Up From the Depths
When I first started this blog, I wanted to stay away from encyclopedia-type reports on the textile arts. But as time has gone by, I have realized that it would be helpful for me to have background information in one place, so that if I refer to spinning on a drop spindle, or an Egyptian loom, or something, that information would already be here and I wouldn’t have to repeat.
Also, I get some views from students searching for that kind of thing, and as a former teacher, I hate to disappoint them!
So for the last few weeks, I have been working on a page about basic textile processes, and it is finally done! I feel like I am emerging from a deep well into some fresh air. It’s been cold and cloudy for weeks and I’ve been researching in old books, and trying to figure out how to structure the information, and trying to take pictures with the timer on my camera – but when I have an idea stuck in my mind, I just can’t go around it, I have to work through it. It may not even be helpful to anyone, I don’t know, but at least it benefited me and I have a sense of completion. I hope it helps someone with their homework sometime.
Here are a few other things that have been going on here at the Textile Farm. We have tons of birds at the feeders, and that brings a lot of hawks.
Wood ducks normally show up this time of year and stay a couple of days – my husband built a nesting box for them and we are hoping it convinces a pair to stay.
Kestrel
Red-shouldered hawk. We’ve also had an osprey around lately, but my pictures of him are too blurry.
My husband built a nesting box for wood ducks!
We have had a lot of cold cloudy weather lately, but some spectacular sunsets.
I’m ready to move on to some new projects!
We all start our blogs for various reasons, but I am looking forward to your page on textile processes. As a child I often would dream of spinning wool into yarn and had planned on at least trying it one day. Maybe that’s what we need; a shop that offers different crafts to try – like soap making, spinning, dyeing fibers, etc. I too love to watch birds; we’ve had some interesting ones here at our feeders too – oh and the sunset pic; simply beautiful!
I would love to open a shop like that – it would be more of a community service than a store because I would really hate to have to try to make it earn money! I hope you do get to try spinning sometime – a drop spindle is a good introduction, and any skills you pick up with that, translate well into spinning with a wheel too.
PS – the page is up at the top, under Extremely Basic Fiber Processing. I should have put the link in this post! The page tabs are really small and I didn’t think about the fact that it wouldn’t be very noticeable!
Fantastic sunset! I am excited about your textile processes page – I’ve learned so much from your posts, and been inspired to investigate so many things on my own by your observations and promptings – I think a centralized knowledge depot will be excellent.
I’ve learned so much from your posts too! You have sent me off into the world of Greek weaving – I am going to try a reconstruction of their method.
If you do check out that page, be sure and let me know if I need to clarify anything!
My sister recently bought a spinning wheel and I am anxious to try it out! Jane
I hope it goes well for you! I saw that you are getting geared up to try natural dyeing too – it will be fun to dye your own handspun yarn! 🙂