Mary Ostler » textile http://www.maryostler.com Elizabethan Wood Butcher & Builder of Things Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:33:05 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.5 Turkish Carpet Project v1.9 Yellow http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:49:43 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2628 So First Dye job up to bat is the yellow wool. It is the smallest individual color on the carpet, and since I am not that familiar with dyeing, I figured it would be a quick tutorial on how to dye. That and if I totally munk it up, its not going to cost me a fortune to redo.

I got 100g of weld from Maiwa and put it into one of my V.V. pots. The amount of wool I have for the yellow is ~120g. So in this case the dye will be  about 85%wof. They recommend 100%wof, but the price of weld is $15 100g, and the next size up is 225g that sells for $30. Double the price for a small amount more that I need… no thanks.

I poured boiling water over the weld and let it sit over night. In the morning I heated up the brew to ~150′F and kept it there for a full hour. I then poured this tea for into my dye pot, and repeated the procedure two more times… trying to get as much dye out of the weld as possible.

I eventually put the weld into a paint strainer bag (Not my cheese making strainer), and steeped it all one more time, and then squeezed out the weld as hard as I could. I then put a ground up tums tablet into the water (as per instructions from maiwa).

I then plunked the yellow down into the dye bath, and kept it at 150′f for a good hour.

It turned yellow, but only a faint shade. I need a bold yellow to stand out from the surround white areas. I left it sitting over night and checked it in the morning… still pale yellow.

This was what I got after rinsing out the wool. No good. It was then I found a book I borrowed from Morweena ages ago on natural dying, and figured I had acidic water.

PH strips are awesome. I had very acidic water. 4.5ph was the problem. Used soda ash to raise the ph to a 8.5ph.

and this happened over night. Wished it was a bit more goldy yellow, but I cant totally live with this bright color. I may  do some tests with iron to see if I sadden it, I could get a golder color.

Yellow wool started to felt a bit after so much mucking about. Drip drying above the laundry tub

and then drying next to the fire. I used EB’s swift to roll it into a ball. with the yarn starting to felt, it worked wonders at keeping it all organized and knot free.

Finished product.

I saved the weld tea, and put it into a jar, and have a large skein of cotton in it just to see how much color I can still get out of the tea.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-9-yellow/feed/ 1 Turkish Carpet Project v1.8 Mordanting the Wool http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/#comments Tue, 18 Jan 2011 17:13:33 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2606 I have finally bought most of the wool I need for my project. I still have a bunch more to buy, but I want to spread the cost of the wool out over a few pay checks. I will be dying the wool four colors, and the fifth color i will be leaving the wool natural so no dyeing there. The colors will be dyed with Weld (yellow), Madder (red), Indigo (Blue), and the Black will be a tannin/iron process. I will have to do a second mordanting process for the black as I have yet to buy more wool, plus the pot I have is only so large.

So here we have all the skeined up wool samples. I have different amount of wool on each colored skeine so I color coded them by different colored yarn. The green skeins were going to be for the indigo dye (no blue yarn), but at the last second I decided I wanted even more of the red. The yellow and blue are relatively small amounts of wool compared to the red, black, and white colors. I can always get more of the white, but I want to make sure I do not run out of the black and red colors, as it will be difficult to color match the yarn after the fact.  If I was to run out of the blue or yellow, the difference in color of a different dye lot wouldn’t be nearly as obvious. I could even try to blend the colors by slowly mixing those colors at small points in the pattern.

So the mordanting recipe I am using is from the Maiwa Dying sheet.

After scouring the wool with orvus paste (7ph wool soap), I added 15%wof  alum to very hot water, made sure it was completely dissolved and then added it to the large S.S  pot of warm water. I then added the scoured damp wool to the bath ans slowly brought the temperature up to ~90′C and left it there for and hour, gently moving the wool around periodically.

My super Duper massive SS cook Pot. Takes up most of the stove top. The thermometer was just barely long enough to reach the water. Once the hour was up I let the pot cool down for a couple of hours. That pot can hold heat for a long time.

So the pot had cooled down a fair bit, and I took the wool out to drip out . I had originally had them hanging over PVC pipe over the laundry tub. Rearranging them periodically to keep them equally damp. Then someone decided to use the washer, and I rescued the yarn seconds before the dirty washer water flooded the laundry tub (The washer discharges water faster than the pipes in the house can handle, and the back up puts a few inches of dirty wash water into the tub). Do to my fast actions… no one had to die that day!

So next choice was using a laundry basket, and PVC pipe (and a few tongue depressors). I carefully rearranged them, and made sure none of the wool dryed out, but all the dripping was done. I then store them in a damp pillow case waiting for the dye bath process.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/turkish-carpet-project-v1-8-mordanting-the-wool/feed/ 0 niddy noddy v2.0 http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/ http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/#comments Tue, 04 Jan 2011 19:24:24 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2568  I finally decided to just buy the wool for the carpet. I have been waffling on the exact wool for ever, and if I don’t start soon, this might turn into a 4 year project. I calculated how much of each color of wool I needed, and had to wind them to the right size for the dye pot. To do this I made myself a niddy noddy (6ft) out of some rosewood billet cuts I had picked up recently.

