uh! buon towel day!
foto di repertorio, perché è mattina troppo presto e piove troppo per scattare foto nuove
I've decided to post the pattern for the shawl I'm making on my website even if it hasn't been finished yet: it's easy enough that I'm pretty confident in it even after just a small sampler.
This is the current status:
Oh, and of course yesterday I've started a new project, but at least this one is a quick one: a felted belt pouch (and a fauxdori cover in the same yarn/stitch).
exibit 3: my felted slippers for the next winter, because I can't really order just a yarn winder from a LYS and not buy a bit of yarn, right? even if I've just bought a truckload of yarn from somewhere else.
exibit 2: thin merinos/silk/cashmere, meant for machine knitting; probably worked on 3 mm circulars in a simple lace pattern as a big triangular shawl for myself¹
¹ I won't complain too much if my mother wants to steal it sometimes :)
Now, filed under #crafterProblems, out of said 6kg of yarn
exibit 1: merinos/silk/cashmere, to be worked with something like 4mm needles, a basque beret for my mother¹, who's making a cardigan with the rest of the yarn
¹ my mother's head is the same size as mine. hat -stealing-borrowing *may* happen.
My yarn winder has arrived, and it works!
It's fast, it doesn't hurt my wrists (like using a stick does), it can do 100g cakes and it makes the idea of dealing with about 6 kg of mostly very thin yarn much less daunting than having to make balls by hand.
(picture of the top of a black cotton sock, cut and sewn to make a pouch, with a swirl made of paws screenprinted in pink)
And this is the speedball paint for dark fabric, in Raspberry. it's a bit less pink in real life, but not very much. It's pleasantly shiny, however.
I guess this means I've choosen a side?
(picture of two round patches, on one there is a screenprinted bull's eye in blue and yellow, the other shows the pin sewn to the back)
By that time I would have *serious* doubts about the colours, really, but they are the #screenPrint paints (dekaprint 2000 in blue and yellow + deckweiß to print it on black fabric) I needed to test, and the alternatives wouldn't have worked :D
also, aligning two colour prints on small scraps of fabric is hard, even if you have a bit of a border on the lighter colour :D
Branco di nerd, riconoscete questo posto? mettete CW alle risposte per non spoilerare agli altri, grazie
Do you nerds recognise this place? Please CW your answers to avoid spoilers
Foto scattata in una cittadina italiana, con un viale alberato in discesa e in fondo un palazzo a quattro piani con vetrine di negozi al pian terreno e un'altra strada più stretta che prosegue. Poche macchine (soprattutto parcheggiate), qualche pedone e bicicletta.
Picture taken in an italian town, with a tree-lined, downhill wide street; at the end there are a 4-stories building with shops and another street. Few cars (mostly parked), few pedestrians and bikes.
Filed under: if it can be done it must be done (it's probably not a good idea), right?
18th century pocket. *tactical*!
(Picture of something shaped line a 18th century pocket, except it's made of blue cordura with alternating red and white 2.5 cm webbing sewn at regular 4 cm intervals, and the front slit is closed by a water repellent zipper.)
(Picture of the back of the same pocket, where the webbing is blue (in a darker hue than the cordura), there is no slit, but two small belt loops sewn in the top seam.)
I know, to make it properly *tactical* it should have been camo instead of brightly coloured, but I have no camo fabric at home (and honestly have no plan to buy any) and this was a spur-of-the-moment thing made with leftovers from my backpack-and-accessories.
Temple of Mammona¹, Varese, viale Belforte
¹ representation may not be 100% accurate to reality
The back of the skirt is very full and heavily pleated in the waistband, so it could be worn as is, but also with a bit of padding in the bustle area.
The back of the skirt is gathered in the yoke (but in the picture it can't really be seen, since I'm also wearing my hairs *down*)
Shoes (of which the sole can be seen in the picture) are still very much not historically accurate :D
The two main thinks I've been sewing lately are ready to be worn!
The skirt is a foundation skirt from a 1892 patternmaking manual in light blue linen/cotton with box pleated ruffles at the hem, made in a walking length (you can see the ankles! and the very modern hiking boots I'm wearing every day with late 1800 inspired clothing :D )
The shirt is a gentleman's shirt from a 1880 book, made in blue cotton with two pleats per side in the front plus the button placket and a handful of errors: I've put one of the three buttons in the wrong position (it should have been midway between the collar and the second button) and the cuffs are too small (and I've put the slit in the wrong position, wooops), so I haven't added buttons yet (and maybe I won't?)
Fuso (autocostruito, che è metà del divertimento, anche se ho anche un fuso e una fusarola comprati, e la rocca è fatta con nastro comprato)
Non ho lo spazio né il tempo per una ruota, mentre così è facile tenerlo sottomano e usarlo nei ritagli di tempo da 5 minuti.
