We have a regular (weekly, usually) session of "get excited and make things". It's a fixed day and time of the week, and most of the time, one or several friends drop by. They bring their projects and we all sit together and work on our things - knitting, sewing, woodworking, paper-related stuff. There's been miniature painting and programming done, too, as well as the very mundane task of mending socks and darning clothes.

Last week, our meeting went on an outing - into the FabLab in Nuremberg. Just in case you have never heard about a FabLab, it's short for "fabrication laboratory". Usually, a fablab is an open workshop where you can make things, for a very small fee.

Most fablabs have a set of tools for mechanical and electronic stuff, a laser cutter, and a 3D printer. You might also find a large drill, a CNC machine, a sewing and/or embroidering machine, a few computers, and some other stuff. Plus a stash of materials you can buy for your projects.

So, last week, I sat at the FabLab, designing new whorls and a new flyer and new bobbins for my little Finnish spinning wheel. I got that wheel back in 2012, and it's been running with the roughly tweaked flyer and bobbins since. They do work, but they are a waste of space in the spinning assembly, since the flyer is huge and the bobbin is tiny. (The wheel seems to be called the Varpapuu Toika, and someone else was so nice as to post a video of it.)



As you can see, the flyer is... less than elegant. A waste of space, and energy, and I am going to replace it with a lighter one, with longer wings to accommodate a bigger bobbin. I'll space the hooks closer to each other too, and fit it with smaller whorls. Someone at the FabLab has offered me help with the metal axle, and the rest... I'll laser cut wooden parts for the bobbin ends and the flyer, probably drill holes through some leftover dowels for the bobbin cores, and the whorl bits will be 3D-printed. (3D-printing takes ages, AGES, so as I'm an impatient person and want several bobbins, I will just print the whorl disks.)

If you have a FabLab in your region - go check it out. They are fabulous!

There's two things I like to moan and groan about when chatting fabrics - number one: you just can't get the yarns anymore (or the guys to weave these yarns), and number two: there's a lot of modern fabrics that have no proper selvedges anymore.

And that's to do with the looms. Thing is - if you want to sell cheap fabrics, you need to have a loom that is fast, and work with materials that don't have a life of their own. Which means limp yarns, not spun as tightly old-fashioned hand-spun ones, in
a loom that is really, really fast... and these things will not give you proper selvedges.

Back when weaving was done with a shuttle, and where it is still done in this manner, you pass the shuttle through the shed, change sheds and pass the shuttle back. The thread, thus, makes a U-turn around the outermost thread(s) of your fabric. Adding in an extra thread or two to strengthen the selvedge was a well-known and quite commonly used thing, and having good selvedges that run straight and are even are a sign of good quality weaving.

If you want a fabric that meets all the criteria of a historical fabric, you have to have a good old-fashioned selvedge like that. Which also explains why I'm always happy to get something like this:


That is a proper, nice selvedge; a little bit stronger than the rest of the fabric but not too different in weave or density, and there's no plastic strengthening thread added to it. You can join two of these selvedges with overcast stitch just like it was done back in the Middle Ages and be happy.

The next best thing, and a type of selvedge more commonly found in modern fabrics, is looking like this:


It's still a proper selvedge, though not as nice and sturdy, and quite wide if you don't want to have the change in weave type show on the surface. There's also often a messy-looking area between the weave proper and the selvedge, also nicely showing in this specimen here. I wouldn't join two of these with overcast stitch if the join will be visible later.

Now let's go a bit more modern, yes? Proper selvedges require shuttle looms. These old-fashioned shuttle looms are slow, and modern industry likes its stuff to be faster - time is money and so on. So there's another type of fabric edge which really can't be termed "selvedge" any more... this one.


These are done with help of jets or projectiles, requiring cut threads as the weft. These weft threads, if fine enough, can be even carried by an air jet or a water jet. The result? A very, very fast loom (these are the fastest type today) but no selvedge whatsoever. The edges are, basically, cut edges with a little fringe and maybe some stabiliser thread along the edge. If you wanted to use the selvedge for extra strength somewhere... you're out of luck with this fabric type. If you wanted it to show somewhere... same thing applies. If you were planning to cut down on your sewing and hemming time with use of the selvedge, you just got a nasty surprise. You will have to treat every edge of this fabric like a cut edge, because that is what it is.

And then there's another little nasty surprise if you are looking for pure wool fabric in narrow widths. One of the two edges is a perfectly fine, normal selvedge, usually not reinforced by a double thread or anything.


The other edge, however... is not a proper selvedge. In fact, it's more like one of the cut-thread edges, only with a fold in the thread instead of the cut. The edge is held together by a fine, tiny crochet chain, usually done with a very fine thread made from man-made fibre.




It's not very obvious, and won't be visible or noticeable to most people, but it's not acceptable in case you want to have an as-authentic-as-possible equipment. If you remove the chain, you also remove the structural integrity of that edge.


If you want to have a pure wool band without that chain, though, you can take a sufficient length of the weft thread, a needle with a blunt tip and a large enough eye, remove the crochet chain and thread the extra thread through each of the edge loops. It might be advisable to remove the outermost warp thread for that, and to stock up on enough chocolate and motivation-enhancing drinks before.

Fun. Right? Thank goodness there are still some old-fashioned shuttle looms running!

I think I'm in really dire need of a weekend. Probably partly due to not having a proper weekend (or a proper rest day) due to Freienfels - which is lovely, but after a while tends to catch up with one.

Still, there are a few things I have to take care of today before the weekend can come. The cat is already very occupied with her most important late morning task: napping. Myself, however, I'm just now getting around to blogging...

...and you won't even get a totally lovely and exciting blog post, because while I have the idea for one or two (or even some more) posts, I need a bit more time and leisure to put those together.

Instead, you get this incredible example for craft skills on the street.

Here are, finally, the long-promised pictures from the last big project - clothing for the newly opened museum at Burg Grünwald, Munich area.

I have not been there yet and have not been able to find photos, but as the museum only re-opened at Easter after extensive work on the castle and a redesign of the exhibition, that is not quite unexpected.

So you are getting the piccies I took before sending off the garments... with kind permission of my (very patient, and very lovely) models.
Let's start close to earth...


Obviously a lady has to wear more than just stockings - here is the red dress with its yellow silk neckband, and the barbe-and-fillet in the Manesse style.


Another closeup of the buttons on the dress. I just like closeups of these guys.
 

And a closeup of the seam fixing the yellow silk of the neck opening decoration. This cost me a lot more nerves than I had anticipated - but it turned out nice in the end!


Here are both models, completely dressed with the exception of the man's overgarment, which was not finished at that time.

And finally, a few more closeups of the man's purple tunic:



... and one of his hood:



There. It did happen. Picture proven.

Obviously, not having internet access is a very good way to keep oneself from blogging. On the other hand, sitting somewhere more or less stranded and without internet is amazing at keeping distractions down and helping one get things actually... done. In this case, a few hours' worth of sewing.

A friend of ours needed a hand or, rather, someone to let the plumbers in while he's at work, so I was sitting there, waiting for them to finish their work, with my sewing kit to keep me occupied. Progress has been made (in contrast to when I was in Freienfels, where I managed to sew for about 5 minutes before something came up to interrupt my work*).

So, sorry for the belated blog post - I blame my lack of planning (I could have pre-blogged yesterday, right?) and me not being used to getting up that early, and totally forgetting that I had not blogged yet this morning. (The plumbers were a bit late, by the way. I could have blogged before leaving if I had known how much later they would be.)


* Taking the sewing kit to Freienfels was more or less just to keep me from fretting that I could have worked on it, which I surely would have done if I had left it at home. It's a rare event, though, where you actually manage to get all that done which you thought you might work on, at least in my experience. There's always something coming up - friends, some shopping, an unexpected but welcome chat, sudden hunger pangs that need to be dealt with, inquisitive people wanting to know what you are doing, you name it.

I am back home from a nice and both relaxing and exhausting time at Freienfels. It was, as always, so nice to see all the people again that I know from, oh, ages back; it was lovely to have a coffee and a chat with friends, and to sit and enjoy the fire in the evening.

We also managed to do some shopping (because your equipment is just never complete, right?) and to enjoy some music. I got a few deliveries and some more leads on where to get special fabric, so that was quite successful.

Weather-wise, we were quite lucky, with only one day of light drizzling rain and grey skies. The rest of the time, it was sunny (though with some icy cold wind sometimes), and only the nights were freezing. Now the washing-machine is running, the cat is happy that her humans are back and is sleeping in her bed in the study, most of our equipment is already clean, dry and stowed away again - and I am back to the 21st century with its to-do lists and computers and deadlines and things to do and find out and take care of. Which I shall do, presently.

The season has started, and I am off to Freienfels. If you are in the area, drop by - I'm somewhere on the lower meadow.

If you'd rather read science fiction stories, you can go here and enjoy the links to finalists for the Hugo and Retro Hugo Award. (A friend sent me that link. I am not sure yet whether to thank her for it or not... so much to do, so little time. Having interesting stuff to read does not make it better.)

Regular blogging will resume on May 6 - so you will have some more time to read while I am off to sleep in a tent and have coffee boiled over a fire. (Yes, I know coffee is not medieval. I will enjoy it anyway.)