I turned the handle and put on two beads so my hand wouldn’t slip while winding. Rosewood finishes so well it was easy to make the handle kind of slippery.

I have one side pined in place, and the other side is free to twist around.

I wish I had curved the arms a bit more. When starting the skein its easy for it to slip out from the ends.

The yellow is wound (yellow ties), and so is the Blue (green ties), and the red has 6/10 wound (red ties). I still have 12 skeins of black to wind, and the white wool will need to be cleaned too.

Random Posts

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2011/01/niddy-noddy-v2-0/feed/ 0 Turkish Carpet Project v1.7 The Math http://www.maryostler.com/2010/08/turkish-carpet-project-v1-7-the-math/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/08/turkish-carpet-project-v1-7-the-math/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:15:57 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2438 I have the cartoon, I have a loom, I have the right amount of hedles (my order arrived a couple of days ago). Now I have to figure out how much material I will need to complete the rug, and how much of each color I will need to hand dye.

Determining how much was fairly simple. Each knot will require ~ 2″ of wool to complete the knot. Most of which will be cut away, but I have plans for the woolen offcuts. Pillow stuffing maybe… or even  multicolor felting project. The cartoon is 265 x 445 = 117925 units large. I then did the tedious job of counting the knots in each unique element in the rug, and then count the elements.

Total knots:   117925

Red:  36845
White:  18371
Blue: 12488
yellow: 4343
= 72047

72047 -117925 =  45878 Black knots.

Amounts in feet with a 10% bump to be safe.

Red 36845 x 2″ per knot / 12″ in a foot  + 10% =6754ft
White 18371 x 2 / 12+10% = 3367ft
Blue 12488 x 2 / 12 + 10% = 2289ft
Yellow 4343 x 2 / 12 + 10% = 800ft
Black  45878 x 2 / 12 + 10% = 8410ft

Total  21,620 ft (6590 m, 6.59 km, 7207 yd, 4.09 mile)

The Red wool also has ~4″ of flat weave on both ends of the carpet, and red edging down both edges.
8″ x 16 weft/inch (number pulled out of thin air) = 144 weft + (445 knotted rows x 2weft) = 1034 rows of weft.

1034 x ~36″ (more than finished, but it gives me a large bubble) = 37224″ / 12 = 3102ft

both edges totaling no more than 1″. 445 x2 x1″ = 890″ / 12 = 74ft

The warp will also be made with wool. All of the examples of carpets in the V&A museum from pre-1600 are wool warped. I have been talking to a couple of people experienced with carpet knotting, and have a couple of different recommendations on what to use (they both said cotton, but since I am determined to use wool they gave me other advice too… nice people).

The cartoon is 265 wide. Each grid needs two warp threads to work plus another 4-6 sets of threads for the edge banding (not decided on whether to us two strand weave or three strand weave for the edge).

265+12 = 277 x 20ft (rough size of my warping jig) = 4540  ft

The warp threads will be folded in half when attached to the loom. This will give me enough room for the rug plus a little extra.

Now for the shopping, and then the dying. Looking forward to the dyeing part. Especially the stinky Indigo baths. I suspect that will be forced out into the wood shop.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/08/turkish-carpet-project-v1-7-the-math/feed/ 0 Turkish Rug project v1.6 a Looming I Will Go http://www.maryostler.com/2010/07/turkish-rug-project-v1-6-a-looming-i-will-go/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/07/turkish-rug-project-v1-6-a-looming-i-will-go/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 05:11:40 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2280 The project has been at a bit of a stand still as off late. The main hold up was the loom. I have been pulling out my hair trying to find either an image or a decent description of a near eastern rug loom in period. The closest I could find were a few images from the 1800′s in the V&A.

I had originally decided to make a tabriz loom for the carpet. Its a style that allows you to spool the rug around to the back side of the loom. This allows you to make a carpet just shy of double the front side of the loom. This one seems to be the most common in modern pictures of rug looms. Yet the image above shows a loom that has the warps attached to a set of rollers. This allows for the making of rugs of almost unlimited lengths.

So yesterday while doing a weekly troll of the local Craiglist I found someone selling a Leclerc Tissrat Tapestry loom for a decent price. Tapestry looms come up rarely, and this is one of the nicest I have seen. I made a trip out to the deepest darkest depths of Surrey to check out the loom. It came home with me.

Its big enough to fill a goodly portion of my bedroom. Score.

So I have the loom, now on to deciding on the wool I will need.

I heart the V&A museum. They not only have a fantastic collection… they have taken the time to actually analyse what their carpets where made of in great details, and then added that data to the web entries. I gathered all the carpets they have listings for pre-1600 and made a database to make it easier to decipher.

V&A pre-1600 Carpet material Database

I also found a reference to having colored warp threads on some carpets  that denoted where the flat weave edge should begin. I think I will use this method to not only show where to do the flat weave, but to also show where the borders should run.