In other #screenPrint news, today I tried the drawing fluid + screen filler from the kit I've bought, and made this
(pictures of a printing screen, with the word “serigrafia” (italian for screen printing) first in green drawing fluid and then as a stencil surrounded by red screen filler, written using the Stay Puft font.)
yeah, it worked, I'm not sure I'll use this technique a lot, since I'm not painting things free hand, anyway, so I can just use the UV sensitive thing anyway.
However, to make things a bit more interesting, I tried to print using two colours in a gradient:
(pictures of 8 strips of paper with the word “serigrafia” first in two stripes, magenta and black, then in a magenta -> black very irregular gradient and in the last few strips it's mostly black with bits of magenta).
The strips of paper will be glued to a cardboard box where I'm keeping my screen printing supplies (that's why I did them in the first place, beside the experimenting bits)
it worked!
My third attempt to #screenPrint a qr-code was a success! (nothing like correctly inverting the image to allow a phone to recognise the code :D )
(picture of two scraps of fabric, one black, the other one blue, with QR-codes and “get the source” screenprinted in white)
I'm going to keep this screen, because I expect to use it multiple times in the future, to print it on garments and accessories, and/or to make small patches to sew on them, as applicable.
I've also found a good way to keep the screen stable when exposing it to the free UV lamp in the sky :D
(picture of a small cutting board (not really visible) covered in black felt, with a screen, a sheet of tracing paper with a printed design and a sheet of syntetic glass on top, everything kept together with binder clips).
And then there was this, which isn't experimental or anything.
(picture of a pair of pockets in blue with yellow binding and a #screenPrint of white cat silhouettes: on the left two cats are carefully ignoring each other, while on the right a cat is ready to pounce on another one which is stretching, and a third one looks at them from a safe place.)
Done with plastic stencils (made with product packaging) based on clipart found on freesvg.org.
I've also received some wood frames and tried to make another screen with curtain fabric and white glue: this was a success.
(picture of a wooden frame with fabric nailed on it and a right to repair logo painted in glue)
(picture of some black jeans fabric with the right to repair logo printed in white in a fuzzy and irregular way)
I've washed the screen from the back and I can confirm that the glue part survived: I think I will check it for holes and retouch it a bit the next time I'll use it, but it shouldn't need a lot.
A few updates on #screenPrint progress.
I've tried making a screen with the photoemulsion: even printing the design on tracing paper instead of transparent and using the sun for exposure (instead of a lamp) it worked nicely and printed sharp and precise.
except, I missed the fact that inkscape had not actually inverted all of the design, and thus the QRcode I tried to print was unreadable :(
(picture of a screen for screen printing with green, cured, photoemulsion)
(picture of something that resemble, but isn't, a pair of QRcodes)
At least, I know what went wrong and I can fix it on the next attempt.
I've also found that the kit I've bought doesn't have enough screen cleaning fluid for the number of screens I can do with the available photoemulsion, so I'm waiting a bit until I can get some screens I don't have to reuse (for a few designs that I plan to print multiple times) and more screen cleaning fluid.
Uops, I forgot to post a picture of the @Gruppo Linux Como lake penguin
no, it's not perfect, and I should practice a bit more, but the LUG t-shirts are close to becoming a *thing*.
And I've taken a picture; the brown one is for my mother.
(3 small bolts of fabric in light brown, red and almost electric blue, seen from the side)
And I forgot to mention that there may also have been a cut of black lace, probably enough for an overskirt and to decorate a shirtwaist, and I didn't take a picture either (uops).
Experimental #screenPrint, day I've lost count :D
Art print on quality paper in a suitable mediu… no, really, more like in-joke from an IRC channel, printed on red MÅLA paper in negative with a grainy white area of paint all around it.
Anybody wants the original? only one copy, it's going to sell for a lot of money when I'll become famous :D
step 3: heat set done. rubbing test done (on another bit of paper :D ), it doesn't rub away easily. And added a button.
(Pictures of a bracelet of light brown latex paper with a square logo printed in black and a black plastic snap, open flat and closed in bracelet form).
Today's #screenPrint results were… let's just say it's important to talk about them to prevent publication bias :D
I've spent yesterday evening painstakingly painting a QR-code on curtain fabric with PVA glye (and a bit of acrylic paint added to know what I was doing).
and then today I tried to use it, but it's definitely not clear enough to work
with the white bit way too grainy for any phone / computer to recognize the pattern.
