GAMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS!

Everyone enjoys a good game and I make three great ones. These are perfect gifts for the family, for friends, for anyone on your gift list. OR just for you! Treat yourself once in a while!

My games are historic reproductions - but history does not have to be boring! Just because a game has been played for hundreds of years - in one case thousands of years - does not mean that the game will not be enjoyed just as much today!

Here are the games! And you can purchase them at Q Branch Ltd.

So Many Just Don't Know

I have written about CPSIA - the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 before. See this article. This law was passed almost two years ago in August and has been in full effect now for some time. This law effects every craftsperson and artist who works in children's themed craft or art. Anything made to be used of for a child under the age of 12 comes under this law.

Now, I am not going to write another article telling you about this law, but I am going to tell you about my amazement that no one still knows that this law even exists. With the exception of the craft artists that are active on the Internet, no one else knows. Crafts artists don't know. Consumers don't know. The media - newspapers, television, and radio - does not seem to know.

This past weekend we were at a very high class art show - visiting, not selling. The show featured fine art and also high end craft. One of the craftsmen there was selling children's furnishings, toys, etc. All handmade of wood and painted. Now the wood is not a problem under this law, as long as the wood is not finished or coated in any way. This wood was painted and therein lies the problem. The paint is not permitted under the law without extensive and expensive testing. And the testing process for the most part is prohibitive to those selling craft.

There is also a labeling requirement in this law. Every children's item must be labeled permanently in a certain way. Was any of this fine work for children labeled? No. Was this craft artist ignoring the law. No. He knew nothing at all about the law and neither did the people who were buying from him.

Even commercial items for children under 12 that are supposed to now all be labeled to be in compliance with the law are not. Many, many retail stores have new inventory on their shelves without the required and specific label. While large retailers may be very much aware of what they risk and have decided not to sell anything out of compliance, many small businesses, like everyone else, have no idea about CPSIA.

This is just amazing. Why is this law kept such a big secret? It is like saying that now everyone must stop at a red light but not tell anyone. What can be done about it? Frankly, I don't know. I do know that this law needs to be drastically changed and amended or at best repealed and rewritten to be responsible legislation. But that is not going to happen. But at least, while everyone that is involved with making or selling children's items must comply with this law, tell people about it.

Just my observations...

The Lucet

Many years ago on a vacation we were visiting The Jamestowne Settlement, a recreation of the Jamestown Fort on the James River in Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America. The site then was not as well developed as it is now, having just past the 4ooth Anniversary of the founding of the settlement, but it had a small museum, an Indian village, reconstructions of the ships that brought the settlers to found the colony, and a recreated fort. On the schedule that day of demonstrations, it said "cord making". I interpreted this to mean rope and was excited to see how this is done. At the specified time we headed down to the area inside the fort and I looked for the large rope making apparatus that I expected to find. Nothing like that was there. Instead, sitting on the side of a path on a small bench was a woman with a basket in her lap and a small tool in her hand. I asked where the cord making demonstration would be and she smiled and said, "right here".

What she had in her hand was a lucet. She explained that is an ancient tool used for centuries to make strong, decorative cord that would be used to embellish clothing or tie things together like lace. She proceeded to move her fingers and twirl the tool around in her and as she worked - hardly looking down, a length of cord grew from the bottom of this lucet. I watched amazed. I had never seen anything like that before, and as a student of history I was fascinated. In my head I could see so many possibilities with this and this was before I had started reenacting history.

When we got home I had to find out more. At the time there was no Internet and therefore no Google to search. I went to the library and started going through historic needlework books. I looked through many until I found one that talked about the lucet or lucette. I learned more history but did not find what I wanted - a detailed photograph of an historic artifact. References led me to other sources and I found what I was looking for.

I took the photo and the described dimensions - plus knowing what the lucet that the woman had demonstrated looked like and proceeded to recreate one that was historically accurate - though there are many historic designs of lucets. My first lucet was carved from walnut. I still have and use that lucet.

