I've also received some wood frames and tried to make another screen with curtain fabric and white glue: this was a success.

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.

#ScreenPrint

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 :(

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

#screenPrint

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:

And so, today, this may have happened:

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?

My new row counter for #knitting short rows toes and heels! (yes, it is quite specific)

It's an old toy: a white plastic board with holes at regular spaces and coloured pegs that were used to draw some kind of computer-free pixel art.

Instead, I've added a strip of paper with the number of stitches on each row (and whether it's knits or purls), I use four pegs to mark the beginning and end of the current toe/heel, and I mark every row as I knit it by moving other pegs around, first to one side of the strip of paper and then to the other side.

I still think that something like this would be really nice in wood and brass, but this has the huge advantage of actually existing right now :D

Il calzino di cui parlavo, finito

e un calzino di un'altro colore e taglia, appena iniziato, di cui si vedono la punta ed un pezzettino del piede, più i ferri da calza con cui lo sto lavorando

Il modello è knitty.com/ISSUEsummer06/PATTu… (e anche lì ci sono ulteriori foto)

The Fuchsia is one of the well-behaved ones, and it's, well, pretty much magenta. My main aim is to use it for CMKY mixes, but it also looks nice on its own.

From what I see in the online reviews the Platinum Cassis Black looks quite less saturated (I see it is an iron gall one, so that's to be expected, I guess), while this is much more straight pure magenta.

filed under: loot :D

My latest #fountainPen #Ink order has arrived: I only needed a couple of blacks (DeAtraments Document, waterproof, and basic staple Pelikan 4001), but I just had to add a few samplers of other DeAtramentis Document shades, plus the KWZ Sheen Machine.

The DeAtramentis Document White (which is sold as fountain pen safe — I wouldn't use it with anything that isn't extremely easy to clean, however) was a surprise because it actually works on black paper! (I bought it to mix it with the other shades, I didn't expect it to be useful on its own)

As for the other shades, this confirms my perception that this line is pretty great, except for the blues, that are horribly feeathering :(

I'll see what happens when I do a few mixes that involve some of those blues.

Foto di una locandina incorniciata coi seguenti contenuti

PROCLAMA

Sento che alcuni malintenzionati traggono partito da misure militari e mosse strategiche delle truppe, per diffondere voci allarmanti ed indurre la popolazione ad atti inconsiderati, come per esempio a convegni in massa in singoli luoghi.
Mentre rammento, che gli autori e i propagatori di voci allarmanti incorrono nel rigore delle Leggi militari, esorto la popolazione a non lasciarsi fuorviare da simili rumori né indurre a siffatti passi inconsiderati, essendoché si sono già prese le più efficaci misure per mantenere l'ordine legale, e ristabilirlo, ovunque venisse turbato, per cui i trasgressori delle Leggi non potrebbero che imputare a sé stessi le gravi conseguenze della loro contravvenzione.

Milano, 29 maggio 1859

L'I. R. Tenente-Maresciallo e Governatore militare della Lombardia,
ANDOR MELCZER di KELLEMES

Dall'Imperiale Regia Stamperia

(green hexagonal sticker with the words “this machine kills -9 daemons” in a fixed width font)

my preciooouuuuuuuuuus has arrived!

Thanks to a combination of coincidences, last week I ordered 50 garment labels in woven cotton (pictured above as they arrived from the german language shop, as a continuous strip, with the writing in white over a black background) with the hashtag #FreeSoftWear to sew on the garments I make for which a Free as in Freedom pattern is available .

Now I need to be better at actually writing compilationsewing instructions for the valentina patterns I put on my git repo, because right now they tend to be... obvious to a quite experienced sewist who already did something similar?

I've made myself a new pair of Rosalia Stockings.

It's my second pair (a few years after the first, because I got distracted), and this time I've solved the fitting issues with my first pair, so now I can make ALL THE STOCKINGS!

Mostly the pattern is symmetrical for the right and left leg, but my feet are very much not symmetrical, so I changed the stocking to be more pointy rather than square-toed.

It's made from the leftovers of a cut of black cotton jersey that I was using for something that was supposed to be a nightgown, but is looking more like a little black dress (yay for drafting my own patterns and always having predictable results :D )

Also, I've finally found a use for at least two repeats of a piece of plastic lace that I got for free from a shop more than a decade ago because it had been discolored by the sun (at strategically placed positions that made it harder to use in any kind of length). Also, have I mentioned “plastic”? I wanted to use it for something, but it's scratchy enough that I didn't want it anywhere where it could touch my skin. Here it's safely on the outside, it helps distinguish this pair from future pairs I'm going to make, and it looks nice.

