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The decorative motif of stamped man-in-the-moon scalloped conchos is likewise an iconic part of the Fabriquewerx style. This version uses 4 of them, glued, and stitched onto the center of the two “side” areas and two on the back panel place about 1” from the connections. Instead of the usual star, I chose to decorate these teal, silver and black conchos with dragon eye charms. I partially covered a naturally occurring hole on the strap end panel with a nickel and black swirly sew in Celtic bezel. To the back panel, I added a pair cut out silver sun charms to spiritually balance the moons. It became truly “Charmed “ when I centered a black Ouija Board Planchette on another scalloped concho on the back and then added the two silver hand hand charms . . .ready to interpret the spirit messages coming from our mystical universe.
I like to add a carved 1/4” lines all around many of my pieces, often dyed black, and all the panels we talked about above as well as the connecting strips were given this definition. To achieve the horizonal configuration that I chose to complete the belt/baldric I created a series of stripes. First, I then carved a line from the edging at about 3/4”-7/8” (varies a little bit with the width of the panels) from the top, this forms the top stripe that was stamped with the sunburst looking border tool and finished to become teal. That stripe was textured with an upside down row while the lower row was done right side up and they alternate to fit neatly in the space.
Another stripe was carved below the first to generally measure about 1” (save the strap end that tapers to about 1/4” near the tongue or prong end) This became the light brown /tan center stripe. Below the center horizontal field another line was carved forming the painted purple line which generally measures about 1/2” to 1” depending on the space that remains on the asymmetrical panels and finally the bottom field between the bottom edge and the purple stripe was painted black.
I oiled the pieces once the carving was achieved, then sponge dyed every thing with antique tan gel. I used acrylic paint to color the stripes. Turquoise paint was coated after dry with a watery translucent black dye to achieve the teal (same process used on the conchos talked about above) color. Violet and black acrylic dyes painted the lower horizontal fields. I oiled every thing again before I added 2-3 coats of acrylic finishers. If desired, I can again add a final shiny resin varnish called Tankote that eventually penetrates the finishes as this one has done.
