Finished up the linen weaving project tonight. Seven loom-controlled-lace towels complete! They are cut apart, the edges sewn and ready to be washed tomorrow. After that I’ll hem them by hand and they will be ready to use. Its hard to believe that this project was started just a week ago. What a fast, fun experience. I really enjoyed weaving with linen and I can’t wait to do another project. So many plans in my…
Part 1 of this series can be found here. The yarn I ordered arrived today for the Rus Kaftan cloth project. I am very pleased with the colors. The reddish color is exactly the dark maddery red-orange I was hoping it was from the little bit on the sample card. I was inspired to calculate the warp length I will need. My process is a little different in that I work backwards from the amount…
Spent most of the weekend working on getting the linen weaving project on the loom. Saturday, I sleyed the reed and completed threading. Sunday, with some help from a friend, I was able to wind on the seven yard warp and start weaving. The sleying and threading wasn’t all that different from the wool warps I’ve done before. The big difference was in the winding on. It went FAST. No tangling. No fuzzies. No stretching.…
Tonight I made good progress on the linen weaving project. The warp ends have all been measured and are hanging in chains from the hanging beater of my loom (because I have a cat). There are a total of 386 warp ends at 7 yards long. The ends will be sleyed in a 10 dent per inch reed. This weekend, I’m hoping to get the sleying, threading and winding on of the warp completed…
In lieu of a real blog post, I thought I would be a photo gallery of some of my weaving projects. For some reason, I thought this would be easier. Not so much as it turns out. I went back through four years of pictures and project notes to put this together. I hope you enjoy this chronicle of my adventures in fabric weaving. I do a LOT of broken diamond twill. 😉
Recently, I was inspired to create a four panel hat. It’s something that I’ve been meaning to do forever and just never got around to it. A friend showed me a couple caps she made and another friend has been talking about the fabric she is weaving to make caps so that is probably where some of the motivation came from. Thanks, ladies, for getting me off my butt! That night the muse bit me hard…
The purpose of this article is not to provide step-by-step instructions, rather, it is to document for you the process I used in prototyping a Magyar headdress of the Conquest Era. You may have a better and more authentic way to construct one. In that case, I really do hope that you’ll share. The completed project – a prototype headdress. This project came about because of my frustration with keeping a veil on my head. My…
These early 10th century Magyar earrings can be made quickly and easily using commercially available findings or you can fashion your own findings from raw materials. Supplies you’ll need: 8 – 5mm silver beads 2 ft – 20 gauge brass wire -or- 8 gold-colored coiled wire beads 2 hoop earwires 2 – 3 inch headpins For a more period approach, skip the earwires and headpins. Instead purchase: 1 ft – 20 gauge silver wire gold leaf (optional) gold…
Edited to add: The door described in this post is now mounted on the wall of my sewing room. After eight years, we built a new, new door in 2012. Tourney season is coming up and I really need to stop procrastinating. You see, in September of 2001, as we were coming back from a crown event, my jurta door, which was bungied to the roof rack of my SUV, came loose and went flying.…
This article was written around 2003. I’ve had my jurta for 13 years now. I’ve replaced the door a couple of times, the roof ring once and last year we redid the leather ties that bind the wall together for the first time. For a look at how my jurta looks now, go here. Being inside a yurt for the first time was a life altering experience for me. Previously, my husband and I had…
