- Daryl's Blog - https://weaversew.com/wordblog -

Look what the mail brought…

I really don’t feel that old!  But this is the season of holiday cards, and we get a ton.  Each day the mail brings close to a dozen, and I love reading and looking at all of them.  My favorites of course have long newsy letters, and often I don’t know who all the players are, but I enjoy them just the same.  And I love the ones with family photos. How did my husband’s cousin’s daughter get to be in 4th grade?  The part that amazes me, is looking at this next generation of photos, how much I see the parents at that age.  So I’ve lived long enough to remember what a generation behind me looked like and see those same eyes, same expressions in their kids.  Kinda scary and kinda amazing.

Anyway, the mail also brought the latest issue of Threads Magazine.  I’m working on a series of articles for Threads on essential sewing techniques.  The plan is to have an article from me in every issue in 2016.  The first of the series is on the subject of underlining, and there it was, pages 76-79 in the March 2016 issue.  (Wait, isn’t this still December?)  I’m currently writing the fourth article in the series which is due in a couple weeks.  I love publishing.  You get to write stuff that won’t appear for another year.  So, there you have it, what I know about underlining.  They did a nice job on the article.  Threads always does.  Check it out.

Threads [1]Threads2 [2]

And in the mail today was a box from Eugene Textile Center [3].  I know they are in Oregon, but they are my go to place when I need something weavery, old or new.

Last year at the Gathering at Sievers [4] I came across a bunch of old Shuttlecraft Monographs for some ridiculously low price and brought them home with me.  I adore old publications especially on topics of handweaving, so much history and there is a lot of common sense in those monographs.  Good reading material.  A monograph if you aren’t familiar with the term,  is a large leaflet of sorts, or small publication on a particular topic.  I write monographs [5] on all sorts of topics, garment construction, inkle weaving etc.  But the Shuttlecraft Monographs from Harriet Tidball, published in the 1960’s covered a huge range of topics from Tartans, Mexican Motifs, Doup Leno, Doubleweave, and more.  There are gems in there.  I believe there is something like 40 in the series, and I had a few, thanks to my find at Sievers last year, but I thought it would be great to collect them all.  As a writer, especially for magazines, the ability to go back into the archives of both weaving and sewing is pretty critical to gathering perspective. (There is a list [6] from Camilla Valley Farms of all of the monographs and titles if you scroll down.)

I contacted Eugene Textile Center, and they put a staff member on it, (thanks Vicki), and they pulled from their archives some of the ones they had, both new and used copies and this is what arrived today from them.  By the way, it was diligent work from their staff that finished my collection of Handwoven Magazine.  They have even found old loom parts for me, and I’ll be teaching there again this May, this time a couple of days on inkle loom weaving.

Monographs [7]

I did a quick once over of the titles and was grabbed immediately by the one titled Contemporary Costume: Strictly Handwoven. It is the lime green one in the lower right hand corner of the photo. It is Monograph Twenty-Four, 1968.  I nearly spit my tea all over the pages.  I know the late 60’s was a time of letting one’s hair down and dressing in lots of loose unstructured clothing, especially with fringe.  Each page was a new delight.  In fact, since I started making handwoven clothing in the 1970’s, some of my looks are a bit reminiscent of the garments in this book.  Take a look.  Directions for the layout for each garment are included in the monograph.

Garment3 [8] Garment2 [9] Garment1 [10]

That’s the Peter Pan dress on the right. One of my guild mates and I were recently discussing putting together a retrospective of contemporary handwoven clothing for a guild lecture.  This monograph goes right to the top of the list.

Stay tuned…