SpinnySpinny

This weekend I kinda got volunteered to host a fiber get-together, but that’s ok because it’s why the studio is the studio and doesn’t have a tv and other things usually found in a room of that sort. (Just because there’s a sofa doesn’t mean it’s the living room.)

I had good intentions to actually get a bit of spinning done, but instead did some sewing (and laundry) and hauled out the drum carder for a lesson. Unfortunately I managed to not get rid of the proffered junk fiber, my guests having better taste than mystery wool. (I still don’t know what some of it is, but I sure did end up with a lot of it.)

So fiber was carded and weavings were passed around and stuff like that. One person is a novice spinner and she was quite taken with the drum carder. It isn’t actually mine, being on semi-permanent loan, but its owner has expressed some interest in selling it. I need one that can handle finer fiber so although it’s been living at our place I have only used it on occasion. Now as it turns out, my other guest has a drum carder she never uses that is better with fine fiber, so I may well end up buying that one.

This is pretty much how things go, equipment wanders around here and there, settling in where it’s needed at the time. Although my textile closet has lately been hard to escape and many of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” items are still lurking. I keep thinking something would be good to have around for students, but when was the last time I had one of those? For someone who hates hand carding I have rather a lot of sets of them, along with various “gift” yarns and fabrics that are probably worth about what I paid for them.

We went to the tailor today, for what was supposed to be the fitting but there wasn’t anything to be done. So we left with the finished jacket. The Harris Tweed fabric is classic. There was some “miscommunication” about the aforementioned elbow patches and the tailor assures us they can be added later if desired. I think it looks great without them and I swear I didn’t call him about it or anything. Here’s some pictures:

The Boyfriend is immensely happy with it, although I think I’m going to have to smack him if he keeps unbuttoning the sleeve vents. Yes, you have functioning buttons, that’s one of those custom tailor things. You don’t need to point this out to anyone who happens to be walking by.

I briefly thought I should have asked for a couple fabric scraps, this stuff is expensive and it would be interesting to play around with. I’m having to resist fiddling with the kemp, however.

It took about six weeks, but the comment spammers have finally found me. I already had compulsory moderation for first-time posters, but basically I’m getting nothing but spam comments.

If you are a real person and want to leave a comment, here are the things to know:

• You must enter a name and email.
• If Akismet thinks you are a spammer, you lose.
• If this is your first comment, it will go to moderation.
• If there are any links in it, it will go to moderation.
• If you comment again with the same name and email (and I approved your previous comment) then comments without links are automatically approved.

Comments are encouraged (I know you are out there, I can see you in my website logs.) But spam is evil and moderation is unfortunately one of the few defenses I have.

Here’s the organza I made blue:

It’s hard to get a good picture of sheer fabric, particularly when the room with good lighting has a striped sheet on the bed. But there it is. I gathered the fabric along both selvedges and then bunched it up and tied it with rubber bands, kinda like one of those old broomstick skirts. The folds of fabric all crammed together made the dye take unevenly and the rubber bands made white stripes where it kept out most of it out. Indigo isn’t very energetic when it comes to working around resists, like some other dyes that will wick under ties to color the fabric.

No, I have no idea what I am going to do with it. I got a bolt of the stuff on sale a while back and I’m mostly just playing with it. I typically make clothing from soft fabrics that drape well and organza is stiff no matter what you to it. It would make an interesting sheer layer over something else.

I had this week off, so some friends came over again. We made things blue. I gathered and tied about 5 meters of silk organza, which I’ll get a picture of later. I just washed it this morning.

Of course, we do what you should never do, dye stuff in the kitchen surrounded by food:

It was instant indigo, which is far less complicated than a traditional fermentation vat. I’ve done the whole big deal (with and without the stale urine part) and while that is technically interesting, I’m not going to do it in my kitchen in an afternoon.