Pips’ Left Paw

An oblique view of a 24 shaft loom made of honey-colored wood with a natural-linen warp in progress. The woven cloth is visible on the working area of the loom (stretched sideways with a clip temple) and winding around underneath to and around the loom knee beam. The fabric near the knee beam is a different pattern than the more recently woven fabric. An end feed shuttle with a full pirn is resting on top of the cloth at the breast beam.

Added 1000-some picks of after-work weaving.

#handweaving #weaving 🧶

A view of an open countermarch shed (with floating selvedges) on a Glimakra loom. The heavy wood rails of the hanging beater dominate the center of the image, viewed end-on. To the right side the first few shaft frames are visible, some raised and some lowered. In the background on the far side of the loom a laptop is silhouetted against a bright window.

A detail of an inch of the new pattern of woven cloth, with some plain weave as a separation band in the foreground. In the background is the unwoven 60/1 line warp.

A wider view of the earlier pattern (twill organized into bifurcated triangles of more or less weft-emphasis), an already-ruffling separation with plan weave, and an inch of the next pattern.

Yard work yesterday = weaving today. #handweaving #handwoven 🧶

Yes all sleeper accommodations on Amtrak have a couple of outlets, possibly in weird locations. They often have quaint warnings about shavers-only (presumably vs irons?) but I think a portable air purifier can’t draw that much power, can it?

This isn’t the St John’s library - this is the one at Killingsworth and Commercial. It does look great for sure!

I saw and am so pleased you got it to work out! Both designs look great.

If you do, I would suggest cutting the fingertips off some cotton gloves and wearing those underneath the lab gloves so you have good sensitivity in your fingers but your hand down have to get all the clammy.

An awkward down-facing view of the spinning setup focusing on the treadles of a Lendrum upright wheel. There is a lot of water down there along with wet spots on the yellow and white pillowcase I use as an apron in the lower left of the image. On the right of the image is a small stool holding some crumpled gray nitrile gloves and a miniature cake pan with water in it. (The dish with the central hole is nice to hang over a stick when camping). The spinning wheel is made of blond wood.

Puddles.

Dry spinning an industrially prepared flax top while wearing loose-fitting nitrile gloves. The folds around the fingertips were a little frustrating - they got in the way of ‘countertwisting’ with my fingers (by this I mean Z twisting with my fingers to correct over twist in the S direction from the wheel action). Overall it was entirely possible to draft at about the usual size.

Wet spinning the same industrial flax top. The yarn is about the same size but a lot smoother. I don’t take a photo of the wet spinning without gloves, which I tried afterwards because I wasn’t going to try putting gloves on wet fingers. The counter twist situation was the same as for dry spinning - seems fixable with correctly sized gloves. The other observation is that glove-fingers drop a lot more water. I usually wear a pillowcase or towel as a lap blanket/apron while wet spinning and I noticed I was getting drops on my feet so maybe consider a bigger drop cloth.

Wet spinning some not-very-nice coarse line flax given a rough hackle and very hastily dressed on a freestanding distaff. I am not great at spinning line flax (and this flax down make it easy. This is the no-glove control to get my fingers dialed in (no actual spinning is in the photo -my phone is in my right/wheel-side hand.

Wet spinning the line flax with gloves. The yarn is worse, with the same issues as noticed with the top, but I think practice with gloves on (closer fitting in the finger tips) would definitely help.

I did some quick experiments on hand spinning flax with gloves on. Overall I’d say it’s definitely worth a shot for you to try! More commentary in the alt text.

It’s worth a shot? Maybe lab/medical nitrile/latex gloves would be thin enough and fit closely enough to have good haptics. I will try it after work if I remember.

Dry spinning it will work, but the yarn will be rougher. The water (or spit or size) makes the yarn smoother through the magic of pectin but it isn’t required for structurally sound flax or hemp yarn. Flax and/or hemp tow is typically spun dry for yarn (or twine or rope.) Very exfoliating.

Oh thank you! The signatures are Cougar Digital 104gsm printer paper (11x17 grain long, cut down to get the grain going the right way) in Natural. It writes nicely for both pen and pencil. I used euroflax 30/2 linen for the sewing … weaving is handy for having colorful strong yarns for books.

Took a break mid-sewing but piled the unseen signatures and top board onto the stack to protect the book-in-progress from feline incursion. Image has a gray cutting mat with a steel anvil shaped like the Greek letter pi on top of it (this is just to make an elevated work surface). On the anvil face there is a half-sewn book with wooden boards, ivory paper, and green linen thread. The sewing is a Byzantine-inspired pattern with four columns of link stitches forming a braided pattern. Each of the four stations has a thread with a curved needle attached.

A close view of the sewn and unseen halves of the book. The punched holes in the top nine signatures are visible in the unseen half, as are grooves in the wood for the upper board. The sewn half of the book has a green braided chain of link stitches.

A spine view of the nearly-finished book standing on the gray cutting mat. The covers are highly figured quarter-sawn sycamore wood.

A view of the back cover (the head is at the bottom of the picture) of the book showing the sycamore grain. The book is resting on coppery-orange oilskin paper that is destined to become tipped-in end sheets.

Punched and sewed the exposed-spine wooden board retirement gift journal today, after many evenings of working on shaping and smoothing the sycamore boards. #bookbinding #handmadebooks

I’m confident you can fend off the weaving police. Your strength of will is off the charts (at least according to following you on your blog).

