Fiber, Fashion, and More

For all fashion, fiber or craft related knowledge and inspiration

[scifi-centaur-arts]

TIGER PANTS TIGER PANTS TIGER PANTS

[iamasalmon]

the thing about fiber art that nobody tells you about is that every single kind of fiber art is a gateway drug to other kinds of fiber art.

[plantnerderyallday]

You guys. I'm so excited. So we were cutting down and stripping the bark off of Black Locust trees (Robinia pseudoacacia) at work to make some posts rather than buy pressure treated lumber. This tree is considered an invasive species here, but apparently it's valued as both firewood and timber where it's from. It's supposed to be very rot resistant, too.

Behold the beautiful timbers:

Now the thing is, that while I was removing the bark, I started trying to see how long a piece I could remove in one go*, as is my habit. I was really impressed by how flexible the bark was, and how easy it was to make long strips:

And then I thought I remembered** reading about how people are able to take the inner bark of ash trees and peel it away from the outer bark, so I decided try on my break, and:

Look at that! So flexible! So smooth! So staying in one piece!

I did some quick googling and found a few examples of people using black locust bark this way, so I'm pretty excited to try it out. The first thing to do apparently is to dry it out, before rehydrating it to work with.

If you've done this or similar and have any tips, I'd love to hear them!

*Yes, I am the kind of person who habitually removes the orange skin in one piece.

**Turns out I remembered wrong, and apparently they split the individual growth rings by pounding the trunk? Which is incredible!

[somnambulant-seraphim]

.⋆˚₊☼⋆°✩𖤓☽˚.⋆ Moon and Sun ⋆˚𖤓☽˚.☼⋆｡°✩₊˚.⋆.

[gher-bear]

I know I haven't been doing much beyond reblogs and fandom theorizing (and I'm about to do that again, so sorry not sorry), but I've actually been doing a lot behind the scenes!

These are my two latest spinning projects. The teal/copper is a BFL/tussah silk mix, and the grey/blue is merino/tweed blend/bamboo. I've also been working on knitting a shawl, and I've gotten good enough at knitting that I can at least pantomime fixing a mistake, but not good enough at it that I don't seriously consider the entire project a lost cause for a bit before I attempt the pantomime. My next spinning project is probably going to be a head start on TdF. I've got two pounds of white fiber from the fiber mill my mom works at, and I picked up two pounds of a beautiful brown and white fiber blend from the last local fiber festival. It's gonna take a while, and I'd like to get the project moving.

[crookedtines]

Finally bought some dye and have been having so much fun with optical color mixing. I decided to start with cmyk primaries to get some vibrant color options.

So far I've only mixed up the main batch of colors, but I'll split them up and create a palatte of tints and shades once I have access to a scale again.

I don't have any fancy tools and have been blending the fiber by hand, so it's probably best I have a forced break for the sake of my fingers. Once I'm done I should have a very useful set of 57 2g swatches to play with! (Plus 5 more for a set of grayscale swatches)

If I'm still up for it, I might repeat the whole thing with my classic red, yellow, blue primary dye set. For a truly massive set of heather swatches.

[lil-leviathan]

New warp on the loom! The brown and green are from my big yarn haul and the orange was a gift.

[aceinthetrap]

Dynasty Flowchart (Extended) – Nüwa Hanfu

An ultra extended flowchart for identifying dynasties! Even identifying sub-periods of each dynasty. As always, this is a general guide ther

does the makeup look sad or happy? >>> goth & sad >>> middle tang dynasty [lmao]

[wine-red-shore]

Do I have more urgent projects? Yes. Am I working on my 2nd snake instead? Also yes lmao

Also the guild teaches us a fun little alt to the snake pattern where you add in the outer passive later so the nose is sharper. It felt very trust the process the first time.

[anxietyriddledsquid]

it’s storming hard so we have the lovely dirty basement floor backdrop

took this off the loom a week ago ish and forgot to take pictures. this was just to use up the rest of the warp after the main project (which was ass) but it turned out way better. the treadling was more or less improvised as i went, with mostly the same sequence but different repetitions. i really like the result and it’s definitely the most ive enjoyed doing overshot without getting bored with a pattern and bailing/switching

i just wrote what i was doing down on sticky notes as i went so they aren’t well organized but here’s the page i ended up with

[soniamakes]

Okay, so I got myself a little treat. A teeny tiny little electric spinning wheel, the Electric Eel Nano 2.1.

I do enjoy hand spinning but I have way more fibre than I can manage on my drop spindles. Having seen what an electric spinning wheel can do, and at this price point, I decided to give it a try. Seriously, I have about Kilo of indigo dyed Corriedale wool that I bought when I first started spinning.

So I’ve been designing a winter scarf. I also bought a handful of indigo dyed wool locks to use as fringe. The plan is to spin some fingering weight yarn, weave it into a scarf on the rigid heddle loom, and trim it with the locks.

[madsciencepottery]

Weekend shibori (not shibari, lol) my hands are dead from piping all those lines but this is one of my better katazome shibori

[some-things-to-take-home]

First Project off the loom!

Colour choice is questionable bc i just used the warp the original look owner had set up and whatever scrap yarns they gave me- but I tried my best to make the colours work together and be less atrocious.

[tj-crochets]

hey incredibly specific ask: does anyone have a reference photo of the bit of Emperor's New Groove where Yzma says "I'll turn him into a flea"? I think I might want to sew that flea as a plushie

[kingtulip]

?

[tj-crochets]

Thank you!! That's the flea!

[tj-crochets]

And then I’ll turn that flea into fabric lol

[tj-crochets]

I did not expect y'all to like this flea this much, I would have made the effort to actually change out the bobbin and thread on my machine if I thought this many people would see it (oops lol) Does anyone want the pattern? The legs are a little finicky to turn right side out but it's a really simple pattern with just two pattern pieces

[ihavethemangoes]

LET ME PUT Y’ALL ONTO THIS BOOK

So the book is Reflections From a Flaxen Past by Kati Reeder Meek. It’s specifically an exploration of Lithuanian fiber art from the perspective of an outsider, she’s super clear about not being Lithuanian herself so the vast majority of the book just features other Lithuanian artists.

Very cool to see the many, many pictures of women weaving and spinning. Also a great inspiration book because again, there’s just SO MANY pictures of weavings.

I’ve seen a couple posts about weaving songs AND THIS BOOK HAS SOME both in the original Lithuanian and an English translation.

But my FAVORITE part of the book is ALL THE PATTERN DRAFTS. They’re all very pretty and there’s quite a few I haven’t seen before.

There’s a section towards the end that has a really extensive list of museums and other resources which is a little outdated since the book was published in 2000 but still mostly relevant. I have no idea how my grandmother found this book for me but I’m very excited to give it a full read.

[asoftspotforangels]

some of my favorite woven tapestries, by Cecilia Blomberg:

Point Defiance Steps

Mates

Rising Tides

Vashon Steps

[caruwa]

Tiger Moth (areas galactina)

handembroidered brooch, 6 x 3 cm

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