Textile Museum Tilburg

Yesterday I went to the Dutch Textile Museum (sorry, still only in Dutch but I'm told that by the end of this year it will be available in English) again. I'm friend of the museum and they have a "friends day" every year, this year it was yesterday. Always nice to meet up with other friends.
Also we hear of any news about the museum. They have recently refurbished and reopened a year ago.
Something they have developed over the last few years is the TextileLab with the most modern machines where students and artists can make use of the computer guided weaving and knitting machines, the embroidery machine, inkjet printer, tufting and graphics scan. Yesterday the place was buzzing with students, great to see but also nice to know that they can get this opportunity to work with these machines.
The library will be extended so that the students can make better use of these facilities and there is even talk of setting up a Masterclass School.
Hopefully, you will be able to read all about this on their website in English by the end of this year.
In October this year there will be a exhibition with work from Akira Minagawa definitely something to look forward to.

For the first time they had organized workshops we could take part in. We had a choice of "needle felting" "layer upon layer" and "puff paste"

I went for the last option as I did not know what this was and wanted to be surprised. It is a paste that you mix with a colouring and next apply thinly on textile. When you have finished with your creative design on the textile you dry it with a hair dryer and when dry you iron it between 2 layers of paper and he presto the paste comes up in a kind of foam format. The workshop was 1 hour and it was fun to learn about this material.


Above a photo of one of my attempts and a close up where you can see that the foam is almost coming of, where it was applied to thick. The other photo shows the back of the textile.
I suppose you could use this to decorate a plain children's T-shirt. If it is applied in a thin layer it will be washable. If the layer is to thick it will just peel of.

So no weaving done again yesterday but hopefully I will be able to do some tonight.

Another Museum visit: Kunsthal Rotterdam

Today I went to Rotterdam to see the kimono exhibition and the dresses by Annette Meyer in the Kunsthal.
The kimono exhibition was well worth the visit with many beautiful examples on show. Also a film showing how to dress in a kimono was very interesting specially seeing how they tie the obi.
The kimono exhibition is on until June 21st so if you are near Rotterdam, do go and visit!
The dresses by Annette Meyer were a big surprise, you would not think they were all made of paper. A great project, on show until May 24th.
So, no weaving done today!

Stripy scarf finished, weaving the blocked scarf

The stripy scarf is finished but I'm not cutting the warp but weaving on so I will not know how the scarf looks of the loom. I will just have to wait a bit longer. You can see the scarf in the picture on the right and the warp ready to start the second scarf.

I've been able to do some more weaving outside today, I'm feeling really lucky to be able to do this with the weather we have been having.

I'm hemstitching the beginning and end of the scarf on the loom. It takes some time to do but it is so much easier doing it this way and not afterwards.





And here a photo of the second scarf coming along. The blocks will be different sizes. I'm not noting down what I have done, just play about as I think fit. I do try to use the 5 colours mixed up, not 1 after the other. That is what I have done with the first scarf. It is very relaxing to weave this way. I'll be very interested to see the end result of the loom.

Weaving the stripy scarf

The first scarf is halfway done.
I notice that I have been weaving with a very open weft and liking it, I did not plan this, it just happened. It should be a very lightweight scarf. The weft yarn is wool and cotton alternatively.
The woollen yarn is in one colour but the cotton is the warp yarn (5 colours) and I'm playing along with the colours, a bit like painting. :-)

The first scarf is the stripy scarf, the next one will be woven in blocks.

Yesterday the handle of the lawn mover fell on my left foot resulting in blue swollen toes. I'm a big fan of using arnica (not sure how to translate this in English) for bruising so hopefully the swelling will go very quickly. Just hoping that the weaving will not be slowed down to much by all this.
The weather is so nice that we have moved my Leclerc loom outside so that I can weave in the garden, what a treat!

Ready to weave again

Here the reed is ready threaded and the next job was to tie the warp on and get an even tension on the warp.
This I do by knotting the ends of warp bunches and thread a strong yarn through these bunches on to the loom.

This way you can adjust the tension on each bunch very easily and it gives the least wast of warp yarn I find.
Now the weaving can start again.
But at the same time think about the next weaving project. The aim is to try to have at least one of my looms warped up so that the weaving does not stagnate at any point.

Warp purple scarf

I have made my new warp for the purple scarf yesterday, in fact I made a warp for 2 scarves so that I can make a stripy scarf and a blocked scarf.
Threading the heddles is done, next job is threading the reed and I'll be ready for weaving tomorrow. There are 320 threads in total at 12 ends per cm but the sides I'm threading 16 ends per cm, so the scarf will be 26 cm wide on the loom.

Our cats

Not having any weaving news just now I thought of showing you our cats.






They are brother and sister and will be 13 years old in September. So, they like sleeping a lot these days but food is still favourite too.



We used to have a third cat but one day he never came back from his prowls and we have never been able to find out what happened to him.
That was 4 years ago. He was called Tigger and was 2 years younger than the other 2.