Olive Pit Paternoster

Another prerequisite for the friar's kit?  A paternoster.  I have a large one I hang from my belt, but I started this one a while back and really wanted to finish it.  It is my Olive-pit-paternoster.  I needed to finally string the beads I finished and make a cross to put on the end.  I made the one you see below and then broke it.  I roughed out the image below and drilled five holes.  I planned to peen a brass rivet in each hole as a decorative addition and to mark the five wounds of Christ.  Bad idea.  I peened one OK, and then cracked the cross with the second one. 

I was very frustrated after breaking the cross so I left it alone and moved back to stringing the beads.  Previously I had nicked the ends of the pits off with a knife and then used the end fo the knife in a twisting motion to "drill" the ends out.  I found that the holes I made were large enough for a small thread, but they were not large enough for the hemp cord I wanted to use.  I used a hand drill to open up the holes of each bead.  I broke about 4 in the process so I recommend making more than you need if you plan on replicating this project.

To help in tying the beads on I used a small piece of wire.  I tied the knot over the wire which allowed me to move the knot to the end of the bead before tightening it up firmly. 

There were two sizes of olive pits.  The smaller ones posed more of a problem.  Thes are the types that ended up cracking when I drilled them out.  There was some "meat" left in the pit.  It was like drilling through a walnut.  You pass the shell, but then the meat of the nut/pit some times jammed up the drill or caused it to stick and then crack the seams.

Finally finished.  I didn't use a "standard" number of beads in each section.  I have seen period paternosters with 6,7,8 and 10 beads per section.  I chose to use 8.  Basically I like the number eight and that is all the olive pits I had left after breaking a bunch.

After completing I made a small wool sack to keep it in.  Done and packed.  NEXT!

Olive Pit Paternoster

I have decided to make yet another new adventure into unexplored territories.  I have a few personas that I use when reenacting.  All of them should be pious gentles and should pray on a regular basis.  That is to say that they should be assumed to pray and public pretend at the appropriate times.  To better serve this acting I thought it best to add another accessory to my collection.  While doing dishes at the Vanished Woods feast I found that there were a number of bowls coming back to the kitchen area with unconsumed olives.  I LOVE olives and therefore started consuming them, as I did the dishes.  Not sure what I was going to do with them, but always afraid to throw anything away… as I ate, I kept all the pits.  I wrapped them up and took them home along with a small bowl of left over olives.

This project was spawned from that pile of pits.  I had pits of two sizes and decided that they would make a lovely set of prayer beads.  I began to clean them by boiling them for about 15 minutes.  After boiling water cooled I scrubbed each pit with a small brush to clean the remaining flesh off.  I then placed them in a safe dry place for about a month.  When sufficiently clean and dry I started taking them along with me to project nights and events.  I like small projects on the go.  I took a small carving knife, small metal file and a box of pits.  After an odd few hours I ended up with nicely polished, rounded, evenly smooth pits.

 

AfAfter laying them out a few times to decide if I had enough, I figured that how ever many I had was just about the right amount I would need.  Thrift planning at it's best.  Here you see the pits along with an American quarter to help gauge the size.  I took my small carving knife and used it as a drill.  I simply spun it slightly and it was very easy to pierce the end of the olive pit.  They are in fact hollow and so it didn't take much to "drill" them out.  Some had some meat still inside and so I used a small pin vise hobby drill to manually drill out and clean the inside guts out.

In the image you see here was the next step of my testing.  I wasn't sure how I wanted to finish the beads so I tested two approaches.  The small black bead was threaded onto some string and then dipped into India ink.  Nice and dark, but sort of lost the touch of the natural surface.  Pretty, but not what I was really looking for.  The slightly brownish tinted larger pit was soaked in some black walnut dye that I had made a couple years back.  Soaked it for about 2 hours and let air dry.   I liked that surface much better.  Maybe a little darker, but I really like the look of the natural surface.

I strung up the rest of the pits to get a feel of how they might look.  So far so good.  Not sure if I'll put a knot between them on the final string or not.  This was simply strung on modern thread to aid in the dying process.

Here is the black walnut dye I made.  Nice and thick and dark.  I decided to simply soak in a pot while warming over the stove.  Maybe the heat would help the dye take a little faster.

After they dye bath in warming dye I placed the beads onto a tray and warmed them in a toaster oven for 20 minutes or so.  Note I didn't head the dye to a boil.  Very low heat so that no burning would occur.  I also set the toaster oven to about 200 degrees so as not to burn the pits or crack them in the heat.  I didn't rinse them or wipe them off until after they were dry.

That round ended up making a set of pits only slightly darker than the other test pit.  I decided to try again for about the same duration to see if the dye took any better on a second run.

I was very happy with the second dye batch.  here is a photo of the first test pit and the final pits on the string.  Note that I did end up cracking two pits in the process.  Well, they didn't crack, they simply started to open up along the seam.  Not sure if that was the heat, the moisture or simply an overripe pit.  Not too bad to only lose two though.  These have been rinsed and dried with a towel. I'll let them sit for a few weeks before stringing them up.  (Maybe longer, I'm easily distracted)