Now that I had the lucet and some basic instructions on how to work it from one of the books, I got some string and tried it. It did not take long to produce cord just as the woman at Jamestown had done. Great! But what to do with that cord? I bought some floss in various colors - variegated color floss should be great as the cord would then vary in color shades. I also found a variety of metallic cords from which I could make larger, lucet cords. I started making these cords on the lucet and they looked great. The idea came to me to make earrings from the loops of cord. Setting the ends of short lengths into finding caps and then attaching ear wires, I had earrings that looked very different and attractive. I took them to work with me and they sold right away to co-workers. I took them to craft shows and they sold there too.

As I was making cord I decided to make a second lucet out of cherrywood. That one came out great too! And I still have and use that lucet. Years past and I became involved with 18th Century Living History - and saw the lucet as a way to interact with the public and talk about history. I also decided to make a few lucets and see if they would sell. While I did not figure on interest from the general public, I focused on those with an interest in history and approached one of the larger suppliers of period items to reenactors - from all periods in history. They liked the lucets very much, placed an order, and put my lucet in their catalog - as well their as bringing it to sell at living history events. They continue to order them form me and resupply their inventory.

Some time later I decided to add the lucets to my Etsy shop to see if they would sell there to the crafting and general public. I had the first lucets for sale on Etsy. They started selling and I added lucets in different American hardwoods - each designed and hand-carved as my original, historically accurate reproduction.

The lucet is easy to use and when I started offering them for sale I wrote a small booklet with photos to show exactly how to use them. Most of my lucets come with this booklet and those that do include illustrated instructions with all of the necessary steps. Anyone can learn to use the lucet within ten or fifteen minutes of following the diagrams and the text and once you know how to do it you will always be able to do it.

The cord may be used to make jewelry - like the earrings that I made or bracelets or necklaces. Multiple cords make great belts. The cord is strong and can be used to make laces for shoes or for clothing. It is truly unique.

In the past year I decided to add another style lucet to my offerings. Some lucet have handles and while I prefer the smaller lucet that just fits in the hand, some do prefer a lucet with a handle to hold and turn while working. The handle lucet that I designed is historically correct in design but is not a reproduction of an ancient lucet. It is still appropriate for living history events. It works exactly the same way, though it is held in the hand by the handle. I make this lucet of thicker wood with a larger eye to allow much larger cords to work with this lucet - while still being perfect for the thinnest fiber. I make most of my handle lucets from poplar wood. It has a remarkable grain pattern and coloring that will vary uniquely from piece to piece.

All of my lucets are for sale and may be found here at my Etsy Shop - Q Branch Ltd. It is definitely unique. No two lucets of mine are ever exactly the same - the wood alone, plus the hand-carving makes each one of a kind. Many have never seen a lucet before. The cord that one can make has a million creative possibilities. Come over to the shop and see what great ones are there now.

My Workshop - Part 2

This article picks up from Part 1 last week -

The garage here is a one and one half car garage. Not sure what half of a car it will fit, though. We did not really keep our van in there - it was too tall. And there was no point in keeping the little car in there though we tried at times. (blocked by the van on the driveway anyway). This would have to be a two part plan. To make the garage work we had to come up with more room for the cars, and, besides, we were tired of dealing with trying to back out to a four lane main street. We had a circular driveway installed. I don't like to mow grass anyway, so the lawn would not be missed. That took most of our finances for the moment and it took two more years to get to the next and most important phase of the two part plan - finish the garage. Convert it from a bug-invested garage with some beams that were rotting at the base to a nice, comfortable and usable workshop. I took a lot of time figuring out what I wanted. How many electrical outlets would be needed. What the lighting should be. How to keep the overhead storage and increase it if we could so that the Christmas ornaments still had a place to be and I could have storage for lumber. I knew of a contractor from work and called him in. No problem! I gave him the plans and all I had to do is sit back and watch it go up - "in less than two weeks!" Two weeks turned into two months. The man that he put in charge of the bulk of the job liked to work on his own schedule. There would be several days that he was expected that he was no where to be seen. Then he would come and put in a half day's work. The job was taking the entire summer and we had a road trip vacation planned at the end of the summer. "Go, don't worry - it will be all done when you get back." Reluctantly we went - and it was done when we got back but not exactly as we expected. Nothing major but there was some substitutions of the agreed upon garage door and such. After a few threats and some money taken off the final bill my workshop was complete.

