Mary Ostler

. I have been a little busy and /or sick for the last little while. I do have stuff to post, but am waiting for some final finishing.

Sherbert the Entari is slowly chugging along. Its possible it will be done for investiture, but I am starting to doubt it.

I didn’t kill my Mulberry Tree over the holidays. It is starting to bud in the carport. This means the Silkworm project may be only one more year away. It all comes down to how much growth I get this year. I really should get it in a bigger pot soon.

I am working on a turning project for my mom. It involves hundreds of pencil crayons being glued together. I have turned alot of stuff thats been laminated together, but never anything quite like this. It just might kill me =D.

I am building a game board based on a version of Hnefatafl, but it reminds me more of the Irish game Fidchell. I am calling it Boot Licking Toadie in tribute to the whole weirdness of the C______ War politics. The bootlicker with the help of the Toadies have to avoid being captured by the significant Minority all the while trying to suck up to the assorted senechals living in the corners of the game board.

Working on a Pilgrim Badge cast in a stone mold. Stove broke, so I am stuck for the moment.

More research on the Turkish Rug. I think I have my design sorted out except for the center element. Still looking, and thinking of dying my own wool. I have to figure out a rough estimate of the wool I will need, and then figure out if I have enough capacity to dye everything at once. If I can I dye, if not maybe not. Don’t want to thave the colors change mid carpet.

Still going to give the orange turmeric dye one more shot, then I will share the good and badness of my recent dyeing stuffs.

etc….

*** Yoinked from my other blog ***

I tried out another sample for the Turkish carpet project.  This time I tried using the Persian knot. It goes faster than the Turkish knot, but it doesn’t tighten up the same way. In fact it seems really loose until you weave the thread between the rows.  I think the Turkish knot leaves a more square look to the final product, and the ambassador painting has a grid feeling about it.

I also chose to do a full element from the holbien rug. This way I can roughly compare size to the original painting. From knuckle to finger tip is approx. half of the circular element, which is just about the same size as

*** Yoinked from my other blog***

So I have a project itching away at the old brain. I have recently been staring alot at Holbein Turkish Carpets. Maybe its the colors black, orange red, and white that make me think….gawd it would be cool to try and make one of those. I started looking into it too see what was involved. It looks simple enough, just long and tedious….

So before I went all crazy on this new subject, I thought I would try my hand at making a small sample.  This is at  roughly 14 knot / inch. The ones in the V&A museum average between 9.5 – 16 knots / inch. I used the Turkish style symmetrical knot as opposed to the Persian asymmetrical knot. The Persian knot supposedly  makes a nicer finished rug. I used super cheap  Acrylic wool for the test.

Much to think about. This would be an ambitious project even for a small prayer mat.  What kind of wool, dyes that were used, style of loom used in turkey in the 16th century, Design elements, cartoon,  yadda, yadda, yadda.

I seem to be slowly getting into the whole Turkish ottoman thing. Since I am currently weaving a hat tie, I decided to try to make a sorguç (Ottoman Hat Plume Holder thingy).

Mistress Safiye has made an amazing sorguç made out of silver using as many period methods as she could. Its a big slice of all-right, but I want to make one cheap and fast that doesn’t look to bad.

I gathered a couple of aglets I had from a Tudor costume. Originally I got a pack of 100 from Fire Mountain Gems , but I am sure you can find individual bolo tips for a lot cheaper. I bought two beads at a local craft store, and the peacock feather has been kicking around here for a while.

I used pilers to bend over the tab ends.

I took the aglet to a local Micheals and found a bead that looked right and fit the aglet.

Hot glue into the interior.

Bead now solidly on.

I had a mangy old peacock feather. I ripped off all of the feathers and gathered them together keeping the ends close to the same point.

Take a piece of thread and make a loop, keeping a short end just off of the feather bundle

Take the long thread end and wind up the bundle from the bottom and end just short of the loop. Take the winding end and send it through the loop.

Grasp the short end of the thread and pull into the loop slides under the wound section. You want to get the loop and the winding end to be in the center of the winding section.

Cut off the thread ends and cut the feather ends.

The red thread bundle is tight enough to not require any other methods of securing it in the metal bead. The yellow bundle is a little loose, so a small dab of hot glue fixes that.

Workable aigrette

Finished with the wool I was weaving. Ended up ~ 11″x 12.5′ long. I could have probably squeezed out another foot it I used a smaller dowel on the winder.

The weave is really loose at this stage. It needs some fulling to tighten it up some.

12.5′ of narrow wool. No idea what I am going to do with it.

Fulled it in the washer. Checking to see how its doing every 30 seconds during the agitation cycle. I called it quits at 4 minutes.

Dad was teasing me about not making it long enough for a turban. I showed him!

Before Fulling

After Fulling.