** Next task…. Figure out exactly what kind of wool I need to buy for the warp threads. This is the kind of textile stuff I start to get confused with.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/07/turkish-rug-project-v1-6-a-looming-i-will-go/feed/ 0 Drachenwald Silk Banner http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/drachenwald-silk-banner/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/drachenwald-silk-banner/#comments Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:38:10 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2242 At War has come and gone again this year, and I am sad to think its another 52 weeks til the next time Tir Righ wipes the floor with the Avacalians. I was happy to be included in the Kingdom of Drachenwald’s Encampment. In honor of Queen Caoimhe’s attendance at our little war I decided to make a silk standard of the Drachenwalds Ensign.

I just realized while writing this post that I had put the ensign upside down…. Ack. Drachenwald in distress… OMG.

I was happy to say the queen didn’t notice, and seemed to like the standard.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/drachenwald-silk-banner/feed/ 0 Silk Banners http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/silk-banners/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/silk-banners/#comments Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:39:11 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2234

When I had made the cone of shame, I had made a banner finial for the top of it. If you have a banner finial… you need a banner. I had originally taken a workshop on the subject taught by Mistress Agnes, and had played with it a bit since then… but this was going to be my first banner. Mostly just images after the jump

Stretcher built out of stuff from the scrap bin.

Decided to free hand the turnip. It ended up a little large. All hail the mutant turnip.

The stripy edge bit was all haphazardly drawn. Each segment is a totally different length.

My Motto is a bit of Dog Latin… Make my Day Punk.

You can just make out the pencil lines on the upper part of the banner

Final product with the edges all sewn up

The wonder twin wanted me to show her how to make a banner. I am not a particularly good teacher, but I figured… its the  wonder twin…. Gotta give it a go.

I couldn’t stick around till completion, but I think it is going to look FABU!

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/06/silk-banners/feed/ 5 Cone Tent v1.2 – Painting http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-2-painting/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-2-painting/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 18:57:04 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2110 I wanted to pretty up the cone tent. I had by this point realized the mistake I had made when making my template, and decided to make it pretty to make up for the fact that it wasn’t going to look like the tent I was trying for. Sadness!

I did a quick doodle of a paint design I could put on the tent. I was hoping to have the Tir Righ Star encircling the tent.

The design cut out and taped. Looks more teepee that anything else <sulk>

My work place has a storage bunker they allowed me to use. Good thing, as I have no place large enough to paint the tent in one go.

First step was to stretch the canvas out on the floor. I used a strip of duct tape stuck to the underside of the canvas, on top of this strip, another strip (facedown) was then attached to the cement. Each seam was pulled taunt one at a time, trying to keep everything stretched out as much as the tape would allow.

Having spent a good portion of time mucking about with the painter tape, I decided to simplify the design. My back was starting to object.

I was using a 1:1 ratio paint to water mix. The paint was acrylic latex exterior house paint. I had a bit of a score on the paint. I went to Canadian tire on my lunch, and they were having difficulties matching the color I wanted. My lunch was over, so I had to leave the store without the paint. The next day I went back and I guess they had continued trying to get the color and succeeded. I got the can at 1/2 price in the mistint section. Score!

When I got to the bottom of the pin striping I looked at how much paint I had left. I decided I didn’t have enough paint to get all the way to the floor so I added more painters tape to make a strip  around the bottom. I think it looks pretty good.

My Back was right pissed off at me by this point. 4 hours mucking about either stooped over, or on my knees. Not Fun.

Random Posts

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-2-painting/feed/ 2 Cone Tent v1.1 The build http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-1-the-build/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-1-the-build/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 18:36:46 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=2101 At this point I had not realized I had screwed up the template. I marked out all the sections on the painters tarp with wax tailor markers. The template was longer than the tarp, so I ended up using the wasted space at the corners to make up for the short lengths of canvas.

Hard to see in the photo, but there are red lines on the canvas waiting to be cut.

You can see where the additional canvas was sewn on to the end of each panel. 12 feet long.

When I was sewing the pieces together I pinned the seams together to make sure they matched up nicely.

A shot of the tarp almost complete. One side was going to be left open to make painting details on the canvas easier.

The outside edges were all bound over with canvas bias tape. I used up just about every square inch of fabric on this tent. The left over easily fit into one hand.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/05/cone-tent-v1-1-the-build/feed/ 0 Good Weekend http://www.maryostler.com/2010/04/good-weekend/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/04/good-weekend/#comments Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:00:44 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=1976 Well the verdict on this weekend is in, and it was 4 kinds of goodness. Friday & Saturday I got to hangout with Agnes and some of the aprenti. It was a two day work on A&S stuff gabfest. I got a start on the final carpet cartoon, the wooden board games in the barony’s collection have been labeled and given inventory numbers, I assembled my Mom’s grandfather clock, got four more eric stands completed, and the designing for the Turkish folding table and the combat archery blunderbuss have gotten underway. The only down side to the weekend was I ended up quiting a project I was involved with, and have disappointed some people. It was like ripping off a band-aid, I expect it to hurt but it had to happen.

I turned a bunch of the eric stand tops and then painted them with red oxide mixed with linseed oil.

The final cartoon is coming along. I took all the things that were wrong with the first draft and used it to work out the kinks on this version. My hands are in severe trauma over all the coloring this weekend.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/04/good-weekend/feed/ 2