Mary Ostler

I have an evil plan to run a siege engine boules/ golf tourneys at up coming events. Since I have only so many weekends off before camping season starts, I needed to get on with it.

I got home from work today and there was a strange small box waiting for me at the front door.

Inside the box was a gift pack from Yurt Alert. A while back I found a listing on the kickstarter web site for a Crochet Yurt Project.  Kate Pokorny was attempting to make a self supporting [...]

. I have been a little busy and /or sick for the last little while. I do have stuff to post, but am waiting for some final finishing.
Sherbert the Entari is slowly chugging along. Its possible it will be done for investiture, but I am starting to doubt it.
I didn’t kill my Mulberry Tree over [...]

*** Yoinked from my other blog ***
I tried out another sample for the Turkish carpet project.  This time I tried using the Persian knot. It goes faster than the Turkish knot, but it doesn’t tighten up the same way. In fact it seems really loose until you weave the thread between the rows.  I think the Turkish knot leaves a more square look to the [...]

*** Yoinked from my other blog ***
The first sample had a knot grouping of  14×6 knots per inch. That produces a rectangular pattern.
After a suggestion from myss_minx on replacing the weft crochet threads with fine thread, and spreading the warp threads slightly,  I have gotten a pattern of 12×9 knots per inch. Still not completely happy. Would like to [...]

*** Yoinked from my other blog***
So I have a project itching away at the old brain. I have recently been staring alot at Holbein Turkish Carpets. Maybe its the colors black, orange red, and white that make me think….gawd it would be cool to try and make one of those. I started looking into it [...]

I seem to be slowly getting into the whole Turkish ottoman thing. Since I am currently weaving a hat tie, I decided to try to make a sorguç (Ottoman Hat Plume Holder thingy).
Mistress Safiye has made an amazing sorguç made out of silver using as many period methods as she could. Its a big slice of all-right, but [...]

Having recently converted my electric lathe to a pole lathe (ok Bungy…but its close) I discovered a new place to put my calipers. Normally I loose my calipers under heaping mounds of sawdust. Now I hang them from bungy’s  from the bar I use for my pole lathe. Yea accidental goodness!

The project I am currently working on has some decorative elements that require breaking the rounded spindle into evenly measured segments. The lathe I own did not have a built in indexing system, and neither does any of my chucks. It is possible to wrap the spindle in paper and then try folding the paper [...]

Goofing around in the work shop the other day.  I have been thinking about trying to turn a Japanese oval turned Inro. This turned out to be one of the more difficult things I have made. Trying to juggle drill bits of different sizes for different cuts just got confusing after a while.
An Inro is [...]