Fisher's Loft, Port Rexton

Lori overlooking the view
beyond the two main
buildings at Fishers' Loft

Earlier this spring, Lori and I spent a few days at Fishers' Loft in Port Rexton.  We lucked into perfect weather and had a fantastic time hiking, dining, and exploring the surrounding coasts and communities on the Bonavista Peninsula.  The trip was a much needed breather from a hectic spring and what promises to be an even busier summer.  It also gave me a chance to reconnect with an established Elfshot customer and send out a new order of Newfoundland and Labrador inspired knapped jewellery. Here's a look at Fishers' Loft and the neighbouring towns, plus a sneak peak at the Elfshot jewellery that you can now find in the Fishers' Loft gift shop. 

Port Rexton

Puffins nesting near the town of Elliston.

Moose at Fishers' Loft 

The beautiful dining room and guest house at Fishers Loft.

Sunset glow over Trinity

Reproduction Beothuk earrings available at Fishers' Loft Gift Shop

 

The full order of chert necklaces and earrings, plus a few colourful fibre optic pieces. 

Brilliant fibre optic glass

Dorset Palaeoeskimo necklace and earrings

 Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Elfshot Jewellery

Earrings sent to
Port au Choix

This spring, the largest selections of Elfshot jewellery can be found in the gift shop at The Rooms and in the Heritage Shop at Port au Choix.  I've completed orders for both retail locations within the past few weeks and here are some images of the necklaces and earrings that each shop recieved to top up their existing inventory.  In the most recent orders, The Rooms focused on reproductions of Newfoundland and Labrador artifacts made from local chert while the Heritage Shop expanded their glass, obsidian and fibre optic glass inventories.

Groswater Palaeoeskimo earrings for The Rooms gift shop

These fibre optic glass necklaces are on their way to Port au Choix

Recycled glass and obsidian earrings for Port au Choix

 

... and a few Maritime Archaic lances (Port au Choix)

 

The best selection of chert jewellery by Elfshot can now be found in The Rooms gift shop, here in St. John's

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

On to the next thing...

Four of these slate ulu
reproductions are heading
to Port au Choix

I finally have the order for Port au Choix out the door and I can move on to the next project.  Before I leave for the field in two weeks, I need to wrap up two orders that I've already started and try to finish a third that I have yet to begin.  Here is one last look at some of the reproductions and original jewellery that will be available this summer at the Heritage Shop in Port au Choix.

The ground slate bayonet in the middle of the photo and three of the lances are also on their way to the Northern Peninsula.

Fibre Optic Cufflinks.  

These four obsidian flake necklaces are the most recent addition to the "Lost Stone Series".

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Bone and chert pins

Bone hair pins and chert figurines

Rounding out the jewellery order that I've been working on are two pairs of pins; one pair made from bone and the other made from chert.  The bone pins are reproductions of Maritime Archaic hair pins found at Port au Choix.  They are carved with bird heads.  I include sealskin barrettes with the ones that I make, but there is no direct evidence that this is how they would have been used.  The little chert human figures are based on an artifact from a Dorset Palaeoeskimo context at Port au Choix.  There are a few human and animal representations knapped from chert that have been found at Dorset sites.  Sometimes they are made on old endblades and other times (like those reproduced here) they are made on flakes.  These pieces have metal pin backs glued on to them to turn them into small brooches.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Assembling Jewellery

Pairs of Recent Indian Arrowheads

I've moved on to assembling the knapped points that I showed on Friday into necklaces and earrings.  I needed to make a few more small points in order to make enough pairs of similar sized points for earrings.  The larger arrowheads and endblades are wired individually for necklaces.  I needed to order some more leather cord and accidentally bought it from China, so it may be a few weeks before the necklaces are assembled.  The customer doesn't need the order until the summer tourist season, so the timing shouldn't be an issue.

