[marigold]

Cheers Russ.I am downloading it today to watch tonight.  I'm impressed with your weaving and spinning experience. I pick up old bits of looms at farmsales and stuff. Quite a few people seem to have the frames in the sheds and don't recognise what they are anymore. OH made a great 4 poster bed from a big one. Lovely bits of furniture. I researched and wrote about harris tweed quite a bit at art college and went to Harris to meet a wonderful woman marion campbell
http://www.harristweedandknitwear.co.uk/family.html a couple of years before she died. She gave me a whole afternoon of her time and a wonderful insight into the way that her whole life was based around crofting and weaving. I spin but not enough and I haven't had my loom set up for years. It is really important to learn from these people while we still have their wisdom in the world and I shall enjoy Monty Don for his program and actually just to watch him for an hour too.. Smallholding woman's crumpet -

[Wizard]

Ah ah Mari thats cheatin 

[marigold]

I call it multi tasking   

[Wizard]

Agen Mari The mind boggles (see answer to Sandy)

[sagehen]

Russ I shoulda said static loom or moveable shed - but the point is moot anyway since you constructed floor standing loom. I'm seriously impressed; I'm assuming it's a treadle loom, and how many shafts? Also the bike wheel, was it manually operated like a great wheel, with a horizontal distaff? Retting stinks like anything - I tried it with nettles, and couldn't smell anything else for days afterwards 

Marigold, I'm envious. You got to meet Marion campbell! What sort of weaving do you do, or rather have you done? I've woven a sort of harris tweed, but I prefer experimenting with patterns, and brighter colours.

[marigold]

I haven't done any weaving for years - I studied silk weaving in Japan for two years and then came home to learn about Scottish textile traditions. Went to art school in Dundee and got diverted into all sorts of other things. Mostly because I realised that weaving was never really going to feed me.
20 years later I am building up a few different skills to get back to that idea, or at least to have several different activities that all together might feed us.
The weaving that really interested me was ikat - just dyeing and then colour - also spinning an interesting weft and simple plain weave or a twill with a straight warp. I demonstrated linen weaving on an old jaquard at the Glamis folk museum for 2 summers. That was fun I must have woven about a foot each summer - I wasn't very good or very quick - but the tourist were fooled.
Are you weaving now sagehen?
 

[sagehen]

Yes I'm weaving, although I'm not weaving as much as I should - mainly because I'm slightly depressed and can't face warping anything at the moment. I mainly use a rigid heddle when I'm sat watching the telly, or a four shaft in the other room. The house is too small to contain a floor standing one, and I'm hoping for my OH to be a darling and build a nice studio for me  Very impressed with your credentials though, and I'm surpised you didn't pursue it, although I do understand about weaving not making any money. I suppose one can always teach, or join what I call the 'museum crowd' and get grants for exhibitions  Do you know Tim Parry Williams? He went and studied in japan as well, I think, although he experiments with odd materials like metal or something.
Never tried a jacquard loom before - too complicated for my poor ickle brain, but I like ikat as well, although there aren't a lot of ikat 'masters' here you can learn from. I would love to go to South east asia and learn their different weaving skills, or India, like Peter Collingwood 

[RUSTYME]

Yes Kirsty the old looms were really nice practical items . I have seen many in sheds , sadly most have lots missing . I had forgotten that I made the big floor loom , till I was sorting out in the shed and found some old blankets I had made with it years ago . They have since been used as dog blankets and no longer exist  . But they reminded me about the big loom . I remembered making a smaller one out of an old wooden bed frame ... the complete reverse of your OH  lol.  
 It was a treadle loom Sage , but I really can't remember any more details about it , it was 33 years ago   .  I know I made a few different patterns with it , checks and stripes etc . Mainly using white wool and black (really brown ) wool , from the sheep on the farm we lived on at the time . We also dyed a lot of wool with natural materials , plants etc. It was funny looking at the blankets again , I could see how the spinning had gone from very iffy , to really quite good , the same with the weaving . Some of the spinning was done on drop spindles . I sat for hours in the winter time , with home made drop spindles . I must knock one up again , I got really good at it at one time . I hope it is like riding a bike after a long time , you wobble a bit at first then it just comes back . Will have to get some wool to practice with , god ... that means I will have to get some carders .....they are a bloody fortune now days . I wonder if I could make them out of extra long staples and a bit of an inner tube ?  MMmmm


cheers

Russ

[sagehen]

Russ you don't really need to card before you spin - you can spin straight off the raw fleece. Just pick out the veg matter. With four dogs, I also assume you've got a dog comb  , and you can comb them for a worsted yarn.

[MurmuringWheel]

you don't really need to card before you spin - you can spin straight off the raw fleece. Just pick out the veg matter. 

Thank goodness, someone else who thinks like me!

The amount of people I have met who have been told that they MUST card their wool before spinning and that spinning raw fleece is just not the done thing.

[sagehen]

Hahaha!  I know, everyone follows the rules so strictly don't they?  Great great wheel you've got there! 

[marigold]

Enjoyed the program Rusty. Would have liked to hear Mike Abbott say a bit more about his work though. Anyway it is good to have these crafts out there on telly.
Monty is ageing a bit - What a shame that the tone of the teaching for the new people learning the craft was competitive. I know that the program makers think that competition equals good telly but I don't agree. Watching them being taught with patience and good instruction would have been more informative for us too. Anyway it was good watching and thank you for telling us about it. Looking forward to watching the thatching one next week. I could never imagine managing that. Looks way to physically challenging for me

Sorry to hear that you're not feeling great Sagehen. I be Marion Campbell did most of her weaving in the summer too. She had a shed with a dirt floor which kept the humidity up which helped for tensioning the warp. So maybe you could follow her example, wait for the better weather and then warp up outside? Have you any photos of recent work to show? it would be lovely to see - perhaps that could be a new thread on the crafts bit?
 

[RUSTYME]

yes I would like to have seen much more of Mike Abbott too . I have his first book on green woodwork , excellent stuff . I will get his new book as soon as I can grab it secondhand ...lol .
 The format of competition, isn't my cup of tea either for the program , but I can mostly ignore that and just enjoy seeing the crafts . The thatching one has already been on tv , the next one is blacksmithing I think ? Here is the link for the thatching one :
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qyjlm/Mastercrafts_Thatching/
If you want to see more traditional crafts then take a look at some of the old Out of Town programs with the lovely old Jack Hargreaves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaolgMIKIZk&feature=related
 there are many on youtube , and many show the real old craftsmen still around in the 60's and 70's  performing their crafts. The old rakemaker in the above link is but one example . I have the entire out of town set on dvd , and get lost in them for many hours .


cheers


Russ

[sagehen]

Heya Marigold
Thanks, I feel a bit better now actually - went driving in the country, with the windows down and the music blaring hehehe  Disturbed a few sheep but I was feeling a bit boxed in, so that helped! I've got things to show, and it'd be great to start a new thread with pics to show off whatever craft we're doing at the minute. Err how do we post a pic again?  And yes, that's a good tip for tensioning the warp, thanks!

Russ, I'd personally like to see crafts like coopering or wheelwrights. That'd be good telly for me! 

[Wizard]

Sage I liked Fred Dibnah and the places he went to and things he saw but was not impressed withMark Evans to much fooling about and money id no object