Sleying the reed.

Ok, I've been up to my eyeballs with modeling for life drawing classes the past few weeks, but I've finally had the chance to get back into the studio to get cranking on the fabric weaving project I've got. My deadline is the end of the month, so I need to hop to it.

This week? I finished measuring out the 1020 threads, each 14 yards long. I chained them up to keep them organized, and moved them to the front beam of the loom. I temporarily wrapped them around the front beam, so I could work with them from there.

Someone mentioned that it looked kind of like Rapunzel had been here. We decided if that was the case, Rapunzel was a Smurf. And had eight sisters.

It made me giggle.

Today I took the next step of warping, and passed the threads through the reed to spread them out evenly.

I want there to be 30 threads per inch of fabric. I have a reed that has 15 openings each inch, so I figured this would be a snap. Just put two threads in each slot, and I'm good to go. Except? I didn't check if my reed was wide enough for the fabric I had planned. Nope. Half an inch short. Luckily I checked that before I started threading!!

Instead, I pulled out my 12 dent reed (12 slots for each inch), and wandered around the internet to find the best way to still get 30 threads per inch. Yes, I could have done the math. But I'm lazy, and Google works. It turns out that alternating 2 threads per slot and 3 threads per slot does the trick. No problem!

Unless, of course, you are rocking out to Meatloaf songs and not paying attention to what you are doing. In that case, you forget to alternate one time. Which of course messes the pattern up. And crams a few threads too close together, which may or may not show up as a faint stripe in the finished fabric. Luckily, I caught that one only about 3 inches of threading further on. It took me about 20 minutes to fix the goof and  finagle each thread into the proper order, but it all looks correct now. Here's hoping!

Next up? Threading the heddles, so I can raise threads to create a pattern. But that will have to wait. I declare a weekend!

Modeling, Spinning, and Weaving

This is just a post filled with bits of this and that. First up, I thought I'd show you what I was doing last Thursday. I'm an art model, and that morning I was posing for a portrait drawing class. I had pulled out one of my Medieval costumes, and brought the spinning wheel along with me. Mind you, that style spinning wheel is actually several centuries too late for the style of dress, but the students didn't seem to mind the mismatch. They probably wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't said anything, actually. But I'm a bit of a fiber geek, so I know the dress is appropriate for the 1300's, and the wheel probably for the 1600's and later.

But the art work turned out neat! Both the photograph and this drawing were done by George Palovich, the teacher at TriPal studios. He mentioned that he might use the pictures and the initial studies as a basis for a later painting. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with.

Speaking of spinning, while I was at Estrella I found what was billed as a 100ish year old Russian supported spindle for sale. I remembered recently seeing this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxY8rPwMjbY&list=FLv-qbOJU3XYu6wnRipxqDDw of a woman from the Himalayas using a similar spindle. Since I tend to collect old fiber tools, I snapped it up. And then I walked across the street from the event and gleaned some cotton out of a straggler plant in the ditch that the farmer had missed in his harvest. I spent an afternoon pulling the seeds out of the cotton by hand, and learning how to use the spindle. I'm starting to get the hang of it. I think I want to pick up some cotton carders though, to make the fibers a little more regular for spinning. But it is fascinating how you can spin right from the cotton boll, right off of the plant!

And finally, I'm starting a project on the loom again. I'm working on enough cotton fabric in a broken diamond twill to make a Medieval style tunic. I'm using the same 10/2 cotton from Webs that I used for my warp painted napkins that I made for Christmas presents. I thought then that the yarn would make lovely dress fabric, so I'm going to give it a try. Currently I'm working on measuring out the warp. At 1020 threads, 14 yards long, 32" wide in the reed, this is going to take awhile. More on this project as I go along.

Estrella 2013 wrap up

I'm back from Estrella War, which was a week long historical recreation event put on by the Society for Creative Anachronism. There were about 3000 of us this time around, and I had a blast!!! I can't wait for next year when I can do it again. Perfect weather, wonderful people, great activities...I got so lost in the Middle Ages that I never wanted to come back. Estrella reminds me of the story of Brigadoon. A town arises out of the desert once a year, goes about its business, and disappears back into the dust.

Again????

I was too busy enjoying myself to take a whole lot of pictures, but I did get some of a small selection of the great amounts of arts and crafts that were being worked on, used, and displayed. Most of these were at an arts display on Saturday afternoon, with some around town heraldry, and a few shots of the felt boot class I taught. So, here is a small taste of the artistry that is being created in this wonderfully crazy group.

Looking so forward to next year. I never wanted to come back.