On the plus side, the paint I'm using (marabu textil print) washes easily (with some rubbing) when it's still fresh, so I haven't wasted the scrap of fabric I was using. It may be a sign that it's not going to be as resistant to future washing (after heat setting) as other fabric paint I've used, which is less good, but while doing random experiments it's fine.
Also, while washing the screen the glue went away, which it didn't on the homesewing screen: I'm not sure whether it's the acrylic paint, the fact that it was relatively fresher (less than 24 hours) or the fact that when I washed it I scrubbed it as if I didn't care whether the glue survived or not, while I was more careful with the homesewing screen.
Step 1: cutting the bracelet and printing it: done
(picture of a long and thin rectangle of light brown latex paper with rounded corners and a square logo printed in black at about a third of the lenght)
Step 2: patiently wait until it's completely dry (probably overnight) before ironing
are we there yet? and yet? and yet? and…
#screenPrint! All! The! Things!, weekend 2
The attempt at a two-colours print, using a stencil cut in plastic rather than paper (to make it reusable) will have to wait until tomorrow, when I'll do the second colour.
Today there was also another thing, however:
This is a screen made with old curtain fabric painted with white (PVA) glue and a round embroidery hook, and…
it worked!
It isn't the neatest print, it's grainy and there are a few spots outside of the image where the glue didn't fill all of the fabric holes, so I'm not going to stop using the real screen any time soon, but it is A Look, and it's a look that I like, for some specific things.
And this “home sewing is killing fashion” graphic with a sewing machine with teeth and crossed bones that I've found ages ago on the internet(TM) is exactly the kind of things for which this look is fitting. I had to cut the rest of the text, however (it was “and it's -il-legal”, with the il crossed) because it was too small for the resolution of the screen.
#screenPrint ALL THE THINGS!!!!
(pictures of two black furoshiki with screen prints on the corners: one is a debian swirl made of cat paw prints, in magenta, and the other one is my seal in light blue; on the furoshiki with my seal there is also a cut from an old pair of jeans, with the same design screen printed on the back pocket)
Yesterday evening I watched this: youtube.com/watch?v=WZskjLq040… (Irving Finkel and Tom Scott playing the royal game of Ur)
On my desktop, I may have accidentally had this:
(picture of two rubber stamps inspired by the rosette on the famous royal game of Ur board)
And so, today, this may have happened:
(picture of a minimalistic board for said game, with squares printed on a sheet of paper, the important squares marked with a rosette from the above stamps, 7 + 7 piecepack coins from white (black) and red suites (from a french suits variant, so that there are 7 coins in the same colour) and four standard d4).
Who can guess what happened today? (requires quite some local context knowledge)
Chi indovina cosa è successo oggi? (richiede una discreta conoscenza di contesto locale)
Filed under: catastropheeeeeee
Friday I was finally able to go to the closest #LYS (the last time had been in autumn 2019, because it's not that close), and I've discovered that they no longer make my favourite #yarn suitable for felting.
Obviously, I may have had to buy just a bit of what they still had.
(picture of eight 100g / 85 m balls of yarn in mauve (4 balls), light desaturated blue (2 balls) and red (2 balls), in a weight suitable for knitting with 5-5.5 mm needle)
I've started to play with the DeAtramentis Document CMYK #inks (or maybe CMYW?).
My aim is to get an ink shade that coordinates with the fabric in one of my dresses (everybody needs that, right?), so I took a couple of pictures of that fabric (in different lights), checked the CMYK values of the pixels with gimp and found results that were always something somewhat close to 50% 30% 0% <various K values>, so my first attempt was 3 parts of Cyan, 2 parts of Fuchsia and 7 parts of white, and this is the result, on various papers (Favini schizza e strappa, printer paper from the coop supermarket, Clairefontaine Dessin Croquis Blanc 55 g/m², Fabriano Layout, Fabriano EcoQua, Fabriano Traccia — most of them are white, the EcoQua has a slight yellow tone).
I've also tried to add one part of Cyan to two parts of White, and then one part of Blue (regular blue, not the one that can be used to make CMYK mixes) to two parts of white to see whether it would control their tendency to feather and generally work horribly, and it does. I also like the shade I got from the Blue, and it's somewhat similar to the one I'm looking for (and easier to make), but I like the CMYK a bit more.
I think that the next time I'll add 8 parts of white instead of 7, to desaturate it just a bit more.
And now¹ I need full bottles of those 3 inks (instead of just samples) to make a decent sized batch, and a new preppy #FountainPen to try and use this somewhere that is easy to clean (I'm not completely sure that the white isn't going to clog pens, even in a mix).
¹ as in: I NEED them RIGHT NOW, so maybe I'll consider buying them next year or so? As soon as I can manage to finish maybe at least one bottle of ink I already have?