Not quite as chaotic as it first appears;  most of the points are partnered up to make earring pairs.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

More Photos of Knapped Stone Points

Stack them up like Shark's Teeth

This is my 935th blog post.  That's not a particularly significant milestone, but it is a pretty big number.  I've been blogging every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for the past six years and sometimes it is very hard to come up with a new way to talk about the same subjects that I've covered many times.  Today, for example, I finished four dozen arrowheads and endblades for a jewellery order.  I've photographed and written about similar piles of knapped stone on dozens of occasions.  To make this post different, I tried to find some new ways of photographing the pieces.  They are all made form Newfoundland chert and include corner-notched Little Passage or Beothuk arrowheads, side-notched Groswater Palaeoeskimo endblades, and concave based Dorset Palaeoeskimo endblades.

Out in the Freezing Rain

Damp and Tossled

The School of Fish

The Tree Stand

Scales 

The Bulls-eye

Snowflakes

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Blanks

Wholesale jewellery orders were once the biggest part of Elfshot's business, but over the years the one-of-a-kind museum reproductions and workshop instruction have taken on bigger roles.  It's not that there isn't as big a demand for knapped jewellery, it's just that I can only do so much work in a year and I enjoy working with new pieces and new people more that I like the mass production side of making wholesale products.   However, this week I get to turn my brain off and knap a couple dozen necklaces and earrings.  The first step is making four dozen blanks that will be turned into Dorset and Groswater Palaeoeskimo endblades and Recent Indian arrowheads.

Photo Credit: Tim Rast

My Trashy TV List

Elfshot's Mess, Mythbusters' Explosion

Lori dropped of the big Historic Sites Association order yesterday at their St. John's warehouse, which means that I can move on to an all new set of orders today.  So there's more knapping during the day and assembling jewelry in front of the TV this evening.  I'm really struggling to find something new to blog about because my work has been so repetitive lately.  But I've been watching lots of TV while working on the wholesale orders.  Here's my current watch list.  Feel free to mock me, I'm not proud.

Dog the Bounty Hunter : Dog Chapman and family track down bail jumpers in Hawaii and/or Colorado.

Pawn Stars: Big Las Vegas pawn shop which gets in amazing items. I love Chumlee.

Repo Games: Answer 5 Trivia questions and they won't take your repossessed vehicle.

American Pickers: Looking for junk to sell as antiques.

Canadian Pickers: Looking for junk to sell as antiques in Canada.

Doing DaVinci: This one's pretty cool - a team of builders tackle constructing a different DaVinci machine every week.

Hardcore Pawn: I hate watching this show.

Extreme Couponing: Its crazy.  People will plan for a week and buy $1000 worth of groceries for $50 and a stack of coupons.

Swamp People: Hunting gators with awesome accents.

Mythbusters: You know the show.  Still great.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Round and Round Again...

Earrings and Necklaces to assemble

I suppose its appropriate that its Friday the 13th, considering what a nightmare our house has become because of all these partially completed orders.  If I can work through the weekend, I should be able to get my biggest wholesale order of the season finished and delivered to the Historic Sites Association by Monday.  That will clear a big physical and mental space for the next round of projects.

The handles still need finishing

Lori is heading out the door to her niece's birthday party and asked what I'm doing this evening.  I said the same thing I've been doing for the past month; filling wholesale orders.  I also have this blog post to write about the same thing that I've been blogging about for the past month; filling wholesale orders.  She said; "Good.  Its important that they know the monotony of it."  So there you go.  Now you know the monotony of wholesale artifact reproduction and archaeology inspired jewelry making.  *sigh*  More on Monday.

An acrylite jewelry display case.  Needs to be shipped to Manitoba  in the next week or so.

Caribou bone pin blanks soaking in borax.  I'll probably do another boil on them this evening to help with the degreasing.

Groswater Palaeoeskimo Knife.  This thing is pretty much finished.  I used an old bow drill spindle for the handle.  I carved off most of the usewear, but there's still enough poking through that it helps with character and antiquing.

