From the flea market:

Two finds!

A small rep rug, of a very traditional quality, with a very traditional pattern:

It is about 45 cm wide and 150 cm long - it has several threading errors (the colours have been swapped).

The varp is a soft-twist multi-ply cotton in two colours. (Difficult to tell the grist - looks like perhaps a thickness like 8/2, but has more plies). Sett is about 16 ends per centimeter.

The thick weft consists of three strands of what looks like ordinary carpet warp, but the thin weft is thinner (than carpet warp, that is)..

Here is a (slightly out of focus) close-up of the selvage and the unfinished end:

and one of the "roses":

As you can see, this is woven with alternating thick and thin wefts throughout. Where the blocks change, the thin weft goes in the same shed as the thick (for the block that changes).

Here is a not-quite-correct draft of part of the pattern. The threading needs to be tweaked at the block changes, but as I'm not going to weave it myself , I leave that to you :-)

and the back view:

For the Americans out there: yes, this is a "ripsmatta". Rips means rep - matta means rug. Thus it is impossible to weave, say, a ripsmatta belt: "rep rug belt"??? Is that a rug OR a belt?

I also found a nice shuttle:

It both had the spindle for the bobbin and the spring was working, so it can actually be used "as is"!

"All about weaving"

In January I wrote about the myth about "there is no handweaving on the 'net" (here is the post). Among other things I told about the New Important Project aiming to create a 'net portal to contain "everything about handweaving".

That portal is now here. (Oh, it contains, presumably, "all" about several other textile art forms, too: embroidery, knitting, crochet, bobbin lace...).

I suppose it is A Good Thing that there is another weaving "portal" out there, to point aspiring weavers to many resources. So - why am I so obviously miffed? Well, to tell the truth, I am disappointed about not having been consulted. Oh, not me, personally, but, for instance, our local guild works near, or so we thought, the local craft association. We could have got a link, perhaps? Or we could have been invited to participate in the pattern-making ("weaving for all" - a collection of patterns "from north to south")... or: the collection of patterns could have had more than one (ok, two) projects that are not rugs, towels and tablecloths. After all, from the first I heard of the project, it was meant to inspire/convince "youngsters" that weaving is not just boring old things like rugs and tablecloths...

Well.
Perhaps it is just a case of sour grapes. (Age, perhaps? "grumpy old woman"?)
But I wander how one gets to be on the links list, or on the book list...
On the knitting pages, Ravelry has got a link. But Weavolution is not on the weaving pages - nor is handweaving.net.

Some hard facts to contemplate:

A Thursday in Borås

VÄV2011 was held in Borås the weekend past.

As usual there were lots of people, lots of yarns (but why so many knitting yarns?), lots of books... and lots of exhibitions.
As usual I wondered why I had gone, when I was inside in the heat, throng, ready-warped rug warps... (I seldom find anything at these fairs, 'cos I can't concentrate and I don't like to have to use my elbows to "get to see".)
I did meet with many old friends, some of which I haven't seen for years. This meant I had lots of coffee!

But: in Borås, there are several other things to be found. My big finds where about 75 meters of thin worsted fabric and 10 kgs of thin worsted yarn (I think he said it was 2/56, but it doesn't really matter), both from an industrial outlet.

Black is hopeless to photograph, at least to a hopeless amateur like me! The fabric has a nice drape, which may (or not) show in the picture.
The yarn is posing on the table of one of my sewing machines, and lies beside a cotton 22/2.

On the way home, I visited an exhibition (no water spouts in sight, but it rained).
This was labelled as an "area rug", and the pattern is just brushed. The attendant assured me it was not fixated(?) in any way, which means one can't touch it without destroying the images. Not very practical, but impressive to see all the detail the artist had managed to "brush in" (click to enlarge).

10 minutes from home, there were double rainbows pointing at my house, but as I was driving these will have to do:

The importance of being colourful?

In response to Laura's post on Yarn (which sounds like an interesting book, but...):
Many years ago, there was a short story published in either SS&D or Handwoven. It was a delightful story, and it went something like this:

Once upon a time there was a little village. The inhabitants were dour and depressed (maybe depressing? ;-), life in the village was a drag, the children were listless... even the dogs were unhappy. Everyone was dressed in black, grey, drab colours all.
Then the village weaver died, and the villagers set out to find a new one. They found two young brothers who accepted the job.
The brothers arrived, and unloaded lots of colourful yarn and cloth. Nobody wanted to buy their cloth, because clothing should be drab, as it always had been. After a while they persuaded a mother to get something colourful for her child - and the child soon started to laugh and play. Slowly, slowly they persuaded the other villagers to try colours.
It took some time, but then the village (and its life) was totally transformed - people were happy, life was not half as dour as it had been before, there was play and laughter everywhere.

... just a thought, now that darkness and cold is before us... Some re-used pictures:

Woollens

Always the sucker for nice woollen fabrics, I bought another (used) tweed jacket today.

Very ordinary cut, with some nice details. I can't decide if I like the buttons or not -

Approximately 7-8 ends and picks per cm; woollen singles.
Provenience unknown (no label).

On (other) exhibitions

Last week I went to not one, not two but *three* exhibitions.

The first was "Fashion stories" by Lars Wallin, a retrospective over 20 years of creating couture and prêt-a-porter. (At the moment there is a slide-show here, but who knows for how long it will be up... the exhibition closes on Sept 18th.)

The clothes were fantastic - but the public was... disappointing. All comments I overheard were about which celebrity had worn which dress, and when.
Well.

Another slight disappointment was the state the exhibition was in (ok - it was the last week of a 4-month period), but...
So: reminder to self: if I ever have an exhibition longer than, say, 2 weeks, remember to go check it, possibly bringing a steam iron.

No pictures, but as it has almost come to be a tradition on this blog: a water spout:

The next was at Moderna Museet. Another water spout:

(This water spout is part of this).

Unfortunately, I missed the summer exhibition of Siri Derkert's life and work.
I saw her clothes re-created some years ago, but it would have been nice to meet them again.

For those interested in clothes from the '20ies, there is a book (.pdf) here, describing the project of re-creating Derkert's clothing at Textilhögskolan in 2001. (Text in both Swedish and English)
(And for readers of Swedish - I found a blog I will visit again: Modearkivet.)

The third? Not really anything to mention, but here is the water spout: