Mary Ostler » textile http://www.maryostler.com Elizabethan Wood Butcher & Builder of Things Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:15:44 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9 en hourly 1 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.

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]]> 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 Daffodil Carpet Sample http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/daffodil-carpet-sample/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/daffodil-carpet-sample/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 02:33:23 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=1867 I got to go to Daffodil Tourney this year. I’ll be posting soon about the annual Seagirtian event, but I thought I do a quick post on my entry into the A&S tourney.

The contest was “items inspired in some way by the theme “daffodil”. Since I only decided to go to the event the weekend before, I decided to do a quick carpet sample piece. The daffodil design is from a blanket I found online. It was a grid pattern so it adapted well. The tourney is in its 33 year, and my heraldic obsession & mascot is the turnip named Ash.  Design done, I warped up the porto-loom with  52 threads (4 threads for the bound edges each side, and 22 sets of threads for the knots). I should have done the sides in a different color, as they just blend with the knots right now.

I still am having some issues with the edge binding. Will be working on that in my next mini project.

The weft threads were cotton sewing thread (2 shoots).

I had every color I needed except a nice yellow. The gold wool I had just didn’t seem right. I did two skeins of wool. One pre-mordant in alum, and one with no mordant. The dye stuff is Turmeric and its 100%wof. ( I think you could use a lot less considering the amount of slug on the bottom of the pot. I also added 1 tbs of vinegar to try to get it brighter yellow.

Cooked it at a low heat for 30minutes.

The large skein is the pre-mordant Alum one, the one on the right on mordant. The color is just about the same.

I feel kind of stupid though. So many of these A&S things are little throw away things put in place for something to do while the fighters fight. I didn’t document it at all. I had the cartoon for the design and a few notes jotted down in pencil. Well four judges sat down with principality A&S judging forms, and the judging was pretty bad. They all seemed to like what I had did alot, but the lack of documentation was noted down ALOT….

I hunted down the organizer to thank her and the judges, and apologized for wasting their time. No Documentation… Bad Apprentice… No Cookie for You!

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/daffodil-carpet-sample/feed/ 0 Turkish Carpet Project v1.5 ~ More Cartoons http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-v1-5-more-cartoons/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-v1-5-more-cartoons/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 04:29:41 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=1817 I was asked how the cartoon was coming. The answer… Slowly!

I will be starting a whole new cartoon soon, as this first one was just to work out some pattern issues. The first problem being the lack of a middle section in the original painting., Thanks to a suggestion from Mistress Agnes, I have decided to try  filling it with repeating element from the black border section.

Second issue is filling the strange flattened triangle sections that are part of the centers border. Maybe a squidy Cthuhulu like pattern.

The inner portion of the carpet has to be shrunk by 4 knots the whole way around, This is easily done as there is a 2 knot deep border that doesn’t affect any of the complex pattern bits.

This is a computer cut & paste model of what the carpet will look like when done.

I also started doing the math. There will be ~ 132,000 knots in the carpet (not including selvage and start/ end flat weave sections). Each knot using ~ 2″ of wool which works out to 21,933 feet of wool (7311 yd. / 6685 m.)

Still looking for middle eastern / turkish looms in period, and type of wool, and dye stuff.

Fun & Stuff & Things.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-v1-5-more-cartoons/feed/ 3 Turkish Carpet Project ~ Turkmen Tent Band http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-turkmen-tent-band/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-turkmen-tent-band/#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:12:09 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=1798 While researching  the Turkish Carpet Project, I found an interesting sub section of the carpet weavers. Turkmen Tent bands are straps that go around the outside of Yurt like dwellings. They are partially knotted just like Turkish carpets but with backgrounds of plain weave. The majority are symmetrical knots but…heres the kicker… The knots happen on the open upper shed. This makes for a jagged edge to the patterns, and a pattern on the back side of the band is obscured.

I made a quick sample to try out the style. The first few wefts were done with the same sized crochet cotton as the warp threads. This caused problems when the knotted sections were incorporated.  The knots were keeping the sheds open instead of cinching down on the weft thread. Once I changed the weft to the same sized yarn as the knots, the problem went away. The knots also had to be at least one double warp in from the edge, otherwise the threads pull free.

The open shed knotting seems to be even more tedious than the normal method. I will have to do some more reading to see if there is a specific reason for knotting the bands in this manner.

]]> http://www.maryostler.com/2010/03/turkish-carpet-project-turkmen-tent-band/feed/ 2 Niddy Noddy http://www.maryostler.com/2010/02/niddy-noddy/ http://www.maryostler.com/2010/02/niddy-noddy/#comments Mon, 01 Mar 2010 03:55:12 +0000 DirtyMary http://www.maryostler.com/?p=1789 Last minute commission came up the other day. I was requested to make a Niddy Noddy. Its a tool used to wind skeins of  yarn. I have made one before, but entirely turned.  The period images that are kicking around show a turned handle (usually with cross bracing) and curved boards that the yarn winds around. Since the person asking for it is a persona wonk (bless them all) I forced myself not to go turning crazy.

More images of the quick build after the jump.

Used some scrap oak I had kicking about. I have used up a large amount of my cutoff  pile so beggars cant be choosers. I would have preferred a fruit wood (or almost any wood that is close grained).

Marked the center and1″ from each end.  The end winding boards will be drill around 1″ deep so I need to be careful maintaining the right diameter  on the handle to fit the end holes snuggly.

Made a test block so I could make quick checks on fit.

The winding end boards had a 1/2″ hole drilled  1″ deep .

Checked the fit again.

Marked out the cut pattern on one board. I cut out the piece on the band saw as I wanted to get this done quickly.

I then scraped all the tool marks off the piece, and the filed the edges so that all the sharp points were gone.

I used the first piece to transfer the pattern to the other side.

One side is fixed in place with a wood dowel pin. The other side is left unfix so the niddy noddy can be stored flat.

Finished Noddy.

Noddy on its first test run. Not sure I was doing it right. The winding seemed a little awkward so I am sure I was doing it wrong.

The wool skein twisted up and ready for the dye pot.

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