I'm Renonys, and here is where I document all my attempts at making period type things

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

One week!

One week until we leave for the US! Seven more sleeps! I'm getting really excited now :). I had my relaxing day on Monday, getting only about 20cm of weaving done. I made up for it yesterday though.


Here it is! I'm weaving with the black on top, but underneath is blue! I started with all my tablets threaded in the same direction, but I didn't really like the look of it, so I flipped every second card and I liked that way more betterer. The eight selvedge cards are still threaded in the same direction, so it gived it quite a nice border. The band is 2cm wide, and after weaving the bag strap which was 4cm it seems so tiny! It's coming up really nicely, but I'm not sure that I'll want to work with this silk again. It's spun silk so it's made up of shorter fibres, which means that I've got quite a problem with piling. The string is really fluffy, and mostly it gets stuck on the weft wrapped around my shuttlebeater. I get to a point where the weft won't unwind anymore and I have to pull all the fluff off. Every now and then it gets stuck in the band and I have to pull it out, but mostly the finished band is fine. I also get it all over my hands every time I untwist and shift the warp along the loom. The reeled silk from Treenway that I used for my fail belt was plied really tightly, and I'm wondering if that's what made it not compress at all. The reeled silk was a better quality and made from longer fibres, and it was shiny, which is nice in a silk. I may have to go hunting for a supplier that sells reeled silk that isn't so tightly plied, since Treenway only has four or five different varieties. Three of them are the tightly plied cord, and the other two aren't very fine. Although this spun silk may do really well as a weft for the reeled silk, since it compresses more.

Yesterday I also went on an adventure to buy a D-ring and some sheet brass for the buckle, AND while I was out I even went and bought a travel card for my US monies. Then I went to Nathan and Catherine's house to look at hotels for our one night in Pittsburgh, and I did some work on my oopsie surcote. I threw it on over a cotehardie yesterday and it was too small. I would have been able to button it closed, but it was a little tight over my boobs which I didn't like. Luckily I had stopped to check this before making the buttonholes, because I was able to take the front seams out half an inch each, and I also lowered the neckline a little bit. So last night was spent fixing that up, and then I closed up the skirt down the front. So now I has a dress shaped thing. All that's left to do is the buttons and buttonholes, the bottom hem and the sleeves.

Today I'm hoping to finish the last 50cm or so of my weaving, and get the buttonholes done on the dress. I should have both completely finished by the weekend, which gives me time to do the little fixes on a couple of things, and even maybe make a man-cote :)

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