Studio Curtains

Curtains it is in the studio. Mostly because I have lots of fabric upstairs. I started by measuring up how much I had and ended up re-arranging all the 'foreign' textiles into an empty cupboard.

This is a red and gold sari bought in Little India in Kuala Lumpur a few years ago. The material is quite heavy and there is 6.5 m of it, 45 inches wide.

This is a 4 m length of brown and gold bought in Tunisia, 56 inches wide. The photo shows one end. The other end is the same but inbetween the fabric only has the occasional line of gold. I will get two lengths out of this and three out of the sari and that will be enough. 

Now I have to wait till it is all finished. It is taking shape nicely. The plumber (to replace a radiator) and the plasterer come tomorrow. After that we are waiting for the windows to arrive. So thanks to all of you who wrote making helpful comments on the curtains/blinds decision.

I discussed the lighting with the electrician  yesterday and then ordered up the parts this morning. 

I have done some textile work. Last night I mended broken threads et cetera in the feather fabric and also mended 3 metres of heavy cotton which I wove more than a year ago and put aside. It is a lovely fabric and I wondered about a jacket as I wove it but it is a very heavy material. I washed it this morning and it is hung up to dry off. It is so thick that it will take some time to dry and I intend to iron before it is totally dry. The current plan is to submit it for the Association Exhibition as yardage. I would like to use it for something to wear. It is hardly a table runner. I invested a huge amount of effort in it. I even planned the colour stripes in great detail and spent a lot of time space dyeing yarn for the warp. I have a lot of dyed yarn left.  When it is dry, I will have to take a 'formal photo, because the Association is judging on photos these days and I will include a photo  in this blog.

One class in the Association's Exhibition is something (anything) in a six inch ring. I had a Eureka moment in Australia and this morning checked that I did indeed have five different coloured spools of 120/2 silk in my stash. I intend to weave a double weave piece (warp and weft interchange) on an 8 shaft loom. I have done the sums and lots of drawing. I think it will work. I will try to draft it this evening. I don't want to set up a warp just to weave a four inch square so I intend to weave a couple of yards of four inch wide silk. I think this could be applied to some commercial heavy silk to make a scarf.

On Wednesday it was back to the Bookbinding class. I have a children's book from Australia dated 1912 and it is falling apart.  It was given to me in 1946. Yesterday I took every page apart and cleaned the old hard glue. from the spine.  Now I have to repair every  one of 200 pages. I will make a jig to hold the pages before next Wednesday. I can't do anything about the covers which have very worn corners but I am going to make a box to fit the book into which will prevent further damage.