nemo ignorat

made something useful

While watching several dye pots over the last days, I was making stuff. The first new and really cool and useful finished object is: A Tool Roll.

 

closed it looks like this

And then you unroll it and there is so much place for all the usefull little tools I like to carry around.

and my most favourite tool: The Third Hand

and a small book of needles

in the cigar boxes are knitting needles, crochet needles and some wooden needles for nalbinding and other small stuff

and some stitching

I used rather pale shibori/indigo dyed fabrics, the purple binding is logwood dyed cotton and some walnut dyed cotton for the little pockets. Unrolled it is 63 cm long and 27 cm wide (24" x 10"). In case of emergency, you can use it as a slightly bumpy neck roll as well ;o)

Next on the list are: a pair of trousers (already in the first stages, I need to turn the felled seams now, add the waistband and dye it), a long arm shirt (this one has a bit of a history already and might take another while), two sleeveless shirts. All the while the dye pots simmer and I guard them.

and another shirt

Right now, I'm teaching a Sustainability workshop in the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers (OLG). We are now celebrating our 10th anniversary and I am a member now for about 5 years. I'm teaching workshops in the OLG almost from the beginning. Its a sharing thing. Knowledgeable members share what they know and can. I like it very much, even if it blocks  a month almost every year. I'm memer in the Worksshop coordination team as well and so it happens that we have one month left and I come up with a workshop idea. This is my second this year. It's calles "Sustainability in Textile Crafts" and threefolded. 1. I provide participants with information on our fibres. Where they come from and how they fit into an ecological and social fairness thought. 2. together with the other members we come up with things we can do better. Ideas with what to do with scraps like thrums for example (for non-weavers: thrums are the waste inches or yards from warps on floor looms). And 3. we all make a project from our stash. And only from our stash. No buying something to complete it (though swapping is "allowed"), only stash. Very cool, I can tell you. And so, as a kind of by-product of the workshop, I am working on another shirt:

one of my typical men's shirts. Great fabric, nice size and ugly cuffs and collar. Not to mention the breast pocket. Anyway. Collar, cuffs and plastic buttons removed. Buttonholes strengthened with Jude's nice buttonhole idea from Cloth to Boro 2 and now I'm beginning to patch over ugly spots.

This one will get buttons from the start, since it is rather warm (very soft herringbone twill cotton) and planned for fall wear.

I think, I will become more active over here after this month's workshop. The indigo class is finished, most of the texts for the OLG workshop are written so now I can slowly and my dye shop is slowly falling into winter hibernation. So I think (hope) I will be able to sew more for myself now.

Like some strips, for example ;o)

another one is already in the making.

Oh, and then there was an annoucement:

If anyone from my German/French readers is living in the west of Germany and interested in a fibre/textile event in Strasbourg on the 2nd week of Octobre, I will be showing the 1-2-3-indigo-vat there. The detailed programme is not finished yet, but I will be there from Octobre 9th to 13th.

Strasbourg, Maison Mimir, Festival du texile - Les arts du Fil

more crows

the cloth takes on a mind on its own.

since yesterday, another crow arrived and everything got stitched down. I just take Dee's and Joe's advise and don't think, just let the cloth go where it wants to go.

We have a lot of crows here. There is a clan that's native to our parts and soon we will get winter guests from the east and north. Where I lived before I was in the attic flat of an old 5 storey building and had a good look over one of those seemingly endless building sites with huge, giant cranes. In the cold winter mornings literally hundreds of crows arrived to congregate on the cranes, have a good nice chat about their plans of the day, how night was and whatever crows are talking about and after an hour they spread over the town.

Our native crows where I live now, are mixed breeds between hooded crows and carrion crows. Usually hooded crows are not so common in my parts. They are native more to the east, around the border to Poland. But all our natives crows here have some parts of white on them. One branch of family has a white streak around the neck, another has white spots at the wings and then there are some who have nearly white bodies with black wings. They are easily distuingishable to our winter guests from scandinavia and russia. Those are just black.

Ravens, the true corvus corax,  are rare here. There has to be a pair somewhere around, because in February I sometimes see them on the meadow in the forest. And hear them. With their prrruk-prrrruk and clock-clock-calls.

You see, I am fascinated by crows and ravens. I even like the magpie that's living in the tree at my house. She is sometimes a nuissance but I still like her.

congregation of crows

yesterday morning, I heard a congregation of crows in the trees. I don't know if one was preaching or if they were just chattering after the sermon but the first words I thought when I heard them was congregation of crows. And they stuck in my mind. And wanted out in cloth.