Done! Tying the center sections together is fiddly and feels chaotic, but the symmetry of the stitching is nice. #bookbinding

Twenty sections and two paper covered book boards in a stack on top of an anvil on a wooden table. The bottom cover is stitched to the lower ten sections using dark maroon heavy waxed thread. The upper sections and cover are not yet seen together. The two halves will eventually be laced together. A brown blur in the lower left corner is a photobomb by Pipsqueak the cat. The structure of the book is described in the Byzantine codices chapter of Szirmai’s Archaeology of Medieval Bookbinding, but I am starting from the diagrams in Keith Smith’s Non Adhesive Bindings volume III. I think thinner thread next time - there is a lot of swell with doubled threads through every section. It might self-round (or be encouraged to round) but I doubt it will be stable.

Pipsqueak, a brown tabby cat with yellow-green eyes, a white bib, and white shoes, sites on a dark blue upholstered dining room chair. Her expression is attentive and forlorn.

Auditioning a new-to-me book structure, while Pips positions herself directly behind me to regularly and loudly lament my divided attention. Book details in alt text.

#bookbinding #cats

The colors looked good on the loom but look even better afterwards. 😍

Even with the same fibers throughout, the interlacements are localized and the un-interlaced parts can move a LOT in the water. Fibers with different properties just makes it extra.

I like the tax but would get irate every time I had the hassle of paying it (and that penalty BS from the first year when it was very poorly communicated), but now, somehow, it is a regular payroll thing so I only think about it when asshats undermine it or when the money is underused.

Very steady! Nice job!

Handweaving.net Weaving Drafts, Tools, and Documents Archive Weaving archive site with thousands of historic weaving drafts, documents, and tools

Number 43796 from handweaving.net with no additional modifications. Originally from 24174, 2500 Armature - Intreccio Per Tessuti Di Lana, Cotone, Rayon, Seta - Eugenio Poma, Italy, 1947

I thought I recognized the looms! I haven’t taken one of her classes yet but I have visited during one and she seems to be a really effective teacher.

That is a mad cute mug.

Who taught it?

Sigh #handweaving #weaving #handwoven 🧶

A low angle view of a loom with a fine (60/1) linen warp. The cloth in progress looks like little squares divided on the diagonal into warp-emphasis triangles and weft-emphasis triangles. The reed and wooden beater are visible in the dimly-lit background.

I can’t claim that this very fine linen is my -most fun- weaving experience ever but it’s reasonably well behaved. Handweaving.net draft 43796 in 60/1 linen at 50epi.

Your selvedges are getting really dialed in, and the rainbow is charming. Nice job!

What a delightful collision of niche interests! The lacemaker in your life (who might be you) seems to be quite lucky.

Uh is there a real artwork behind ‘do you ever really think about birds no really’?

USPS postage stamp. A detail of one if the story blocks in Harriet Power’s Pictorial quilt. Against a navy cotton background, this block features two abstract human figures appliquéd in cream colored cotton with arms raised, an abstract donkey figure in brown patterned fabric, and two ducks in pale cotton. There are also appliqué flowers and an appliqué sun using circular and triangular pieces of pale fabric. The bottom of the Forever Stamp bears the name HARRIET POWERS in all caps. From the USPS website: Four new stamps honor quiltmaker Harriet Powers (1837–1910), a formerly enslaved woman who stitched works that are celebrated as masterpieces of American folk art and storytelling. Just two of her quilts are known to survive. Born October 29, 1837, on a plantation near Athens, Georgia, the future quilter is believed to have learned to sew as a child. At 18, she married Armstead Powers, an enslaved farmhand. Eventually they would have nine children. After Emancipation, they bought four acres nearby in Sandy Creek, Georgia, where they raised cotton and vegetables. Along the way, Harriet Powers began creating quilts, and completed at least five. The two we know are referred to as story quilts because each of their panels features a pieced, appliquéd, and embroidered scene from a familiar story drawn from local lore or the Bible.

USPS postage stamp depicting a story blocks from Harriet Powers quilt. On a light brown fabric background, animal figures are secured using the hand stitched appliqué technique. The figures are abstract but appear to depict rabbits, deer, and coyote or perhaps foxes in a variety of natural colors and fabric patterns, from plain cream cotton to brown and white polkadot patterned fabric. The bottom of the Forever Stamp bears the name HARRIET POWERS in all caps.

USPS postage stamp depicting a story block from Harriet Powers 1898 quilt. Against a beige cotton background, abstract human and animal appliqué figures, with a rudimentary sun and moon figure in scraps of fabric.

USPS postage stamp depicting a story block from Harriet Powers 1898 quilt. Against a navy cloth background, abstract appliqué human figures that appear to be dancing (arms are raised and there’s a sense of movement in how the figures are arranged/placed on the fabric. Above the figures appear to be abstract shooting star symbols in an orangey brown fabric. The bottom of the Forever Stamp bears the name HARRIET POWERS in all caps.

The new Harriet Powers USPS postage stamps are so moving. Featuring details from formerly enslaved Powers’s “Pictorial Quilt” of 1898, I’m so glad these stamps will bring her work & life story to more people, especially when so much Black history is being erased from the public realm right now 💌

@joshmillard.bsky.social speaking of monumental knitting…