The latest issue of Complex Weavers Journal just arrived in my mailbox, and my article is in it!!
Okay, it’s nothing groundbreaking, just a summary of the wedding dress project along with the draft for the double-happiness symbol, but still, it’s the first time any weaving writings of mine have appeared in print. I think a certain amount of glee is called for! And a celebratory bowl of ice cream. 🙂
Meanwhile, in my continuing saga of attempted laziness, I took my yardage to a very well-regarded dry cleaner (who specializes in wedding dresses) and asked if they could hard-press it. They pressed a sample, front and back and front again, and gave it to me to evaluate. It was interesting! The pressed fabric was markedly stiffer and glossier than the unpressed fabric – but not nearly as glossy as the thrice-ironed sample that I had done myself with an iron. Since I wanted to maximize glossiness, and keep the fabric fluid and drapey instead of pressed-stiff, I thanked them and took it back to finish up myself.
I think the dry cleaner would be great for pressing fabrics like the cashmere coat, where it just needs to be pressed hard to flatten the fabric. Silk, though, seems to need the polishing action of the iron.
But there is one more possibility for laziness: a friend of a friend has a mangle, and I plan to run a small sample through that in a week or so. If the sample works, I’ll try the 2-yard piece, and if THAT works, then I’ll try the 14-yard piece. I’m not interested so much in the speed of it (it would frankly be easier for me to iron the thing rather than trying to stuff a mangle into the back of my car) but in whether it produces better results. I’ll write more about it once I have a chance to try it – definitely not until next weekend, though.
Meanwhile, I have been doing prosaic things with muslins – tediously tracing and altering patterns, then cutting out the fabric. Tomorrow I plan to cut out the coat muslin and start sewing up both coat and dress muslins – with luck I can finish those Saturday morning and actually get to threading my loom on Saturday afternoon! It has been a real challenge trying to weave, sew, and repair sewing machines all at once but I’m doing about as well as could be expected. I’ll definitely have all the muslins done by Sunday, which is the important part, since I’m going up to see Sharon on Sunday afternoon.
Mike has been down with some sort of virus for the last week, and I think I might have a cold coming on. So off to bed! Tomorrow is a whole ‘nother day.
Congrats Tien! How exciting!