Unravelled Revelry

People who have been around me much over the last year or so know I am really into the up-cycled materials thing.  I have always been a reduce, reuse, recycle type of person, but with my weaving I have really gotten into sweater yarn.  Knowing I can take a sweater from the thrift shop and turn it into something completely different is really wonderful.  However I have also learned to check my materials better.  found this heavily textured sweater in cream that looked like it would really come out as large output yarn.  unfortunately I didn't have a magnifier with me to check the seams that day.  so I get this sweater home with the other 6 and start to pull it apart.  up that's right it was a "cut and sew" variety of sweater  that means, not back and forth knitting, every row is its own strand of yarn.  longest piece was 4 feet long at full stretch.  grrrrr.

oh well right?  I can't really use it for weaving because most of my weaving is on warps longer than 6 feet.  then I thought well,  we drum, we dance, we have the "used camel salesman" in our house, so what would be more appropriate than tassels?  HA!  I have it!  this was my light bulb moment, my eureka. and all started with looking at my homemade swift with the draping of the sweater all over it.  bundle, wrap, and tie and here we go!

All spun up

I was given the gift of fiber love by two amazing women.  this was back in '01 so 11 yrs ago.  since then I have spun on homemade spindles of various materials, store bought spindles, spinning wheels and homemade spindle wheels.  I have many favorites for different reasons and each will be showcased here eventually.  Right now I am trying to challenge myself with a few different projects one of which is another fleece to fabulous.  My first fleece to fab item was a nalbound hat for my hunny.  spun, plied, dyed then nalbound and it turned out great.  Now I am going to be a bit more adventurous.  My next project is to spin weave and dye fabric and then hand sew a complete set of garb from the skin out.   Wish me luck!

Notty Nalbinding

I started to research Norse history and textiles in 2008 as part of my historical recreation.  too many people focused on "late period European" and I was tired of see nothing but farthingales and Elizabethian garb or ultra basic excuses for surcoats and cotehardies.  so I struck out started looking into Persian and Norse.  I ran across an amazing resource in the American Institute for Archaeology.  their Director on the east coast specialized in Norse and "viking" era histories.  She gave me a wonderful book list to start with and was very encouraging.    I dug through countless online museum galleries and read all sorts of accounts of life from then.  and realized that a lot of the findings made before.......say.....  the 80's have some misconceptions in them that are just now being rectified.  the biggest in my humble opinion is the difference between knitting and Nalbinding.  it has since been discovered that just about all of the original BCE pieces surviving that were once called knitting are actually something much older and universal.  Nalbinding is worked with a single large eye, blunt tip needle.  this needle is typical made of wood or bone/ antler  and the yarn is worked in sections rather than continuous from a ball.  Typically nalbinding was used to create socks, mittens and hats.  at least that is what we believe as the vast majority of surviving items fall into those categories.

I started this part of my journey with a pair of finger-less gloves made form some scrap yarn.  and they turned out how any first attempt to teach yourself needle craft turned out.  as an example of why we don't worry about our first projects to our future students.  lol  I learned how to do what is commonly referred to the Oslo stitch and also the York or Copper gate stitch.  these two stitches are known by these names simply because that is the name/ location of the digs that they were found at.  after working several trial pieces I got into the groove and successfully created Hats, bowls, cuffs, socks and mitts.  and while it is a slower process than I was used to with crochet, it is very fun and became second nature to me.

Pictures to follow soon.