Making metal loops in a coal forge

As I mentioned, I've been making these fabric painted heraldic panels, to mark the entry way to our Estrella camp this year. (estrellawar.org) Now, while I do great on the fiber side of things, I turned to my husband to figure out a way to display these panels. We decided that he'd make some rebar stakes with metal rings on them, one for either side of a panel, and I'd sew ties to the sides of the panels to attach to the rings.

Hmmm. We had some old rebar, but we didn't have any metal rings. We did however have a bunch of metal rod.

And, we have a small coal forge in the side yard. He cut the metal rod to the appropriate size, and fired up the forge. I thought it might be fun to take pictures of how he transformed the rod into rings, so you could see what he was doing too. It is a neat process!:

He took the piece of metal rod, and stuck it down into the hot coals.

Then he cranked the blower to force air into the forge, to heat things up.

When the metal was hot, he fished it back out again...

...and used a handy hole in the legs of the forge to help him bend the metal rod.

The metal cools relatively quickly, so it went back into the forge to heat back up.

He fished it back out again...

...and this time used another set of pliers to help him bend the metal the rest of the way around into an approximate loop.

One more time into the fire. (I just like these fire pictures, actually.)

He found where the loop was hiding under the coals, and brought it out one more time.

Then he used a hammer and anvil to do the last bit of shaping.

A few more taps, and it is done.

Time to let it cool with the others. He ended up making 42 rings total. That ought to do us!

Once the rings are cool, he can take them into the garage to the welding station, and weld them onto the pieces of rebar.

Yup. That ought to do the trick!

Playing with Heraldry

Every year about this time I go into a frenzy of preparation, getting ready for a chance to step out of time. I'm talking about a historical recreation event put on by the Society for Creative Anachronism, called Estrella War. http://estrellawar.org/ This is week long trip into a Medieval past that never quite was, with 4000-5000 of my closest friends. Silly? Yes. Marvelous fun? Absolutely!!

This year as in most, I'm in charge of my own little camp, The Hearth. Only, this year I'm looking after over 40 people. Folks have been having such fun around my fire that they're bringing more of their friends along with them each year. The more the merrier, I say. Anyway, after last year I decided that it would be easier for folks to find us if we had a heraldic symbol to identify us. So I drew up a badge, and submitted it to the SCA powers that be. I just received word that my badge passed, which means that it follows all of the rules of heraldry, and doesn't look like anyone else's heraldry either. I registered it in my name so nobody else could snag it, and I've been working on ways to display it. The obvious first project was to make a sign for the entrance of camp, so folks knew where we are supposed to be

So, I pulled out some white fabric from my stash, and grabbed some Tulip fabric paints. This might not be the most historically accurate way of making a display, but it should get the job done.

I used some high tech tools to lay out the initial circle that I needed: a pin, some string, and a pencil. Hey, it works well!

Once I had my design sketched out, I drew my outlines with metallic black fabric paint straight out of the applicator.

When the outlines were dry, I used a brush to paint in the areas. This is basically a big paint by number. Easy! It just took patience.

And here is one finished fabric panel.










My husband Eric is making some rebar with rings welded to it. We'll stake the rebar into the ground on either side of the panel, and tie the fabric to the rebar. In theory, that should hold it up. We'll put this one at one side of the entrance to camp.

Our camp is part of a larger group, the Barony of SunDragon. That is the local group for the west side of Phoenix, AZ. One of the other baronies has challenged ours to a 'spiffy heraldic display' competition at Estrella. So, I'm also working on making another matching fabric panel for the other side of the entrance to camp. It will display the heraldry for the barony. The outline is drying, even as I type. Between the two, it should be obvious which camp this is, no?

Oh, and the King decided that he wants his warriors on the field to all be in Kingdom colors. In this case, he wants a Sea of Blue. For one thing, it is easier to see what is going on in battle if you can identify your troops at a glance. Also, it makes for good esprit de corps, adding to the magic of the event. So, I made my two warriors blue fighting outfits. They are in Kingdom colors, with the Baronial heraldic War Dragon badge on their chests to denote which unit they're fighting with, and the Kingdom populace badge on their shoulders. (You can't see their other shoulders, which has their own personal devices on them.)

Don't they look wonderful? And as you see them across the battle field, there is no question as to their affiliation. Kind of like modern sports team jerseys, only more Medieval.

Practical heraldry. There is a reason that we still use this stuff in our modern world. Product logos, school mascots, team uniforms...it still serves the purpose of letting you identify a place, person, or thing at a quick and distant glance.