hobby have a free pdf pamphlet with how-tos in swedish, danish and norwegian here.

Books in swedish include Tenntrådsflätning by Maggie Alexandersson (Brevskolan) and Tenntrådsbroderier by Mona Callenberg (ICA Bokförlag). The latter is more about tin thread embroidery than about tin thread jewellery, though. Gällivare Textil have published a pamphlet called Gällivare Textils Mönsterbok för skinnsömnad och tenntrådsbroderi. And for those who learn best from watching others, Agnetas Allehanda have made instructional DVDs.

For some pure eye candy, my favourite place to go is Sarakka Design.

 Where can I buy tin thread?
Outside Scandinavia it appears to be tricky to find tin thread and tin thread jewellery supplies. You are really stuck with two options: ask your local craft store or bead shop to carry it -- or buy from a scandinavian seller.

A few places in Sweden, that I know deliver internationally, are Agnetas Allehanda (wellknown source for materials and courses), Kero and TNKreativt (formerly Luletråden). There are more places, I guess, both in Sweden and in the other Scandinavian countries, but these are the better known sources. Gällivare Textil is also a shop I've heard good things about, but I'm not sure if they deliver internationally. One shop that do offer international delivery, but which I doesn't know anything about is Sörbyns Tenntråd. I also think Slöjdmaterial i Luleå and Smyckestillbehor.se (scroll to end of page) sells internationally, judging from the fact the websites are in english as well as swedish.

Then there's the chain where much of my own thread comes from, Panduro. It's a Danish chain of craft shops, based in Sweden nowadays, and they also have international websites, which you can find here.

These sellers all have supplies ranging from threads and reindeer hide to reindeer horn buttons and jewellery kits. Some of them also carry books or how-to pamphlets.
 

NB! Be prepared -- some shops charge a rather hefty shipping cost, especially if buying whole rolls as they are pretty bulky. It's probably best to contact the shop first to get an estimate if you are unsure about the costs. Remember that if you're outside the EU, you can deduct the moms (VAT/sales tax) off the retail prices (sometimes you can view the prices without moms directly and wholesale prices for businesses are always quoted without moms). That's 20 % off the listed retail price.

So-so patina results

Not all patinas turn out the way you like it. Some will turn out different, but good, or perhaps even different and great. Others will turn out different and disappointing.

The heart above is a plated stamping, silver ox or something like that. Those stampings are usually lacquered to protect the antiquing and keep the plating from tarnishing. I don't always bother with such details as seeing if there is lacquer and if so remove it before trying to patinate a piece. That was the case with this iris heart. I just chucked it into the baker's ammonia and spirit vinegar (ättika 24 %) sawdust and checked in on the progress from day to day.

This piece have been removed from the sawdust and rinsed in water several times, which is one of the reasons it doesn't have a crusty or cobalt patina. Today when I took it out and let it dry, I also brushed it vigourously with an old tooth brush, removing some of the blue dust of the patina. The result almost looks like an old/antique, not very wellmade, paintjob.

Not sure what I'll do with it. Keep it like this or try to enhance the motif a bit in one way or another (adding LOS? polish the relief? gesso in recesses?). I'll have to think about it for a while longer.

This is a Vintaj brass tag I put in the vinegar-and-tea leaves jar. Originally I had attached an image transfer to the surface (Nunn Design image transfer sheets), but forgot to check that the lacquer was compatible with the plastic film. It wasn't -- I watched in horror as the beautiful butterfly image dissolved in front of me! So it's just been laying around, looking like a ruined mess. Adding some verdigris couldn't make it worse so that's what I did.

Above is a pic of the back (also lacquered) and below is the front with the ruined image transfer.

Finally, another piece I put in the ammonia jar:

Not exactly sure what the material is. It looks very much like pewter, probably lacquered but it doesn't really look plated as it was darker than most silver and white plates. At first it looked like the patina hadn't had the slightest effect on the charm, but once I took it out, I saw that the patina solution had darkened the metal significantly. (The reason one edge is lighter is that it protuded out of the sawdust so it wasn't fully buried as the rest of it.)

This is the back of the charm. The front is so fugly it doesn't feel work showing. In fact it was the "fugliness" of it that made me sacrifice it for the patina experiment in the first place.

~*~

Do all these patinas last? No, unfortunately not. Even if lacquered, some of my samples in this blog have altered in appearance already after a few weeks. Maybe they needed heavier layers of the sealant, maybe I needed a better sealant, maybe the pieces should've been rinsed and/or neutralised better before sealing. The patina tutorials and recipes don't always discuss such details.

You need to make sure you stop the process you started as best you can or at least slow it down as much as possible. But it just isn't always enough to completely stop it -- and sealants often alter the patinas one way or another (a common problem is that matte sealants dull heat patina colours or alter the hue). I've also had problems with some lacquers that have seemed to "boost" the patinas before drying. It's all about experimentation at this stage.

Pewtersmith in the making?

Ok, I just have to explain one thing first: in Swedish we normally don't make any difference between tin (= tenn) and pewter (= hårdtenn, literally hard tin). Therefore I'm sometimes unsure whether to call something tin or pewter. As with this sheet of metal. Silver is called silver even when it's alloyed with copper to make sterling silver: tin is not called tin when alloyed with antimony and copper to make pewter -- but in Swedish it is. Therefore I sometimes write tin and sometimes pewter when referring to this metal.


