Snippets and Orts

Orts are the little bits of thread you snip
off of a seam or a project that are
too short to do anything with.  There.
You learned something today.

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity, between holidays, 2 birthdays, and various social engagements that I'd pushed out to when I thought I would have a brain again (howls of derisive laughter, Bruce).  I haven't embarked on any new projects, other than in some early-morning fever dreams, but there are a few loose threads that can be tied off, or dangling chad that can be trimmed, if you will.

1) The professional photos from The 19th Century Wedding Project became available!  I have ordered prints (which just arrived, woo) but, more to the point, here is a formal shot to share with yunz.  Admittedly, when I look at it I keep seeing all the things I want to fix/do better; but I am doing my best to not let those voices shriek too terribly loudly.

Mission Accomplished!  (photo by
Serena Star Photography)

2) The hands-on tablet woven edge class came off tolerably well, I think.  At least, all of the students departed having achieved at least a couple inches worth of decent edge; that seems a reasonable qualification for success, certainly for a first effort.  I got some good feedback on some improvements which should be easy enough to incorporate.  Also, I will definitely have to acquire some C-clamps for everyone if I mean to do this again, sigh.  (It's not about the acquiring so much, but the storing & toting.)

3) I have finished most of the aforementioned Giftmas handicraftery, except one which is making me crazy, and I just can't puzzle it out, and it's almost fucking March and I feel rotten about this.  I just hate the idea of sending an IOU.  blearghghgh.  

4) I've crossed a few items off my perennial mending/fixup list, including finally cutting the half-lining out of my stippled wool dress.

5) I have gotten a couple more inches done on my second winter-sock-for-under-boots. It should be done in time for spring.

Looking ahead, the next Point of Interest is Mudthaw, on April 2nd.  My intended garments are in order (now); but I need to fix my dashing consort's Venetian hose, which currently need large safety pins in order for him to not show his (admittedly shapely and charming) rumpus to the associated gentlefolk.  (I have a whole other post gelling in the back of my mind regarding the weirdness of pants.)  I would also like to use that event as an excuse/driver to finally get 'round to making myself a banner with my arms on it, as there's going to be an heraldic display competition, but I don't know if I have time to do justice to the project...particularly since I don't know a blessed thing about silk painting, let alone having the supplies for it.

When The Class's Birth Is Breech

Limited number of these.

My usual slow ("measured", yes.) pace of class creation has been rendered even more sluggish on this go-round, due to work consuming all of my brain's computrons; a thing that is death to any kind of creative work.  I have, however, been slowly getting thoughts written down, a little here and a little there, as my mental energy allows.   (I should probably get used to this scenario.  I will have some stress off when I hire a henchperson and don't have to do two demanding jobs, yes, but there will always be something going on at work that will eat my brain; I doubt very much that I will ever, with any degree of regularity, come bouncing home from work ready to put in 2-3 hours of heavy writing.  Expectation Adjustment Time!)

This is the first class I have created that's hands-on, as opposed to a general disquisition.  Which is not in itself a problem for me, as I have been writing technical documentation and how-tos for most of my adult working life; but I did have to go and pick a topic that is hard to illustrate just using words, and it became clear I wouldn't have the time/resources to include graphics or photos for step-by-step help.  My aim is that the directions will just serve as an aide-mémoire for the students, who will have gotten to actually practice the technique during the class.  Depending on how well that works, I may have to see about adding some illustrations for the Second Edition.

So, the actual creation--

The first thing I had to do was to let go of getting each paragraph/sentence mostly crafted on the first pass.  That's a methodology that only works if you are full of both time and energy.  I worked on permitting myself to unload scraps of general thought, roughly grouped together, which I could then take one digestible section at a time to polish and craft properly an evening or two later.  This proceeded reasonably well; such that, this past weekend, when I had a happy confluence of dedicated time and a stock of energy, I was able to really buckle down and get the lion's share of the writing done and shaped.  By bedtime Sunday night, I had all the background, historical context, extant examples, materials discussion, and bibliography; I just needed to finish the step-by-step instructions and embed the images I am using with their text captions.  

Gentlemen, behold!  A kit!

I also planned out the kits, and then made them up.  Each kit contains:

• Square of green wool, representing the fashion fabric
• Strip of mustard linen, representing the facing along the buttonholes
• Two tablets, made out of playing cards, punched with four holes each
• Eight strands of lavender DMC floss (well, technically sixteen; each "thread" through a tablet hole is actually two strands)
• Needle, threaded with more of the lavender DMC
• Two pieces of cord or shoelace to attach the ends of the warp to reasonably immovable objects
• ...each in a Ziploc(r) bag.

I had to cut the various fabrics to size, and then I basted the "facing" to the "fashion fabric".  I also pre-threaded the tablets to save time in the class. 

(The colors are by no means chosen for aesthetics; they're as loud as possible so that it's easy for the students to see what's going on, particularly if they go back and look at it later. And, I chose a particularly thick fabric so they can see the potential issues of aggregate thread thickness vs. fabric thickness.)

The last thing I did Sunday was gather together the various example bits and pieces (test tablet-weaving, the pouch of Damocles, various tablet types, etc.) and put them all inna box with the kits. 

Today I'm home sick and my brain is not all that could be hoped, but I have managed to get my reference images sorted out and captioned; something which both Google Docs and Microsoft Word are utter and complete crap at.  After wasting several hours with both of those applications' ridiculous ideas of how to manipulate images around text, I gave up and opened my handout in Pages--yes, Pages, the red-headed stepchild of word processors--and did the same work in about 20 minutes.   All that's left is to put in the last half of the instructions, which I am hoping will be maybe an hour of work, and then print a proof copy.