Last summer we were out in Rockaway for a niece’s wedding, and realized two things: we were probably close enough to Brooklyn that we could probably find a few bottles of Brooklyn Gin, and we were probably close enough to the fashion district that we could probably find a good fabric store. It turns out we were right on both counts! The fabric store had a lot of great silks, and I got some shiny violet silk that I knew would make a very fancy kosode.
Kosode from Violet Silk
This was great to sew. I have not worked with this kind of silk in many years, since I made the Gray Silk Kosode in 2006. I had a really hard time with it back then, and it was nice to see that my fabric handling ability and sewing skills have improved considerably over time.
I was watching the thoroughly inappropriate cut of the 2010 ridiculously entertaining Japanese action movie, “13 Assassins“, and while on the road, everybody had these great travel outfits. We go to a fair percentage of events where the event is primarily outdoors, and the weather turns out to be terrible. I figured that something like what they were wearing, only made to be waterproof and super-warm would be about the right thing to have in my wardrobe. Hence, the travel coat.
Travel Coat from Canvas
I made mine out of cotton canvas. It’s huge, with 18″-wide panels so it will fit over just about anything else I am likely to wear. I tried treating the canvas with kakishibu (fermented persimmon juice) to waterproof it, but it turns out you need many many coats of kakishibu to waterproof fabric, so I eventually sprayed it with a couple cans of waterproofing spray.
I lined the coat with poly-fleece fabric. Combined with the water resistant and windproof shell fabric, this is basically a bedspread with sleeves. I have not tried it in a driving snowstorm or downpour, but there was one damp, chilly night at Pennsic where I was awfully glad to have this with me.
Sweetie ordered some frozen food from someplace, and it arrived packed in a small cooler. I had the bright idea to make a small karabitsu to hold/hide the cooler, and that was all she needed to hear. I grabbed some 1/2″ pine and some surplus 2×4 for legs, and got to work.
Small Coolerbitsu
The body of the karabitsu is 13″x10.5″x11″. I used traditional box joints at the corners. The legs are simply glued on, though they do hook under the body to support the floor. The floor is fully captive inside the walls, and nailed in place. The lid is a 3/4″-thick piece of “premium pine”, and it is rebated to fit the body of the box like a box lid.
Open Coolerbitsu
Here you can see the rebated lid, and how nicely the little cooler fits inside the body. The handle ropes pass through holes in the ends of the body, and the rope does a good job of keeping the cooler in place. The exterior of the karabitsu is finished with clear polyurethane, so if it gets rained on or otherwise splashed with water it should be OK.
This is a nice little cooler that should be good for chilling beverages for an afternoon, or for packing lunch to an event.
I made a few of these “plant shelves” at the old house, but we left most of them behind when we moved. A plant shelf is a shelf that goes in front of the window so that the plants get sunlight, and that has a raised edge of some kind so that the potted plants can’t fall off or get pushed off the shelf by cats.
Sweetie asked me if I’d build a plant shelf for the house we live in, you know, now. Most of the dining room furniture we have is made from cherry wood, so I went up to the Alben Sawmill to buy enough cherry to make this plant shelf. Ray Alben gave me a fantastic deal on a couple of stunning cherry boards, and he threw in a couple bonus boards to sweeten the deal.
After taking way too much time to plane the boards down to 3/4″ (Ray suggested new planer knives. Spoiler: He was right!) I cut the shelf part of the shelf down to size. Then, I cut the other board down into the “railing” pieces, mitered the ends for joining, and cut dadoes into them to hold the shelf part of the shelf. Tape, glue, and boiled linseed oil later, and we had a new plant shelf.
Plant Shelf Empty
The trick is mounting it to the brackets so that the shelf itself stays away from the venetian blinds. Anyway, I’m really happy with how this came out, and with how easy this project seemed while I was doing it. The first three plant shelves that I made, I guess like 15 years ago at least, were a huge pain and had a couple of problems that I never resolved. The fact that this went smoothly means that I’m actually getting somewhere with all this practice.
In our camp each year, there is always a pile of random stuff in one corner of our common pavilion. Things like empty storage boxes, bulk packages of paper towels, and random office supplies. Camp leadership asked me to noodle on the idea of shelves for that corner, so at least things would look a little more organized and not just piled up. I had some ideas, and luckily for me they already worked out!