#sewing

I haz a #bustle cage!

(picture of a bustle cage in off-white fabric with lace over the boning and box pleats at the bottom)

There is a gaping hole at the top because the top row of boning is a bit too high and I didn't have enough fabric to pleat it correctly to the waistband; I will probably add a few more tapes to keep that bit of fabric taut.

It's based on adamselindisdress.wordpress.co… (and the instructions on the book by the same author), but I've added tapes on the inside instead of a full inside back piece so that the width can be regulated, but most importantly making it was much easier, as even the second side seam is done on a flat cage instead of a 3D shape.

New shirt!

Sewn by hand, pattern by Bernadette Banners on youtube with minor changes (all of the non-historically accurate details are mine).

Light blue (with a purple tint) shirting that I bought a few years ago, so it counts as stashbusting, right?

Worn tucked in

and loose, with a belt (I guess it can be worn without the belt, but I don't think I like that look)

It is pretty long, almost reaching to above-knee lenght.

Also, is it me, or am I accidentally ending up with a pidgeon breast look even when wearing things from a different era?

I don't have the platinum carbon black (yet :D ), but you may be interested in this test I made some time ago with drops of water and of bleach (they are all water based inks, but not all of them are fountain pen safe: the ones that resisted bleach and are fountain pen safe are the R&K Sketch Ink and the two Koh-I-Noor Document).

And if you are interested in preservation, this is a lightfastness test, on mostly the same set of inks.

This picture has been taken on 2020-07-09, after two months of being stuck on a south-east facing window.

Too late, the sun is going down, the #solarOven is back to 50°C and the apples have already been moved to the haybox so that they remain warm until dinner.

But you can get a high quality picture of the haybox, taken with a pinephone, where you can also see a bit of the oven

(And yes, “haybox” means “random box from an online store, with shredded paper packaging material from another online store", and later I topped it up and wrapped the box in a blanket)

Può servire?

(no, non ce l'ho veramente in casa, è una foto vecchia con una storia carina)

This reminded me that in another age I spent two nights in the #castle of the Piagnaro in Pontremoli

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunigian…

Sadly the weather wasn't really being helpful for pictures (also, apparently I forgot to take a picture from the outside)

With random pictures from an internet search:

These are some of the things one can find in a pasticceria in the north of italy

Most panettieri are more likely to have some kind of sweet bun and/or a loaf with raisins such as

I've seen both pasticcerie and panetterie sell croissants, and some panetterie also sell cakes, but they tend to be simpler than the ones you can find at a pasticceria.

In case you are stranded in Italy outside meal times, I'd recommend trying both :D

Testing of De Atramentis #inks continue.

I've finally finished the Pelikan 4001 in my preppy #fountainpen, and filled it¹ with the De Atramentis Document Black

On good paper the lines are slightly wider than the Pelikan 4001, but still reasonable, and it writes nicely (a bit scratchy when reverse writing, but I don't think I can expect anything else when reverse writing on a japanese EF :D )

Then I tried on a bit of the worst printer paper I had around, and I can say “it works”. I could see the line getting wider as I writed, but the result isn't bad.

I also needed a test of the red, so I used a dip pen (with a flexible nib)

and these are the backs of the samples above, with some ghosting, but bleedthrough is really happening only when I flexed the nib.

And now, I need to find the strength of mind to wait until I have finished at least a bottle or two of other inks before buying the whole De Atramentis Document series :D (also, nope, that's way too expensive to buy at one time :D )

¹ not a full converter load, because I don't use it enough

@SlowRain

(mordor meme: one does not simply walk into an haberdasher)

to buy matching ribbon during a lockdown, no, one must make it from self fabric. finicky, slippery, self fabric.

And then they reopen the shops in advance, but meanwhile the hat is almost done

(picture of a witch hat with ear covers, in dark green herringbone fabric and gold lining).

The idea and instructions for the hat are from Bernadette Banner: youtube.com/watch?v=bwDo4R6wtu…

And dere vill be anodder #hat

The design is by Bernadette Banner youtube.com/watch?v=bwDo4R6wtu…

This is just an unlined mockup in cotton, but I have some leftovers of dark green wool from my old girl genius costume and they are already on my cutting table :)