Cat tracks

Fringes, anyone?

Yesterday I was demo-ing at my, maybe 13th, 14th? "culture day". I had no inspiration, so I brought a "fringe blank", and a page from the fringe book. (There were several "blanks" left over from the guild meeting...

This was the model:

After (too) long, and several mistakes, I decided to abandon that project:

(OK, I do know that one needs to practice to obtain any knowledge, but some knowledge feels more, um, unnecessary than others)

Next, a piece of "lattice" fringe:

Then I made some ordinary twisted fringe. From left to right: 2-ply (8 strands/ply, 100 twists), 2-ply (8 strands/ply, 50 twists), 3-ply (8 strands/ply, 100 twists), 3-ply (8 strands/ply, 50 twists) The untwisted length was about 40 cm, the sett was 8 doubled cotton 16/2 per cm, so each of the 2-ply fringes takes about 1 cm of warp.

The rightmost fringe is made from 3 2-ply strands (6 strands/ply) with macramé knots. Top portion has the knots alternating, bottom portion has knots from omly one side (which makes a spiral).

The background in the first pictures is a blanket that has figured as a "weave of the month" on the national guild site (June 2010, I think). It can also be found on Weavolution, here, with the text in English.

Organized!

No more pawing around among the gown patterns:

Now that I have (yikes!) six different gown patterns, I decided it was time to make a "foolproof" organization. I made copies of such pattern pieces that are used in more than one, put one complete pattern, including a printout of the how-to description, fabric samples, best lay-out for production... in one bag and hung them over the guest bed in the studio.

Two more bags to prepare ('cos one of the gowns will never be produced again).

(And now you know where I buy my food, too :-)

And… they’re OOOFFFF!

(is what the, hm, what’s-it-called? "speaker"? yells when the racehorses jumps out of the starting gates)

Two of these are now in the mail.

For me it remains to write up all the details, including what I learned about "appliqué-ing" velvet onto a flat surface.
And perhaps present it to my pals in the Burgon Society, to get (informed) critique...

Oh – and here is a link to a video showing a couple of the velvet gowns on stage (opens in new window, as usual).

Another detail

This is a sleeve decoration, in place. (The not-yet-attached lining is just hanging inside)

This model, like every "new" one, has caused several procedure reflections. For the velvet gowns one problen was to attach the (flat) silk to the velvet. Here it was the opposite: how to attach the velvet to the (flat) worsted. The pile of the velvet tended to make the worsted pucker.

One can go any lengths towards perfection, but for several reasons there have to be compromizes – time is limited, and time is also money.
After some (false) starts I had found a "good enough" way to attach the velvet facings. (The cording helped, too)
Now, to attach the sleeve decorations was another thing... but I think I have found a way.