Dozens of flintknapping kits taking up floor space until I can deliver and/or ship them.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Weeks of Wholesale Orders Ahead.

Could be a little narrower

Its Monday.  I'm working on filling spring wholesale orders.  That's what I'm doing and its what I'll be doing for the next couple of months.  There are a few reproductions sprinkled into the mix, like these Maritime Archaic ground slate lances, but for the most part its necklaces and earrings until the start of summer.

Most of the slate we get in the province is green or reddish-purple

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Tundra Buggy Gift Shop

Elfshot Fibre Optic Jewelry

Today I'm sending a jewelry order off to the Tundra Buggy Gift Shop in Churchill, Manitoba - The "Polar Bear Capital of the World". October and November is their busy season, as the bears gather at the coast, in anticipation of Hudson Bay's freeze-up. They need the ice to get out and hunt seals.  The Tundra Buggy is a little like a giant white school bus on monster truck tires that can safely take visitors and researchers into the bears' territory.

This is a part of the North that I haven't visited in person, but the more I learn about Churchill and nearby Wapusk National Park the more interested I become.  I can remember being enthralled by the photos of the bears and buggies as a kid, and working on the artifact reproductions for Wapusk last spring was a real treat.  I notice from the Parks Canada website, that Tundra Buggy Adventures is one of the authorized tour operators to bring visitors into the Park.

Photo Credits:
1: Tim Rast
2: Screen Capture from www.tundrabuggy.com

Some days are just not that exciting...

Finished Fibre Optic Spiral Earrings

I'm still plugging away on spring wholesale orders.  All of those fibre optic points in the macaw mosaic last Friday have been wired and most of them have been carded and some of them have been packaged and are ready to ship.  I can count the remaining wholesale orders on one hand now, which is nice.

Unfinished obsidian and chert in the workshop

I'm not sure what today will be like.  Either I'll make a dedicated push in the workshop and get all the flintknapping done for the orders that need to be done by June 1st, or I'll tie up some loose ends and finish some of the small jobs that are distracting me from the last big order.  My work schedule is a little out of sync with the world right now, which tends to happen this time of year or when deadlines are looming.  I seem to be working afternoons and evenings and weekends, with mornings and one or two weekdays being my down time.

Unfinished fibre optic jewelry in the basement

The main goal right now is to get the last of the orders with a June 1st delivery deadline finished up and shipped by the start of next week.  I'd like to spend a few days next week working on the L'Anse aux Meadows reproductions before heading to Corner Brook for the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador's Annual General Meeting.  I'm glad that it will be on the west coast of the Island this year because it gives me a chance to collect rock along the way.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast

Knapping and Shipping

Beothuk Arrows ready to ship

The priority at work is still filling spring wholesale orders.  I have a couple orders going out the door today to shops in Brookfield and Cartwright.  I don't necessarily enjoy packing the product up, printing invoices and mailing labels, going to the post office and doing all that kind of office work, but its nice to have them on their way and out of the house.  It feels like there is so much work to do before the end of May that its a big relief to occasionally cross things off the "to do" list.

Fibre Optic Blanks to be finished

Between the tamarack splitting and baleen experiments, I had a few good days last week working on fibre optic glass blanks.  Unfortunately, I didn't get them finished before the weekend, so I'm back to work on them this morning.  Once I get these finished, I'll bring them in to the house to turn them into necklaces and earrings.  I still have plenty of things to work on it the workshop after that, but these pieces will also give me the option of some inside work to do. 

Hafted Beothuk Necklaces

If there is an upside to working on these big jewelry orders, its that it gives me a mix of indoor and outdoor work to choose from.  Even though the workshop is just in the back yard, there are some days when it just seems so wet and cold that I can't force myself to spend the day out there.  There are definitely days when its much easier to go to work if I can stay in the basement wiring jewelry with a movie on in the background.

Photo Credits: Tim Rast