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ⓘ A sewing machine is a device that provides a several-fold increase of the speed at which you can make mistakes

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I embroidered a little moth on my sleeve to cover a small tear. I chose colors similar to the embroidery on the front of the shirt.

I have a few other shirts with holes in the left shoulder, courtesy of the hook that held my screen door shut. The screen door has also been fixed and the culprit relegated to the bottom of hardware drawer.

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fiber art adventures in egypt

I recently got back from a trip to Egypt & finally got around to organizing some pictures to share. One of the things I was most excited about was seeing what I could find on fiber arts and textiles.

Dropping everything under a read more, 'cause this will be a long post haha

first visit: the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC)

At the time of visiting, they had a special textiles exhibit. It covered Pharonic Egypt all the way up to modern times, although I only had time to check out the dynastic & a bit of the Coptic portion of the exhibit (which was what I was really hoping to see anyways)

Was super excited to see this diorama in person. I knew about it but had never seen good pictures of it. From the little I've seen of ancient Egyptian spinning, spinning with two spindles seems to be the norm rather than a master technique? It also shows up in tomb art, which the exhibit also shared:

They also used a different fiber preparation (splicing to create a rove of fiber, no traditional drafting to my understanding) so that probably made a difference? Regardless I really want to see if I can replicate the technique, especially because their spindles look so similar to modern spindles??

I took so many pictures of spindles, guys, and I fully intend to either have a few replicas made or to learn to make some myself. Also, although they were unlabeled... I'm pretty sure those are beaters for weaving? That was a bit of a trend with this trip, so much stuff was unlabeled :( I would've killed to at least get some date estimates for some of the stuff they had on display. I was nerding out in here though, and my family took a few pictures of how excited I was getting. A bit embarrassing, but eh haha

The exhibit also had a section on natural dyes used with a fun visual;

There was several diagrams specifically describing each dye source, but in the interest of not overloading on pictures I'll just list them out. For blues; woad, Yellows; turmeric, safflower, saffron, or yellow ochre; reds; madder, henna, pomegranate, and kermes. I originally thought kermes was another way to say cochineal, but it only seems to be distantly related.

next visit: Ramses Wissa Wassef Art Center

A small art center dedicated to hand-weaving wool and cotton tapestries. All of their work was museum quality & awe inspiring!!

Was even invited to their back rooms to watch a few of their weavers working; no I don't have room to put a room-sized loom anywhere but heck do I want one now

Our guide that took us through talked a bit about the natural dyes they use (all of their dyes are dyed in house with what they grow in their dye garden!!!) and got excited to hear I was also interested in natural dyes! He seemed a bit disappointed I'd never worked with indigo and. while indigo scares me, I'll take it as a sign that maybe I should try some time this year haha.

final visit; the Egyptian Museum

we really had to rush through this one which was a huge shame because it's packed full of artifacts. Also, the lighting in there is atrocious, so apologies for the not great pictures ahead.

They had a fascinating display of textile tools, more than what the NMEC had;

(Hand for size reference) I want all of these spindles! So badly! But a few of them look so much like a few of the spindles I own already?? A few of them had a spiraling notch, that's so cool? But also, what's going on with the one with two whorls? I have no idea. I'm fascinated.

Look at these whorls!! Although again, I'm a bit confused; the lack of labeling strikes again. Unsure why some of these "whorls" have two holes, or what the metal object with the wooden handle is. The display implies sewing needles, and some of them do look like it, but others.... really don't look like sewing needles. I'm absolutely enchanted by this little whorl though. I think it has birds on it?

More objects that I'm baffled by- the signage doesn't really indicate what some of this stuff is, if it's even known. Also confused by the object wrapped in white string in the right pic; it looks like a distaff but to the best of my knowledge the (ancient at least) Egyptians didn't use distaffs. It probably popped up in later times and was put in this display since it was still relevant, but I'm still not sure.

I have so many more pictures & thoughts but I'll save those for more specific future projects. I've been doing research outside this trip on ancient Egyptian spinning techniques and desperately want to go deeper into that, this trip just solidified how excited it makes me. If you made it all the way through this, many thanks for reading!

Bonus; look at this ancient linen 🥺

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When your mom asks for her own Iris quilt after making one for someone else, but wall hanging size… (queen size one at the end). First one I designed because I couldn’t find an Iris pattern that seemed to work for what I needed. Smaller one has a second flower).

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Finally got around to blocking this shawl! This is my first time blocking anything, and I didn't have a proper foam base to pin on, so I improvised with my sofa and some towels. The pattern is Golden Orchids and it has these lovely beaded flower motifs at the border! I used white pearlescent beads on white mohair-acrylic yarn, so they unfortunately aren't too visible.

Here's a close-up, before and blocked. Looks so much cleaner! If you have any tips on blocking, leave a comment!

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I've finished this beautiful sweater! Pattern is Vashisht, and while not beginner friendly at all, it's well written and easy enough to follow if you know what you're doing.

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I got the chance to road trip out to the path of totality! My phone camera didn’t do it justice, so I painted what I saw instead 🌞🌚

Here’s the photo I took and the sketch I made with my finger in the notes app while watching it happen 😆

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Nålhus aka needle houses aka needle keepers made with wool fabric, protected by a ceramic case. Stamped patterns with inspiration from plants and nature in general and the geometrical lines somewhat inspired by runes.

🌿

One of these are still in the shop now at nymla.se

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Got around to darning the holes in my sock heels! Now they're ready to wear in my favourite boots next winter too.