So this was one of the things I got in the big parcel yesterday, a 100x166 mm tin sheet, 0,5 mm thick -- I choose the thinnest one as it was the cheapest... A soft alloy consisting of 92,5 % tin, 5,5 % antimony and 2 % copper. I've always been very fond of tin/pewter, not least due to it's long history. I've also seen some fab works by pewtersmiths over the years, which has also made me appreciate tin. I've been wanting to work with tin for years now. Who wants silver when you can have tin?




The necklace is not made by me. It's one my mom bought for me once, made by a Swedish artisan (don't know the name). This heart shows some of the things I'd love to learn: how to engrave or diamond cut pewter and creating a contrast between the shiny carved recesses and a mattened surface.




As with other pewter items, tin jewellery is often stamped. It increases the value to have a stamped year code, the word tenn (= tin, pewter) and the maker's own stamp. In this case, the artisan has engraved his or her initials. If making jewellery, I'd like to do that too. And not just because it increases the value. Pity these stamps are so expensive...




But I digress... Right now I'm sooo far away from making my own tin jewellery, talking about hallmarking and stamps is getting ahead of things.

I have a second piece of pewter jewellery too.

This is a cast tin pendant, part of a series depicting the churches in Bjäre hundred (härad). As a kid I used to sing in the children's church choir in Hov so therefore I wanted to buy this necklace even though it might otherwise be more logical to buy the pendant for the church in the parish our hamlet lies in. Not being christian, that wasn't very interesting to me, I wanted it as a memory of the years in that choir.


Apart from the other above mentioned techniques, I'd also be interested in learning some easy casting methods. Perhaps never creating something as spectacular as the component and beads below, but having some fun water-casting (as in the old new year's eve tradition) and sand-casting. That last one is a small pewter button, one of the many Norwegian pewter buttons I own. I like the often folkloristic motifs that are used as the button often are made to be sewn to traditional or rustic knitted clothes.

But for now I only have one thing: this soft, pretty thin sheet of pewter. I must get a saw soon so I can at least cut out pendants and shapes. And my own drill -- being able to make holes is very useful. Don't have any gravers, but I have papers to acheive that matt surface I want. And I've got lead-free tin solder. Then I guess I must find a good book or online tuts for more directions. I'm usually self-taught, but if I had the money I'd love to take a course in pewter jewellery making.

I finally bought some tin thread -- now what shall I do with it?

I finally got around to buying some "real" tin thread. I already have the copper version and at a sale I also got some black enamelled copper thread. Tin thread isn't exactly cheap so I have putting off buying some for years. But now I just couldn't resist it anymore.



If you're not Scandinavian I suspect you wonder: what, then, is tin thread? Well, tin thread is a literal translation of Swedish word tenntråd. Sometimes it's also called pewter thread, seeing it's made using a tin alloy -- in Swedish tenn is used both for tin and pewter so different translations exist. But unlike most pewter alloys used in jewellery components, tin thread has a pinch of silver in it: 4 % silver to give it a nice shine. Of cause it's also nickel-free. The thread consist of a fibre core around which thin tin/pewter threads are spun (see close-up below). The sizes can be confusing: it is not the actual width of the thread, but the width of the core, that is measured...




Tin thread is used in traditional Sami embroidery -- since at least the Middle Ages -- as well as in a type of jewellery where tin thread braids are stitched onto reindeer hide. The jewellery is often called a traditional Sami handicraft, but isn't as old or traditional as many think. Not like the tin thread embroideries. In Sweden this type of jewellery, mostly bracelets, is made by non-Sami and Sami crafters alike.

Making these bracelets was popular when I was a kid (80's, early 90's), I remember, but though I wanted to try it, it was considered too expensive by my parents I guess. We had a help teacher in our class that was part Sámi -- not very common in Southerns Sweden where I live -- and she had one of these bracelets as well as other hand-crafted Sámi jewellery and embroidered accessories that she showed us. I also think it had a certain rise in popularity during the 70's as well, but I'm to young to know that for sure.

A few years ago tin thread braiding again became in vogue, but this time it was more about colour. Instead of just natural or dark brown or black dyed hides, craft stores began selling dyed stips of hide. And there was also a wide variety of colours in the threads, not just the traditional tin threads, but enamelled spun copper threads. But the "tin thead bracelet trend" seem to be constantly evolving because in the latest catalogue I got from craft store chain Panduro, the red, moss green, black and blue was gone. Instead there was silver and lilac hide -- lamb, not reindeer -- matched with the silver-grey tin thread. They pitched it as"folklore gone glam". Of cause, there was still the more traditional dark brown and black reindeer hide too.

I do not know how many more years it will be trendy for crafters and hobbyist jewellery-makers to make these bracelets, but I do know that it never really falls out of fashion: there are always a few people making these, especially in the North -- not least as long as there are foreigners interested in buying "exotic" jewellery or wanting "genuine" souvenirs.



I'm not sure exactly what I will do with my threads. Perhaps I'll make something "traditional", perhaps I'll try to add more of my style to it or perhaps I will just not use it for braiding or embroidery at all. Though it might look nice, using some in bead embroidery?

~*~

How to make tin thread braided jewellery

Were you reading this, looking for instructions or tutorials for how to make "saami bracelets" yourself or tips on where to buy tin thread? I've written about all of that HERE.