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The House in Winter -- a book

2/26/2019

 
Picture
La Maison en Hiver; hand woven tapestry; hand spun linen, paper and zip log bag; hand made paper; coptic binding; 2.5" x 2.25" x 1"
It's probably not the best idea
for paper tapestries
to hang out in the snow,
Picture
especially when said tapestries
are stitched 
into a hand made paper sandwich.
Picture
paper hand made by Velma Bolyard; flax, cotton rat, abaca, hemp, indigo, earth pigments; each sheet 2" x 3.5"
But it's very cold this morning
so the snow is dry.
And anyway,
​ Velma Bolyard's papers
seemed quite at home out there--
radiating warmth 
without actually melting anything.
Picture
One of the lovely things
​ about this little bookish project
was that every part
was made to be
exactly the right size.
Picture
four selvedge tapestry technique- with fly line backing supplemental warps above and below actual tapestry linen warp
The tapestries were warped
to match the paper sheets
(thanks  Four Selvedge Tapestry).
Picture
And  Velma made each sheet
 in its own tiny mould
so all I had to do was fold them.
​
Velma is the person
​who opened my eyes and mind
to the wonders of kami-ito (spun paper),
and if you want to learn more about it
I recommend both her blog and website.
Picture
Velma's kami-ito is the fine off white at the top of the photo....
Not that I was patient enough
to learn properly.
Indeed, 
I've felt compelled to add twist
to all kinds of weird scraps --
some of which I loved to work with
and some of which
has been  unpleasant
or downright impossible.
But that's what makes it so interesting, eh?
Picture
Imagine, however, the pleasure
 of weaving these tapestries
(or at least a good portion)
with Velma's hand spun kami-ito--
Picture
and binding the book using
the two needle Coptic Binding 
she, an actual bookbinder,
recommended....
Picture
Yet another reminder
of the power
of practice
of study,

of reading,
and of repetition.
Picture
And it's also a reminder
that nothing ever happens
unless,
​ now and again,
Picture
a person
leaps out into the snow
to see how it feels.
Picture

A final note on the tapestry weft: 
Rebecca Mezoff just wrote a wonderfully thorough blog post on current sources for tapestry weft  which I highly recommend. She briefly addresses the use of cellulose fibers--paper, linen, cotton and the like--but since that is not what she uses, the focus is on wool. I dont' yet feel ready to make any definitive statements about using cellulose fibers myself,
but I have been messing around with them for the last year or so
and if you're curious how it has worked/looked over time for me,
​ check out some of the posts in the cellulosic experiments category of my blog.

Sartorial Satisfaction

2/19/2019

 
Picture
When last we left our heroine,
she was planning to devote herself to shoveling 
and finishing her skirt,
Picture
Amazingly enough, 
​in the last week
she managed to do both
if not much else.
Picture
Pinning first,
then rough basting with cotton yarn
Picture
The basting made it easy to try on
so I could  measure and calculate
​ for the button band.
Picture
Truth be told, 
the buttons were the most traumatic part of this,
 including the sett drama at the very beginning.
Picture
Clearly I survived,
but it was not hard to notice my relative reactions
to the overwhelming abundance
of what is supposed to be a fabric store
and the joy of having one piece
of very plain cloth
waiting at home.
Picture
Brief aside about value --
When I first chose the values of yarn
I assumed I'd use the darker of the two
for the knitted panels.
But you can see that the button band above
(which I did knit in the darker value)
looks significantly darker than the woven cloth,
Picture
while the triangular knit panels,
though somewhat lighter,
blend in with the woven cloth
with more subtlety.
I can only conclude that the knitted cloth 
has so many shadows
that it reads darker than it is
thus making it blend in with the whole.
A good thing to note for future skirts --
sometimes those knitted panels
​might want to take center stage!
Picture
Sewing the buttons on
before replacing the basting with actual yarn/thread
allowed me to  adjust position
of hte woven and knitted panels
and thus the size of specific areas,
so that the skirt would drape just as I wanted. 
Picture
And yippeee!  It does!
Despite the 10 F temps yesterday,
(definitely a two sweater day),
​it was also wonderfully cozy to wear outside--
it drapes and stretches,
so I can take big steps but also not get tangled in cloth.
Picture
It is wonderfully cozy to wear inside too--
Picture
and after taking this pics so you could see 
a little more clearly how it fits.
I sat down on the floor
and spun cotton on my book charkha,
the skirt stretching where I did --
no binding or funky leg positions necessary.
Picture
So yes --
sartorial satisfaction is a thing--
and the flamingo and I are pretty pleased it ourselves.
Picture
Except I should also have worn some shades.
​It was bright out there!
Picture
And so as not to leave you 
with my smug expression ,
here's the view from the top 
(golly gee I DO love these textures)
and a few specs:
The Skirt itself is 32" long.
It weighs 405g  --approx 14 oz
Owing to the sett miscalculation mentioned above
I have another 75 ish inches of fabric left --
enough for a knee length three panel Sarah-Dippity
or a mid thigh length four panel one.
But it is snowing again.
and since I now have something cozy to wear,
it's time to get back to whatever I was doing
a couple of weeks ago.
​What was it again?
Picture