The lumber I had was three 48″ long stair treads. Stair treads are usually a full inch thick, so they should sag a lot less than the 3/4″ pine I usually use. I drilled holes near the corners of each shelf for the hardware to pass through. The base is cut from 2-by-4, and I added hand-cut half-lap joinery. The uprights are also cut from 2-by-4, and they have lag screws and dowel screws running into their ends to join them through the holes in the shelves and the base. Each upright is 18″, so the total height is about 5 feet tall.
Here is what they look like without picturesque stuff decorating them:
Here is the historical design I was imitating:
The original joinery in the book is shown as a double-shouldered mortise and tenon joint. I was pretty sure that would exceed my current capabilities and definitely deteriorate over time. I figured the hardware route was faster and more solid. It all joins rigidly together. Given that the shelves were a gift, that I only bought about $20 in lumber and $15 in hardware, and that I had all of the finishing materials I needed already, this was a very affordable project.
I am “between jobs” right now, which gives me plenty of time for projects, posting about projects, and taking long walks. One side benefit of the long walks is seeing things and taking pictures of them.
Duck Hollow Girders
Yes, I walked all the way from our home in Point Breeze to Duck Hollow and back. Yes, I still take pictures of the organic reclamation of inorganic objects. Yes, you can download that image as a desktop if you wish.
As you know, I have made quite a few Japanese style tool chests over the years, in several different styles. In addition to being useful for toting woodworking tools, they come in very handy when I need to take kumihimo supplies somewhere. If I have a a lot of supplies, a large or medium size chest is good, and if I only need a few small things I can use my little bamboo box. What I felt I was lacking was a box for somewhere in the middle. I had not yet made the Edo suzuribako, so I made this small chest from some half-inch thick cedar.
Small Cedar Tool Chest
You can’t really tell the size of that without context, so here it is with a pair of fabric shears.
Small Cedar Toolchest Open
Overall, the chest is only 12.5″ long, 6.5″ wide, and 5″ tall. That is small enough to fit into the “double height” drawer slot of the small chest of drawers I have not documented because it is still kind of a work in progress.
We’ve been using some of those little 3″x6″ bamboo boxes to keep measuring spoons and things organized in our kitchen drawers. The only problem is that some of the measuring spoons are too long to fit nicely in those boxes. Luckily, I still have some 1/4″ maple scants left over from something else. These new boxes are the same width, but they are 3/4″ longer and a little bit deeper to better hold our growing collection of measuring spoons and rubber vacuum stoppers.
Here is what they look like empty. I’ve learned to always make one or two extra.
The joinery is just simple butt joins, glued together and then pinned. The floors of the boxes are applied to the bottom of the walls, and similarly attached. I put a some mineral oil on them just to protect the wood a little bit from kitchen spills and the like.
Here is what they look like in the drawer and filled with stuff.
I’ve made several sets of small warping pegs, called bodai in Japanese, in the past, and even made this full-size pair some time ago. The only problem with those round bases is that they are too light. Subsequently, I made this new pair of bases for those bodai. Each base is weighted with 6 5-pound blocks of steel.
The benefit of these is that they can be placed an arbitrary distance apart, even if no tables or other clamping surfaces are available. If you need a 12-foot warp, just place these 12 feet apart and warp away. they can also be used as fixed points for kute-uchi loop-braiding if that’s more to your liking.
The new bases are made of pine. The bases are 7.75″ square and 6″ tall. Given the 0.75″ thickness of the lumber, that leaves a nice size void inside for the steel blocks, which are 3″x6″x1″ each. The boxes are held together with screws, which is not very attractive, but I wanted to be able to retrieve the blocks later if I need them for something else.
A kesa is a monk’s garment in the Japanese Buddhist tradition. It is the pieced-quilt kinda thing that hangs from the shoulder on a strap. Certain disciplines make this the only thing a monk wears, but most often it is seen as a kind of devotional garment or vestment. I don’t want to get too far into it, because you could spend many pages discussing the tradition and its changes over time. In modern times, there is a kind partial kesa called a hangesa which is essentially just the strap, worn as a collar. This is normally worn by lay members of an order to show their affiliation without implying that they are officially a monk.
In the SCA, we tend to wear medallions or belt favors to show our affiliations, but neither of these is really appropriate for Japanese persona. They may not be completely appropriate for SCA use, but I don’t think they are offensive at the level that, say, a full kesa would be.
Anyway, here’s a hangesa I made for myself to show affiliation with the Order of the Laurel.
I used some left-over black silk brocade from my elevation garb, machine embroidered some Laurel wreaths near the ends, and attached some red and white (Kingdom colors) silk braids to act as himo. I actually made this at least a year ago, but I have gotten quite a bit behind on posting projects here.
