Day-board cooler

This is one of the most useful projects I have made for myself so far. I have food allergies that make it difficult at best to eat at events. I usually bring my own food rather than drive the feast o crat nuts trying to accommodate my food restrictions. I also try to only bring containers that don't need to be hidden at an event. I have a lovely basket man basket that we keep all our feast gear in. My husband built a wooden box that had insulation foam and a plastic bin to use as a cooler but the plastic broke and the box was way too heavy for me to bring to an event by myself. I needed a small cooler that was big enough to carry all my food and drink for myself and still be small enough for me to easily carry to an event that I was going to by myself.

I found these great little coolers that I thought would work out for me just fine. I decided that if I was going to make a fabric cover for the cooler, why not add pockets that could hold the feast gear for 1 person as well. Below is the result of dayboard cooler experiment. I really like how it turned out. They only thing I might do differently is that the cooler tends to peak out at the top, so I would either need to make the cooler bag taller or make the top wrap around more to cover the cooler better.

 

This is the cooler and all the feast gear I wanted to be able to carry with me to an event.

This is the outer fabric of the cooler cover. I have this weird addiction to quilting fabric so you see it here on batting so that I can quilt it using a simple diamond pattern.

this is the lining of the cooler cover which was also the initial pattern pieces I cut out to make sure it would cover the cooler completely.

Sewing the mug holder strap. The camouflage tape you see on my sewing machine is a guide like I use for when I am quilting. It keeps me from having to draw diagonal lines in chalk over the whole piece I am working on.  

Side panel with 2 pockets. One for silverware and another for napkins and other miscellaneous items. 

The front piece connected to the side piece.

completed mug strap with button hole.

side piece that is under bowl pocket.

I put little gathers on the bottom of the bowl pocket so that it would be wide enough to carry a bowl.

checking the fit.

pining the lining to the outer fabric at the top cover.

final pining and placement of straps.

mug strap pinned in place.

the finished cover. This is the side panel with the bowl pocket

front view.

side view with silverware pocket and mug holder.

 

back panel with plate pocket.

Pattens

I have wanted a pair of Pattens for a few years now. A few years ago at Pennsic, I saw my good friend Gwynd wearing a pair and she told my her husband had made them for her. Thus it was put at the top of my "honey do list". 3 years later they are almost done :)

While at Pennsic I purchased the book "Shoes and Pattens" by Francis Grew and Margrethe de Neergaard. The book has some great information. It gives both period examples and diagrams for how they would have been made. I picked a style that did not have a lot of height on the bottom because I am sure they are going to take some getting used to. I plan on the future to do a pair of Ottoman style that have the platform on it.

As I said these are not yet done, but the design seems to be simple enough so I really hope they will work out.

 

 

The purple paper is the pattern we drew using the outline of my foot. We traced my bare foot onto a piece of paper then I used that as the basis of the design for the wood bottom.

 We then used the paper pattern to draw the outline on the wood.

 

Frederick using the jigsaw to cut out my shapes

Sanding down the edges

Sanding with the finer grit

getting the pointy toe nice and smooth.

He then cut across the line drawn where the foot usually bends. This will get a piece of leather put there so that the Patten can bend when I walk and thus not be like I have a block of wood strapped to my foot.

They look pretty good. Now for the hand work

I get the sandpaper job.

and I am so happy to finally be working on my Pattens.

So far so good.

Frederick is going to use this hand knife/saw to carve in a recess that the leather strap can be put in so that foot bed will still remain relatively flat. I won't have shoes with a hard sole on them when I am wearing the Pattens.

more carving pictures 

Getting in close to the edge with another tool.

and yet another tool.

Making sure both sides of the foot bed recess are even.

And now the sanding.

This is the pattern for the leather strap that will attach to the back of the patten and tie around my ankle

Like so.

 

Stay tuned. More to come!!!



Six Board Chest

Thanks to Erec over at Medieval Gardening we now have 3 mostly finished 6 board chests. The box was designed to have 2 functions : the first to keep your stuff neatly out of site, and the second is to give you a place to sit. To this end we decided how tall we needed to make each box in order for it to also be a comfortable seat. Being somewhat small of stature I of course have the smallest box.
Doing a woodworking project with Erec is always very fun and interesting because he likes to use hand tools that are as close to their medieval counterparts as possible. We are very spoiled getting to use my Father-in-law's awesome woodshop for all of our woodworking projects so it was really nice to do it "the olde fashion way". Also our son was able to do almost all the work on his by himself. I am so glad that he is old enough to start doing these fun crafts with us. He is also starting to realize the extreme satisfaction you get from being able to say "I made this".

The pictures I have were from the first evenings work. We started around 7pm and worked until 9pm. My husband and son went back a few days later to finish putting them together and I don't have pictures from that. We still need to do some sanding, put on the hardware and then waterproof and paint and decorate them. My son is going to paint his heraldry on his box. I am going to pad and upholster the top of my box so it has a cushioned seat then I will paint the rest with an Ottoman design on it. Frederick has not made his intentions known.

These are the 2 different styles Erec made for examples. The length of the side pieces determine the height of the box. Frederick and my son made the version to the right and I made the version to the left.

The different ways you could arrange the board to fit in to each other. We took the easy route and just have side boards nailed to the ends of the front, back and bottom boards.

Erec showing my son how to start sawing on the board and to make sure he keeps to the marked line

Frederick helps by being a human clamp

My son doing a great job! We let him do it all by himself. I only had a little bit of a stomach ache :)

We avoided math whenever possible. We marked the height of the first board from the one Erec had made before. Then we used the first board cut to measure the second. These first two boards are to be the side of the box.

First we marked the height with an awl.

Then we used the square to mark a straight line on the board using the awl to carve a groove in the board.

Now he is on his own to start the cut using the techniques he learned before.

Now we decided how long to make the board for the front of the box. The board for the front back and bottom of the box are all the same size. The top has to be wider to accommodate for the side boards being nailed to the front, and back boards and also have a little extra overhang to make it easier to open.

Now that my son is able to work on his own with a regular clamp, Frederick is ready to start working on his own box.

When you get to the end of the cut, it is helpful to have someone hold the board on the other side for you.

Erec pulled out the 2 person saw to show us. It is bigger than my son!!!!

And finally I can start my box!

Erec starts to drill the holes in my son's side boards where they will be nailed to the front, back and bottom boards.

All the boards for my box all cut out and ready for the next step.

Erec show my son how to use the jigsaw to cut out the fancy design on the bottom of the side boards.

Here is my son doing it on his own. I was so surprised he didn't break the blade doing this very difficult arabesque design. I admit I couldn't watch for most of it!

 

Frederick is using a plane to even out the front bottom and back boards. Using the handsaw gives a very rough cut (again we are so spoiled using the table saw at the workshop).

Erec gave the tip of using a chisel to make a diagonal cut across the side of the boards so that the plane doesn't chip off the end of the boards. It is so nice to have the benefit of his experience on this project.

I was able to get him to even out my boards too!

 

I get to make the holes in some boards using the hand drill. It was easier than I thought to drill. Sharp tools help a LOT!

Here are my son and Fredericks boxes so far. We still need to do put on the hardware and seal the wood. Then paint as desired.

The side view. My son's box is the one in front and you can see his fancy design.

The front view of my box.

I went with a simple design for the bottom of mine. I cannot wait to get them finished up this weekend.