Snow Day

2/12/2019

 
Picture
We're having a  thoroughly wintery week here in North Idaho--
cold and white and silent (except for the snowplows).
It is perfect weather
for the long tweedy Sarah-Dippity
I've been working on.
Except--
Picture
That I've been doing so much of this (see above)
that the skirt still looks like this (see below).
Picture
So, thought it's probably not how the internet works,
I'm going to declare today a Snow Day,
make another cup of Oolong,
and go stitch these yummy swaths
of knit and woven cloth 
into something I can wear.
See you next week!

Cloth-making cul-de-sac

2/5/2019

 
Picture
One of the great things about comics
Picture
is that they free me from the need to find words
Picture
for things I can't quite express.
Picture
I only wish I could draw a picture
that could describe the weight and texture 
Picture
Houndstooth wool before washing
of these two swaths of cloth
(each 104" x 8.25" after washing/light fulling)
Picture
The sett issue of last week
really did end up working in my favor
as, not only did I get another two days of blissed-out weaving,
(this kind of cloth-making is super fast compared with knitting),
Picture
but I also have nearly 70 inches of fabric left--
enough to make a second 
(if decidedly shorter) skirt.​
The extra yardage also meant
another expedition downtown
(all of five blocks away),
to buy some more yarn
​for the knitting parts of this project.
Fresh from weaving yummy yardage
I just happened to notice
that there are quite a few possibilities
for future Sarah-Dippity skirts
in that store.
Picture
Harrisville flywheel yarn before washing (hot water and Eucalan no rinse wool wash)
While there, deep in a discussion
of how mill spun yarn is finished
​and why I find the knitting experience
so much more pleasurable
​if I wash such yarn before knitting
(if not for weaving),
we conjured an experiment,
​the results of which you can see above and below.
The yarn is not only fluffier and shorter,
it is also distinctly softer.
Why wait till after the knitting is done?
Picture
Harrisville Flywheel after washing
At any rate, after several swatches
I'm now deep in the knitting portion of this skirt show,
where, given the length of the woven panels I just cut,
​ I am likely to remain for a while.
Picture
But that is no hardship. 
I do love to knit.
And it'll provide balance to the other enticing
(but less pictorially sharable), thing I'm working on:
​an article for the autumn 2019 issue of Ply magazine!
​Wheeeeee!
Picture
Indeed, I seem to be having an extra delicious magazine moment,
as I drew a cartoon for the new issue of Spin Off
which should be showing up at any moment.
I haven't seen it 'in paper' yet,
but am most excited. 
Has anyone received their copy?

I sure do love to be part of this yarnish world
and treasure absolutely everyone in it. 
    Picture

    ​Sarah C Swett 
    tells stories
    with
    ​ and about

     hand spun yarn. 


    Picture
    Click for info on
    my four selvedge
    warping class
    with
    ​ Rebecca Mezoff  
    fringeless


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