Also tried carving avocado pits! I let it dry for a few days, cut it in half and used a crafting knife to carve a lil bird. Nice and soft to sculpt!

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Trying out tablet weaving!

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I made buttons out of polymerclay! I'm sewing a dress shirt and I don't want it to look store-bought, so I didn't want plain plastic buttons. I wondered if I could make buttons myself instead and found a bunch of tutorials online.

I don't have any fancy sculpting tools, but toothpicks, pen caps, crocheting hooks and some big blunt needles worked well.

I added a bit of eyeshadow for shine! I'm not sure how well it's attatched though, I might coat them with clear nailpolish. The big ones were pressed and rolled against wrinkled foil/fabric for texture.

The clay was ten years old, I had it wrapped in plastic wrap, and it still worked! It took some time to knead, but it did eventually stop crumbling and became soft.

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Review of the first batch of bread from the starter: flat and dense (my boi is not ready for bread yet and this was a fully delusional try) & I didn’t score it well enough, but damn that crust is CRISP and it tastes very good (like sourdoughy and got the salt ratio right (2% from the flour’s weight)). Unexpected bonus is that I’m having the best time with the discard pancakes

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Sewing adventures! I made an evening gown for myself, all the way from drafting the pattern to hand-sewing the finishes. It was very fun, challenging and very much not straight forward.

I had the inspiration a week and a half before an event I wanted to wear the new dress to, and I managed to finish it the night before. The first version was ready for fitting after one long day full of sewing, but I had to cut out the bodice and make a new one due to fit and fabric issues.

The fabrics were cheap polyester velvet that was knit = stretchy, and a shiny and slippery polyester fabric for the lining that was not stretchy (this stretch mismatch caused problems). The first version had continuous panels all the way from the neckline to the hem, and the weight of the skirt stretched the bodice out of shape so that I had a really hard time attaching it to the lining at the armholes.

So I adjusted the pattern to have a waistline to help support the weight of the skirt by attatching it to the lining, and added sleeves so that I didn't have to attatch the dress to the lining at the armholes. And I got extra practice with sewing the invisible zipper, which was originally in the back seam, but that I moved to the side for the final version, eliminating the need for a seam at the center back.

Here's the final outfit! I also painted my nails to match the dress and I was very happy with how closely I managed to match the colour.

The base for the pattern, a princess-seamed bodice block, is from freesewing.org. It's a fantastic website that lets you generate sewing patterns to your measurements, and there's tons of customisation, tweaks and design options to choose from for each pattern. Highly recommend! They also have a paperless option, that gives you all the lengths of the sides and points on the patterns so that you don't even have to use a printer. I traced the pattern pieces to paper by hand that way!

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knitting tutorial made by a twenty-something knitting influencer: 18 min long, 12 of those minutes being the intro and a sponsor plug, they show the first few steps of the tutorial at the slowest speed known to man, they show the most important steps at a neck-break speed, they stop every five seconds to talk about what they just did, 40,000 comments filled with questions ranging from insightful to “how do i knit”, filmed with a camera that costs more than a car, the tutorial is incorrect.

knitting tutorial made by a seventy-something grandmother: two min long, filmed 17 years ago, shows you what you want with the skilled patient hands of a beloved deity, made with the world’s shittiest camera, the best video on the fucking internet, four comments and 30 views, you lose the video and never find it again.

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I began quilting in the 1990s. I have handquilted about 60 sci-fi quilts. It has been many years of trial and error. I was never very good at following quilting patterns. My favorite pattern is the disappearing nine patch. I use it a lot in my quilts. My blocks were never perfect. In fact , I’m most certain every quilt I have made has a mistake or two. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, I look at the mistake as adding character and artistic deviations to my quilts. :) A quilt doesn’t have to be a complicated design . My first quilt was an appliqué Star Trek baby quilt. It was simple by quilting standards. I worked so hard on it. It took months to finish but I was incredibly proud. As I was learning to quilt, I secretly hoped to make something fancy and worthy of an art show one day. FYI, A little more than 30 years later, I have never entered any of my quilts into an art show. I quilt for me. I quilt to give one of a kind quilts to friends and family…and the occasional acquaintance on the internet. Maybe one day, one of my quilts will make it to outer space. How glorious would that be? Peace to you and yours.

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I Have Found A Solution!

So, obviously classic wizard robes aren’t wheelchair friendly. (Alright, admittedly this isn’t common knowledge and also this definitely isn’t a problem for most but listen, this is a problem for me and I’m pleased to present a solution for it nonetheless.)

The issue is in the sleeves and the length of the robes. The traditional trumpet style allows them to get snagged, dirty, and caught in the wheels.

This is distinctly not an issue with other mobility aids such as canes and crutches, these wizards are fine to carry on with their trumpet sleeves simply rolled up if needed.

Now, one solution might simply to shorten the sleeves and hem to be out of the way, but that looks rather silly so I won’t do that. Instead I propose the more elegant design of a hanging sleeve to maintain that flowy magical feel while allowing for better range of motion.

Honestly I just love the look of hanging sleeves in general and think more people should appreciate them, wheelchair user or not.

In conclusion…

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DEAR ARTISTS, NIGHTSHADE IS OUT!

Get the best means and only acceptable way to be toxic online. :D The download might take a bit of time right now, a LOT of people want the online-arsenic~.

https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/

Have a fantastic day~! <3