I started right away moving my small woodworking machinery and tools up from the basement and into my "Shop". No longer would it be referred to as the "garage" but now it was the "Shop" or the "Workshop". "I am going out to the "SHOP"!", I would yell to my wife. Her answer was and still is, "Be CAREFUL!". She knows me well.

Of course, with a nice new and larger shop, those little machines would not longer do - but nothing was purchased until I purchased my lathe. It actually was a birthday present bought for me by my wife. It had to be ordered by the store and when it was time to pick it up with had them put it into our van and wondered how we would lift it when we got it home. We ingeniously devised a collection of tables that stretched from the van to inside the shop - through the garage door that we knew should remain as part of the structure. The tables led all of the way to the lathe stand that was purchased at the same time. I assembled the stand and we got the lathe up onto the first table by pushing and then pushed all of the way inside to where it would come to rest. Of course, as so many things go, when we opened the carton to start to get the lathe out we found that the cast iron base was cracked! We closed the box and started pushing in the opposite direction. My heart in my throat - as I come THIS close to having my lathe. We called the store and told them to expect us back immediately and they better order another lathe right away. Happily they said that they just happened to have another (?) and we should come and exchange it. Which we did. Of course, now we had to push the new carton out of the van, onto the tables, and over to the stand. Finally, it was there - in my shop!

I will not go into the learning process now, but with the help of some books and videos I discovered that I was a natural on the lathe and was producing nice pieces rather quickly. When you have a lathe, you learn that you really need some large and powerful machinery to go along with it to make the best use of it - along with the specific collection of gouges and chisels that you need to "do it right".

It will probably not surprise you that my workshop is now full to the brim with machinery and tools. There is no place really to put anything else and what is there is all on wheels so that it can be moved into the center of the garage, pardon me, shop to work with. I love that shop.

What we had not figured on when we had the shop built was climate conrol - not for what is inside, but for me. It gets to be over 90 degrees F in the summer and down to 2o degrees F in the winter. There are about three months in parts total through the year that one can actually go into the shop and work comfortably. The summer months have been handled with the addition of a through the wall air conditioner which to the surprise of the installer was the first that he ever installed in a garage. Heat in the winter is not so easy. I tried a lot of different types of space heaters - a radiant heat dish that looks like a satellite antenna that did nothing but make my legs warm and an electric oil filled radiator that did little to fend off the freezing cold inside the shop. I eventually found a radiant heater that attaches to the ceiling that gives off a nice heat if it is pointed in your general direction. Two of these, each placed at different sides of the shop pointed to the spots that I work the most do the job as long as it is not TOO cold outside. Having never figured on these, if two tools and a heater are turned on at the same time - the fuse blows. Only a problem when I want to run the dust vacuum while I am working. And of course, don't put both heaters on at the same time if there is any tool running because that puts me in the dark too.

But I love my shop. And this winter it has been too cold for those heaters to keep up. And the snow piled high from the the house to shop door does not help either. I have not been in the shop for any significant time now since November. I tried one day in February when I needed to make a lucet for Etsy - just having sold a walnut one with none to replace it. It was sold cold that I could not feel my finger going too close to the sanding machine and caught the edge. Nothing serious but annoying- and once my fingers thawed from the cold I could really feel those two little cuts!

Ah, but the Spring is almost upon us and soon I will be able to go inside my shop again. I will be able to clean up and re-organize my shop again. In the cold it has been leave all behind and get back into the house quick. A big mess results that way -which is waiting for me to put it back the way it was and is supposed to be. And maybe, just maybe I will be able to start working on those projects that I have been thinking of doing as I have watched the nasty weather come down all winter.