kareina

 Friday morning I met Elisabeth, who is responsible for activities at the museum, and took care of the paperwork for volunteering here. She assigned me the basement room in the house by the museum parking lot, and I got some of my stuff liaded before taking a much needed nap. (See last post if you forget why I would be tired).

Then I went up the hill and got myself a rock carving station set up.my past self had managed to mostly round the bottom of a block to make a cooking pot before setting it asside to make the forge stone, but I hadn't started any of the carving out of the inside.

Now, a day and a half later I have managed to dig it down a good 4 or 5 centimetres, by working with great enthusiam, and digging deeper with the chisel than I normally do on my pot. There is nothing like knowin that there are more stone blocks available if something goes wrong to make it easy to just go all out.

I try to time the work so that I am digging with the chisel only when the guides aren't doing a talk in the room, as the hammer on chisel is the loudest part of the project. Instead I either use the stone dressing axe to powder away the bits that stick up after the chisle work, or use the file to work on dmoothing and rounding the outside of the pot.

Friday I managed only three hours before I had eated the good I took with me and was still hungry, so I went back to the house and cooked some food. Today I brought more food with me, so I managed to work most of the hours the museum is open (10:00 to 17:00 tight now).

I have met some of the others working here,  and they all seem quite nice. But I am feeling a little tired, so I don't know how late I will be staying up today.

While the Lofotr Viking Festival didn't actually start till this Wednesday, the build up to it started last Thursday, with the arrival of Rod, the bladesmith with the goal of making a viking style sword using only period appropriate techniques etc.

Around then the museum grounds and maintenance folk started putting out the tent frames and other festival infrastructure.

Starting Tuesday I begun seeing visitors to the longhouse who were arriving for festival, most of whom had much more informed questions about what I am doing, and actually understood the concept of "bellows stone".

One of the visitors looked very carefully at the stone carving techniques I was using, and said that she is a sculptor and has also worked in stone. We chatted quite a while and became instant friends.

She is incolved in WICI, an association in Poland for the Promotion of Old Crafts and Culture

Later that evening one of the museum employees who comes from Poland, posted to our group chat asking if anyone has a car his friends could borrow the next day? I guesed that he was speaking of the group of folk the above mentioned sculptor is with, and replied to ask if "friends" means that the car should seat more than three.

He replied that there are six in the group and they already have his van, which also seats three (well, both vans have room for more, but not legally while driving). After more message exchanges, and confirming that no one else in the group chat had a car available I told him to send the driver plus or minus passengers to me at work the next day.

Tuesday morning new friend arrived, introduced me to their driver, who I instantly liked, and he told me that I have to meet his girlfriend, as he is convinced we will like one another.

I gave them my keys, and they set off on adventures to Å, at the end of the road in Lofoten, and I worked.

They sent me trip photos as they went, and I made good progress on the new bellows stone.

After work I planned to walk down to see how progress was going on the temporary smithy, but they, having started early, finnished a little early, and Keldor arrived home just as I did. Therefore, instead of dropping off my lunch bag and grabbing my sewing and heading down the hill we just enjoyed a quiet evening in the livingroom, making progress adding gores to the 3-twills-in-one-fabric dress I had bought and picked up in Arjeplog on our way to Norway. The deadline for that project was looming hard, since I wanted it done before dropping it in the indigo pot on Thursday.

But we got tired, and I went to sleep that night with two gores still not done. Wednesday I worked till 19:00, then packed thst dress and the other fabric I was considering dying, and went down the hill to see the Festival camp for the first time, and try to find the dying workshop person, show her the dress and fabric, and discuss the plan for the next day.

That accomplished (she said it would be fine to dye both), we went over to the Polish camp, where I met the rest of the group, and discovered that the driver was correct when he said I'd get along with his girlfriend. She (and the sculptor I'd already met) are truly kindred spirits, and we talked long into the night, as I continued sewing.

Eventually everyone was tired, so Keldor and I went home, did yoga, and he went to sleep while I sat next to him finishing up those last seams. I got it done at 02:00, put the dress soaking (I'd put the fabric soaking directly after yoga), and went to sleep. I checked the buckets at 06:30 when I needed to get up to pee anyway, and discovered that parts of the dress fabric were still dry, even though it was all under water.

So I turned the fabric, exposing those parts to water, and went back to bed. Didn't fall back asleep, so instead I got up and started drawing threads for a new under tunic for Keldor.

An hour later I had the three body rectangles cut, and was sleepy, so I went back to bed for an hour nap.

Then it was time to get ready for the day. Breakfast, on with viking clothes that won't care if I splash indigo on them, pack a lunch and the fabric, and head down the hill.

Keldor, who also had the day off, planned to go to the smithy to do his own projects, and not help with the children's activity of helping kids forge tiny swords from nails. (Flatten the nail. Done.)

I reported to the workshop, fetched water from the lake (actually slightly brackish water, since it has contact with the fjord), which was heated to 40 C and mixed with the indigo and ammonia (I think that was what was in the bottle, I didn't recognise the Norwegian word, and she didn't know the English, but her attempt at explaining matches ammonia).

I had never seen an indigo pot in action before, so it was cool to see the white test yarn go into that gross looking green water with an odd irradecent film, come out still white, and then start turning blue as oxygen touched it.

She explained that it was important that the yarn or fabric not come to the surface during dying or the oxygen exposure in one spot would result in a dark splotch.

After a couple of small test pieces we tried my dress, which was a green-white wool twill. The goal was to make it as dark as possible. We took it out after an hour, and it darkened up enough to look much better to my eye than the pale colour it started with, but we also saw that, during a tie we'd both looked away, a bit of fabric had broken the surface and had a datk blotch.

So we put it back in for another half an hour or so, at which point the colour was still nicer.

Then we put in my commercially died bright blue diamond twill (2.5 yards left after making bilauts for Keldor and I with the rest of it), to see if it might get any darker.

The course leader said that I could head on my way, and she would do a second indigo pot later today or tomorrow and drop my dress in again.

So I fetched Keldor from the smithy, where he had, in fact, helped some with the kid's activity, and went up the hill for dinner. Then to the ATM at the museum entry so I can pay for the dying workshop, and he returned to the smithy to do his own projects this time, and I curled up on the couch to read with some popcorn with nettle butter and yeast, and then type this.

Now it is nearly 19:00, so I will put on some wool and head down to the Festival. Tomorrow I work again carving stone.

Last month I happened to look at the web page for the Lofotr Viking Museum, and while I was there I noticed that they have a "work with us" section, so I clicked on it. At the time it was still advertising the 2020 summer season, but they had a section mentioning that they sometimes hire interns, and please send an email if interested. As a PhD student in Archaeology with not so much practical experience on anything other than analytical lab work that sounded interesting, so I promptly sent them an email, outlining my PhD research and asking if they were hiring interns this year.

They replied promptly saying that they aren't able to hire any interns this year (no surprise there given 2020), but that they would be announcing the summer 2021 jobs soon and encouraging me to try applying for one of those instead. Today the announcements came out, and I am delighted to see that the one for Håndverkere (crafts workers) is specifically looking for soapstone carvers!

So now I have written back to her letting her know that I will apply soon, and did she prefer that I fill in the application form in English, Swedish, or Norwegian, and does she have a preference which language I do the CV in? I also asked if they want the crafts workers to focus on one craft over the summer, or do a variety, in other words, should I include photos on my CV of my nålbindning, Viking Age clothing, and wood working projects as well?

If anyone is inclined to offer feedback on my application packet let me know and I will share it once I have a good draft together. (Deadline to apply isn't till March, but I would like to apply before the year ends, anyway, if I can get a good packet together.)