I’m insane.

People who know me are familiar with this quirk in my personality, but every now and again I feel compelled to demonstrate it.  Hence, this week I decided – despite numerous pressing deadlines – I absolutely had to attempt making a torus out of viking knitting.

Nalbinding was historically used for things like socks, mittens, bags, hats and the like.  In wire, it’s been used mostly for chainwork.  To the best of my knowledge, no one has tried using it for sculptural wirework, and certainly no one has tried using it to construct a torus.  Loren Damewood, who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, has made a toroid bracelet out of string, with plans to attempt it in wire, but his technique is marlinspike knotting.

Thanks to my experience making the Merry Meet necklace, I decided to make the first attempt in polymer coated wire.  I have pounds of the stuff, and it’s great for experimenting.  Unfortunately though, it doesn’t lend itself to annealing, which meant I could only get as far as shaping the torus.  I couldn’t finish the seaming without risking wire breakage.

I’m contributing that first piece to The Metal Arts Guild of Canada’s call for Nuit Blanche 2009.

I’m completely obsessed with this idea, so decided that I would try one in silver.  At the Zilberschmuck “Connection” opening a couple of weeks ago, I was talking to Charles Funnell about viking knitting.  He had been trying to do some chainwork and was finding it challenging.  I commented that it would work better in fine silver than in sterling, because the metal is more maleable.  Unfortunately, the only fine silver wire I have on hand at the moment is 28 ga, and the idea of doing it in that fine a gauge really didn’t appeal to me.  So, I decided to try 24 ga sterling in dead soft.

Well…

It was easier to work than the polymer coated copper, but I still ended up with a blister on my pinky from pulling wire.  After a while, even wearing a bandage on the finger didn’t help.  Yes, I suffer for my art…

The main challenge of a torus is making it seamless. The rest is just like making tubing.  I figured out a way of making the stitches nice and tight, thanks to a tool that Loren uses for his turks head knot rings.  Three stitches before the finish, and despite frequent annealing, the wire broke on me!  :bang head:

Luckily the repair was easy, and I was able to finish it up.  I spent far too many hours on this, but I’m very pleased with it and want to make more as time and my finger permit.  The ghost of Frank Hoffmann is whispering in my ear again though:  for the amount of work involved, I should be making it in gold.

More photos: