...and because that day sort of ran away from me, and it's suddenly evening... here's an unmotivated cat picture for you: 

I hope you had a good start into the week!

I've been talking about textile reconstructions and some of the things involved in making them, but I think I haven't covered the topic of documentation for them yet... so here's a bit about that.

When I'm working on a reconstruction, I keep track of my work times. That's usually done with a time tracker for the research/planning tasks, such as reading up on textile finds, gathering information, and making plans and preliminary calculations. For the actual work away from the computer, I use a stopwatch, as that is handy and easy to use. A stopwatch is easily stopped for taking a break and started again, and that will guarantee that I have the exact times for how long things take.

Or... the almost-exact times. There's two reasons that I want to keep accurate track of times: For calculating the payment due for my work (obviously), and for gathering information about how long it takes to do things. The latter is half for being able to do better, more accurate pre-calculations and estimates, and half for research purposes. How well the times taken are suited for research depends, of course, on the tools used and the processes in detail, so I won't use my spinning times on the e-spinner for estimating spinning times in the Middle Ages, but there's plenty of tasks that are similar to what would have been done in the original creation to be of some value.

Now, of course, it would be helpful to separate different tasks and write down what each of them was. It makes a difference whether I'm sewing a straight line, or whether I'm hemming seam allowances. It is handy to know how long it takes to spin as opposed to weaving, and then there's the yarn skeining time, and time needed to set the twist. All of these could be just taken together as work time on item X, but it's of more help for my future work to have the extra detail.

Which, of course, adds some overhead work time for documentation.

It's also a smart idea to take at least some rough notes about how things are done, if it's not so simple that there's no other way. (Spinning would be an example for that. But it could already be interesting to note whether a pair of hose was sewn from the bottom up, or from the top down.) A few photos taken of the process also don't hurt... 

In some cases, when a reconstruction is ordered, the museum asks for a bit of "making of"-documentation, which could be pictures or videos, or both. That makes it easier to remember to do the visual documentation - for all the other things, having something to blog about also means I usually take a few photos of things going on.

Otherwise, regarding spinning, I record the following things in an Excel sheet: 

Bobbin number (so I can keep track of the yarn batches) and how long the spinning time for that bobbin was; how many turns on the skein winder (I have a counter for that, so this is a quick and easy way to measure yarn length); weight of the skein. Then my sheet does the calculation on yarn length (number of turns multiplied by 1.69, as that's my skein circumference), spinning speed in metres per hour, and nM as the yarn grist. I'm also getting a running calculation on how much yarn I have (adding the bobbins/skeins already done), and how much is left to do for the project according to my and the weaver's estimates.

So far, I have found that spinning time does vary according to the type of yarn, the amount of twist, and the fibre - but it's usually in a similar range. It does look like I have a normal drafting speed that I will fall into, and that limits the overall working speed. Not very surprising, but there you are.

Do you document your spinning? Or are you tempted now to do so?

Since I was asked about progress on the reconstruction process... well. Here's a first glimpse of the yarn from the test-spin, still on the bobbin: 

I've done a bit of spinning with both Valais Blacknose and Gotland wool, and though I'd have preferred to like the Valais better... I'm inclined towards the Gotland right now, at least for the warp. It's a bit easier to spin, and it comes closer to my impression of the original warp. The weft, though... it might well be that the Valais is better suited for that. 

The new empty bobbin is already sitting on the spinner, ready for the s-spun weft test yarn. Now if I hadn't gotten sidetracked with a lot of other things to do today... 

Mind you, I'm not complaining. But sometimes juggling all the things that have deadlines, or do not have deadlines but still need attention... well. You probably know what I mean! 

A good while ago, I had a lovely trip to Vienna, where I gave a presentation which was also streamed online and recorded. So once I returned home, I put "check out and link to recording" on my to-do-list. 

And then, as things go, it took a while for it to be processed and uploaded, and in the meantime my to-do-list did some growing... so the item wandered ever further down the list. There's a stack of items in that part, things I'd like to do or check out but that are neither urgent nor really important, and they sit there waiting, patiently, for their day to come.

Once in a while, I scroll down the list to that half-forgotten part, and sometimes I drag an item back up to the top... and then sometimes-sometimes, I actually deal with it. 

In this case, here you are, the presentation I gave in Vienna:

I hope you enjoy it! 

In case you're looking for a bit of embroidery input, my fabulous colleague Alexandra Makin is working on a Bayeux-related project, and her newest update is available on YouTube. She's talking about how to transfer the design in that installation: 

This is right on top of my list of things to watch now - I'm very much looking forward to finding out more about how she will handle this! 

For my own projects, I've usually traced the design, using a window or a table (depending on how strong the lines on the design original were, and how thick the fabric was) and went at it with my iron gall ink. More rarely I did use the pounce method with charcoal dust and then tracing with ink, and even more rarely I've done freestyle drawing with charcoal, followed by tracing what I was happy with in ink. (Or, extremely rarely because of the small project size, just using the charcoal lines.)

I always find it fascinating to find out more about the original tracings on fabric, and especially to see how much, in many cases, the embroiderers just did as freestyle shading. That, however, is often hard to see, as you usually have either the drawing (when the threads fell out and are lost) or the embroidery (hiding all lines drawn on the fabric)...

The fabric reconstruction project I was writing about on Friday? I've seen images of the two (quite similar) textile fragments now that will be our aim, and they are really, really beautiful.

At least to my eyes, that is.

Objectively, they are nothing really spectacular. 2/2 twill, with a hard-spun warp and a softer-spun, thicker weft. The warp, as is usual, in z and the weft in s; the fibres look quite thick and shiny. With only about 5-8 threads per centimeter, the fabrics are not even really fine, which is a good thing in this case - as much as I'm tickled by the idea of one day trying to recreate a really fine fabric (preferably one with a spin patterning, that would be extra cool), as we're a little short regarding the timeframe, I'm happy to have a bit less to spin. 

Next step: Test spinning! With the aim of spinning a yarn as similar as possible to that in the original piece. Which is always including some guesstimation, because the yarn will change when the twist is set, and then again when it's in the weave...

It's looking like there will be an exciting fabric reconstruction project in the near future - the very near future, as our time-until-delivery is uncomfortably short. Which, to be fair, is anything less than 12 months for most fabric reconstruction projects.

The issue is that there's a lot of steps involved, and they can take quite a bit of time, plus there's also the lag time for cooperative projects that one has to figure in. And fabric reconstructions are usually cooperative projects, it's rather rare that one single person does all the research, all the spinning, and all the weaving single-handedly. 

Fabric reconstruction projects are exciting, and I love them, but they are beasts. Beasts, I can tell you.

First it starts with choosing a fabric - it has to fit the timeframe, and there has to be enough data available on it. Ideally, it's a large enough fragment to get a good impression of yarn style (thickness and regularity or irregularity, though most yarns are pretty evenly spun), how the fabric looks, and it's a jackpot if there's a selvedge involved, though we're not going to get greedy. 

Fibre analysis would also be nice, because using a different yarn from a different sheep breed's wool will also make a difference. Not all of the original finds had a fibre analysis done, and that is usually "just" a histogram of thicknesses at best, no information about curl, crimp, or fibre length. Because I don't have a microscope that's really suited to do fibre thickness measurements, I'm also sort of depending on help in that department. Which means... time. 

Then there's the first task of finding a suitable modern material, in a suitable form of prep. In theory, one could get the raw fibre and do the prep as part of the project, but then we're talking a few extra months, and a lot of extra hours - probably more than an even generous budget would support. (Unless it's a tiny piece of fabric that is planned to get woven. Once we're in the proper production range, we're quite soon at talking kilograms. Processed, mind you.)

Then there's test spinning, and test weaving, to figure out if things will work out as they are intended to do. Or, to put it better, if there's a good chance they will - if you're a knitter, and have been lied to by one (or more) of your swatches, you'll know exactly what I am getting at. Smaller pieces will give an impression on whether this should be workable or not, or if there's something extremely off, but the big piece will always behave differently than the small test cloth.

Afterwards, there's the spinning - to the specifications that are now more or less fixed, according to the data from the original and the results of the weaving test. And then, as the last step, the Moment of Truth (TM) - the actual weaving of the thing.

Since the last larger project, I have a little excel sheet for calculating the amounts of yarn that I need to spin for a piece with given measurements and thread count, to get a rough estimate of spinning time necessary. Unfortunately, spinning time can also vary quite a lot depending on the yarn style and the fibre, even when using the same spinning tool. (Which in my case, due to time and budget considerations, is usually the e-spinner.) Again, of course I can take the time when I test-spin for the test-weave, and I do - but just like swatches can lie, the test-spinning speed can lie as well. So it's an estimate only, and has to be taken with a grain of salt.

Well, my current calculations say that the fabric might be possible with only about 60 hours of spinning time, plus the test spinning time... that's not too bad, right? 

The data I need for the current project-in-the-stage-of-hope will hopefully come together during the next week, and then I will have to get started spinning as quickly as possible. Because in textile reconstruction terms, September is... tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for me that things will work out!