Ikat is on my mind in recent days. I bought the book, watched the videos, and naturally soon thereafter I would want to go down to the tiny (dye) house where my indigo and madder are waiting patiently for me, and start tying knots!
A lovely artful video on one family’s kasuri making . . .
Another artful video from the same dye house, more extensive footage with no vocal. . .
Sometime ago I posted this excellent Hands Series of a Dublin Wool Mill, but it seemed to have been taken off of youtube so couldn’t be viewed. Now almost three years later, I have found it again, a superbly artful wool spinning mill & weavers from the late 1970’s. Watch and find out what happens when colors layered in to wool sandwiches are fed to the “fear-not machine”, the “scribbler machine”, and old style mill spinning with a “mule”, then various weaving of the cloth and processing into the Irish Tweed that is world renowned. This episode is absolutely loaded with all sorts of tweedy goodness ~~~ enjoy!
In another life I am a weaver. Perhaps I’ll grow up as a child of the earth, tending the plants and bringing water, then later as a young woman I would bear the tension of the backstrap, squaring weft against warp, sweating through long tedious hours of work so honorable, and insulated from the worries and the wars of the world. Or really, just any kind of weaver, anywhere! (( You can see the very same mosi weaving master filmed a little earlier in her life back in this post which is quite a bit more extensive in the technique of making the warp)). But then, it really would take a lifetime to do this, why would I want to be a rank beginner now? Instead, from time to time I’ll just post great weaving films that I find.
See all weaving videos. . .
Dear Nora and Fin-ster,
I want to tell you a little story about the Christmas hats I made for you. I wrote the pattern for this chullo in Spring of 2017 when your PopPop, Papa & Aunt Zan were in the Andes Mountains of Peru, walking the Camino Inca Trail to Machu Picchu. I started when PopPop left, knitted a pile of them, wrote and submitted the pattern, and by the time he got back home a week later, I had finished everything! I named the design Camino Inca Chullo and there are many ways you can make them, but I knitted the improvisational variations for yours, making it up as I knitted along, from bits of yarn I had in a drawer, some that I overdyed with colors I thought you’d like. Nora, your Papa thought I ought to put kitty ears on yours, so I did, and positioned the ears where they worked best, as the top of the hat tends to slouch back. A soft slouchy chullo with cat ears sounds like a great hat I think , but the ears can be easily taken off if they’re not behaving. Fin-ster, I just want you to know that in the traditional dress of the Peruvians who live in the Andes Mountains, especially near Machu Picchu, only the men and boys wear these style hats, and usually have many very big fluffy tassels and pompoms, yours only has one rather small one by comparison, so wear it with pride Little Man! PopPop wanted me to make them for you, so I did, they are made of superwash wool, so they won’t shrink if you throw ’em in the washing machine, and also, the wool was grown from sheep in the Peruvian Mountains! I better get them in the mail now, I hope you like them, and Happy Christmas! Love, Nanna.
A little film we shot after we photographed Solo Sweater Success last week at the castle. The film is a little rough around the edges, and a bit too dark, but my niece is completely natural, totally unpretentious, and of course, so artful. I guess just like our photo shoots usually are. Enjoy our first little film! In order of appearance, she models . . .
Sol Inca cardigan, Sol Inca pullover, Calidez vest, Fisher Vest with Aria Stole.
