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.

Old textile equipment at a garage sale

I was very good today. Very very good. I went to an estate sale, and I didn't buy the Beka rigid heddle loom and floor stand. They wanted $75 for it, but didn't have instructions, and I think some pieces were missing.

I didn't buy the antique spinning wheel. It was a tiny thing, and rickety enough that it fell apart if you tried to actually use it. Pretty though. They said they thought it was a 'bride wheel' from Austria, used as part of a dowry, but had no real history on it.

I was very tempted by this antique tapestry loom though. I could have gotten it for $200. But again, it was too rickety to actually use, and it was missing parts. If I'm going to take up floor space in my house with fiber equipment, I rather want to be able to use it. That piece belongs in a museum, instead. I recommended they take it to the Pioneer museum, or to the antique dealers downtown.

So, instead I held myself to one little purchase. I picked up this old weaving shuttle.

I have a collection of weaving shuttles displayed on my studio walls, and didn't have one of these yet. It is a shuttle for a silk ribbon loom, like here: http://www.greatamericanweaving.com/facility.html . This one says 'Biehl & Son' inside. I haven't been able to find any Google hits on that, but I'm looking. In any case, I've rearranged my collection on the wall, and it now has a place of honor in the display.

Not a bad day!

A Tour of my Studio

Welcome to the lair of the Fiber Breathing Dragon.

My family giggles at me for how much stuff I shoe horn into my studio. And truly, I do need to do some de-stashing. I'll work on that some tomorrow, at Fabric War. Fabric War is a local SCA event, where everyone brings the stuff that has been sitting unloved in their stash. And then we all trade, and everyone somehow goes home with more stuff than they brought. Anything left over at the end of the day gets put in a big pile, and we have a free for all. Anything left after that gets donated to a local charity.

So, my job this afternoon is to go through my stash, both here in the studio and out in the shed where the gourds and extra boxes of fabric and fleece are stored. Let me give you a bit of a tour of my studio, so you can see where I work, and how much de-cluttering work I ought to be doing.

This is the south wall of my studio, and the one straight ahead of you when you walk into the room. It holds my computer desk, where I am right now. Above the desk is my reference library. To the right is my beading station, which is currently covered with a basket project, and various gourd, dyeing, spinning, and beading supplies that I need to find room for. There are a couple of tapestry and table looms squirreled away under the desks.

This is the west wall of my studio. The sun is streaming through my hand woven curtains onto my floor loom. The loom folds up and takes up less space when I'm not using it. The window leads out to my front herb and flower garden. To the right, you can see my sewing corner.


Here is the north wall and another shot of the sewing corner. That wall of books is my own personal pleasure reading library. I've been collecting mostly science fiction and fantasy since high school. I'm at the point now that if a new book comes in, I need to cull some space on the shelves. I've been using BookCrossing as a fun way to do that. Over on the bottom right, you can see my storage for big items. There is another floor loom tucked in there, an easel, a horizontal warping mill, my weasel, various baskets, an inkle loom tossed on top, and my drawings from art class are tucked down behind there.

And finally, the east wall is my storage closet. My husband put the shelves in for me. To the left is room for bolts of fabric to stand up. The top shelf holds large items, like the kumihimo stand, the drum carder, the bobbin lace pillow, etc. The next shelf down is for long flat items, like the umbrella swift and the loom reeds. I've currently got bags of finished yarn shoved in there too, waiting for them to sell on Etsy. The next two shelves hold my weaving yarn, loosely organized by color. You can just see the next shelf down, behind the roll out cutting table. That has pull out bins for small items like paint. The bottom two shelves hold big plastic bins. Inside the bins are my fiber and fabric stashes. Above on the wall is part of my collection of old weaving implements. I love to collect old textile tools, and put them back to use.

To the left of this picture is the door, with the ironing board, the drying racks, and the scorpion killing staffs tucked behind it. (Yes, scorpion squishing. I don't know that I'll ever get used to the desert Southwest.)

So there you have it. Now you've seen the organized chaos that is my studio. I've really got to do something about this--I'm starting to run out of floor space!