Duchess

Imagine yourself walking out the door, an eclectic handkerchief knotted smartly around your neck. Or maybe tied fashionably around your hair. Tucked in a pocket. Or wrapped on your wrist. The compliments pour in and you can say "Thanks! I made this!" This is your golden opportunity to share in a Pyracy Pub creative effort. Go on the account with us and receive a hand printed handkerchief when the booty is shared out. What is expected of you? Step 1: Sign up by July 14th. Step 2: Create a nautical or piracy related design as a printing block or plate. (This is the real work you need to do. More resources to follow on this.) Step 3: Send your block or plate to me (Duchess), to be received no later than September 1st. Step 4: Wait patiently while I collect your blocks, design the overall look of the handkerchief, print them, cure them and send them out. Step 5: Receive your handkerchief and celebrate! FAQ: How do I sign up? · PM me,Duchess by Midnight July 14th, 2023 What does this glory filled opportunity cost? · There is no upfront cost to you! Handkerchiefs, waterproof ink and postage of the finished scarf are being donated by me (Duchess) to this project. You may have some costs associated with procuring the medium for your printing block, any tools you might want and the postage to get the block to me. How big or small a block should I make? · There is no minimum size requirement. Smaller images can be repeated as needed to fill space or create an aesthetic design. · There will likely be a maximum size limit, however this will be based on how many people sign up. This information will be sent to you after sign ups close. What is the size of the final handkerchief? · The handkerchief blanks are 24 inches square. They are white, hemmed and all cotton. The final piece will be washable and suitable for dying if you wish to do so. What materials can I use for a printing block? · You have a lot of options for what and how to carve your block/plate. For this project your material must be able to withstand shipping and printing by someone other than you, additionally I require that it not rot. Don’t send me any potatoes. · Piece of wood lumber or other found wood (pros: small pieces are often cast offs and easy to find, con: grain can be a pain work with, just do all your carving with the grain) Do make sure you have a flat surface to start your carving. · Linoleum block (pros durable, can be carved in any direction, consistent. cons: can be expensive, might want a way to hold it while carving, will need to be purchased at a set size or cut with a saw) · unmounted linoleum (pros, easy to cut to size, straightforward carving. cons: not rigid, easy to accidentally cut through, still kinda expensive) · rubber blocks for printing, ie Speedy carve (pros: pink is super easy to carve, easy to cut to size cons: kinda expensive, might be hard to source, not long term durable) · pink eraser blocks (pros: cheap, easy to find, easy to carve. Cons: small size, hard to hold while carving) · 3D printing (Pros: I dunno? Fun to combine lots of skills, no hand strength needed Cons: expensive, time consuming, high learning curve) I have a different question. · Post it here or PM me with your question.

It turns out heavier than a typical loaf, I could also be a bit more patient letting it rise sufficiently, but it is delicious. I use a few spoonfuls of honey as well, so it is hearty and bit sweet. I've never really like french toast, so this was an attempt to make something I would like and it was successful. It needs to soak in the mix a lot longer than a normal bread slice. The sausage I've been working on with their meat guy for a couple of years, I'm really stoked on this spicy maple recipe. Hopefully they'll keep making it for us!

Spicy maple breakfast sausage from the local university. I've been working with their meat guy for the last year on a breakfast sausage recipe and we're getting close with this round. Homemade bread, made with spent grains from Stynky's brewing efforts. Turned into french toast with whole milk from a local farm.

0000 Steel wool to gently remove the rust, it should clean off completely unless you have true pitting. From the pictures it doesn't look like you do. Leather sheaths aren't great for long term storage for a few reasons: Leather needs moisture. Holding that moisture against metal leads to rusting. Leather is often tanned with chemicals that can contribute to moisture retention or contain salts all of which are bad for metal Any knife sheathed after use but without cleaning brings who knows what inside the sheath that stuff is then pressed against the metal and can contribute to rust. For protecting your metal, if you need something food safe, use food safe mineral oil. You can use that on the blade and on the handle. You can also patina your blade, similar to how you'd season a cast iron pan. I've also done a sort of "corner of the shop" rough and dirty rust bluing by soaking the metal in a bucket of water and vinegar. (This is useful for removing scale or heavy rust too.) After the a good soak (over night to a couple of weeks) card off all the gunk with 0000 steel wool. Rinse well and soak it a bucket of baking soda water to stop the vinegar action. After a similar soak, card it all off with the steel wool , dry it thoroughly and coat in the mineral oil. Note that your railroad spike knife could be anything from mild steel to something equivalent to 1045 steel. They're pretty much all over the place, so expect that it likely won't hold an edge and will need lots of attention to stay rust free. Be pleasantly surprised by anything else.

I'll volunteer to be the host then. 🙂 I need to get through the next few weeks of work intact and then I'll start putting this together. Folks, start your sketches!

I think we could look at doing a handkerchief size of light weight material for a first go round. That way it could be a wearable item or decorative at the end depending on what folks decide to do with their piece. I've got some cotton blanks 24" square that I could donate to the project as along as we don't get more than 5-6 participants. We can source more if we want to. From there I think we could suggest a maximum size for each individual block. It might be useful to choose a standard size for folks who are buying premade blocks. Smaller images could always be repeated as needed to fill space. As an example, if we use the handerchief blanks and had six participants, each participant could be suggested a maximum size of 4"x4" Another option that might work well would be for everyone to carve their block and send it to one person for printing. That way an esthetic arrangement could made and patterns repeated nicely if needed. This also reduces the amount of overhead, since not everyone would need ink, brayer, etc.

Hey Stynky, what units?

Welcome back!

I love this!

I'm sure I replied this already, but I have no idea what happened to the post. Maybe I never submitted it? Anyway. https://www.leevalley.com/en-us/shop/tools/hand-tools/carving-tools/111761-palm-handle-basic-carving-set?item=57D0602 I'm reasonably certain this is the set that I have. I can't recall the brand for sure, but they look identical. It was recommended to be by some folks in a print studio as a good beginner set. Good enough to not hold you back, cheap enough to be reasonably accessible.

There's a bunch of different things you can do! A not exhaustive list of things to use: Piece of wood lumber (pros: small pieces are often cast offs and easy to find, con: grain can be a pain work with, just do all your carving with the grain, absorbs ink) Linoelum block (pros durable, can be carved in any direction, consistent. cons: can be expensive, might want a way to hold it while carving, set size unless you want to saw) unmounted linoelum (pros, easy to cut to size, straightforward carving. cons: not rigid, easy to accidentally cut through, still kinda expensive) rubber blocks for printing, ie Speedy carve (pros: pink is super easy to carve, easy to cut to size cons: kinda expensive, might be hard to source, not long term durable) pink eraser blocks (pros:cheap, easy to find, easy to carve. Cons: small size, hard to hold while carving) potatoes (Pros: easy to care, easy to find, cheap. cons: kinda wet and starchy. rots) 3D printing (Pros: I dunno? Fun to combine lots of skills, no hand strength needed Cons: expensive, time consuming, high learning curve) Other things that aren't exactly carving or block printing that you could do: Mono printing, basically painting with the ink and then making one print of that Found objects, finding material with interesting texture/relief and printing with those this is really easy to do with leaves

The mix actually keeps pretty well! We usually make a batch on Friday night/saturday morning and eat waffles for breakfast for 3-4 days. You might be able to make it up ahead of time and store it in a jug in a cooler. These look so good! I'm glad you tried the recipe!

I've worn it to work a few times. The results have been...interesting...😁

Oh no! I stumbled across a folder of Pennsylvania Dutch designs at an antique store last summer, so you might try hitting up antique stores with art books.

A thread to collect ideas for the Traveling Yard - A Pyracy Print Exchange project. For right now: If you're interested in participating, chime in here. If you have ideas, share those too!

Equipollence and equipollent are used in physics quite a bit.

For a first go round I'd suggest just your original thought, a square of material that each person could print on. I could likely source some cotton blanks to use, similar to the one here. I would recommend that we keep the number small, say 5-10 participants for the first go round. Send all the squares together along with some fabric ink. Just given the nature of printing it is easier to print all at a time. And we'd want to make sure that the finished product is not going to wash away without forcing everyone to buy ink. I can work on putting this together as event later this summer if you like. Curate some tutorials for different ways to make a block and work up some directions on size etc. What do you think Stynky?

Krusteaz Belgian mix used to be the good stuff! BUT they changed their recipe late last year and the new stuff smells just like playdoh to me and I can't get over it. I was so bummed. So we started experimenting and came up with the yeasted recipe I posted above.

Tell me more! I could see doing a couple of different options: A traveling yard of canvas that each participant would add a print to using fabric inks. A submission of carved blocks for one person to print. We could maybe do a mini virtual workshop sort of thing using speedy carve or rubber erasers to create blocks. A mini print exchange A block printed canvas patch exchange (where my old school punks at?) I have ideas!

Misunderstanding the assignment, I didn't turn my work in to the correct location. I'll copy it here in hopes for some partial credit. Hello! I’m Duchess. I’m your Arts of Pyracy Moderator. I spent my childhood summers working with my mom at one of the largest renaissance festivals in the country. I worked there again as an adult for almost a decade. I’ve been involved in a variety of historic, theater and arts related endeavors for much of my life, but stepped away from performing about 15 years ago. I still have most of my gear, living in totes in my small house. It might be angling for a come back or a side step, I don't know yet. I am a physicist by training, an inveterate and intemperate learner of skills by nature, nurture and inclination. I’m thrilled to see the Pub return, having originally joined just a few months after it was opened in 2003. Those of you who have been around might recall that I used to moderate sea shanties and more importantly, organized the annual holiday gift exchange. While I’m moving to moderate Arts (thanks to William’s generosity) I don’t plan to hand off the holiday exchange duties any time soon. Get honing your gift making and package assembly skills and keep an eye out for that this fall!

Ah. I am. Or more accurately, I could be. I'm not sure I'm any good at working to a brief though.

I'm not sure what I have left, but I'll take a look for you!

Once again I curse my academic schedule.

Wow! I've been working on developing a waffle recipe for my family, after of our favorite mix changed. What we've settled on is strikingly similar to this one! 2 cups all purpose flour 1.5 cups of warm milk 3 tbls brown sugar (I suspect maple syrup or honey would be equally good) 3/4 tsp salt 2 eggs 1 tsp vanilla extract 1.5 tsp yeast Let rise 1 hour on counter or overnight in refrigerator after an hour on the counter. Here's this mornings breakfast.