Ottoman fiber arts, Freecycle and granola

 Yesterday the Textile Museum and others presented a really intriguing program on the movement of textiles and artisans around the Ottoman Empire and beyond, largely because of  political forces. The map gives an idea of the general region discussed.

Dr Phillips wrote the book and is the sort of seemingly effortless presenter who has terrific knowledge of the  techniques, history and languages involved in her subject.

The slides are dated and labeled and sourced well enough to tell anyone interested quite a bit about this aspect of textile history, also some etymology, bringing two great interests together for me.

The weaving structures range from tabby to twill to samite, which I had thought was a cloth, but it's a weave structure.

This weaving uses angora goat hair, and I believe the word is related to Ankara. The item name, velense, derives from Valencia, and indicates the journey of the Jewish weavers expelled in the 1492 expulsion of the Jews. They took their skills and materials east and you see an example here. A lot of things happened out of Spain, that year, as our indigenous people know all too well.

Indian makers influenced the use of silk and precious metals in their very expensive cloth,  which, when artisans had to economize in hard times, were replaced by cheaper metals and threads.

Dr Phillips gave a special shout out to the photographers doing the setups to get these images for her book.

here, in India, modern weaving still uses traditional band designs, on a more modern loom.

Here are some researchers' deconstructions of the weaving

This one is interesting, because the original calligraphy, st the top,  was squashed up, even omitting syllables, to fit into a preexisting design size, lower image. There's surmise that it was a rush order, to celebrate possibly a  victory or an accession to power, maybe both, with a short  deadline. Even then this happened!

This was a real adventure with an expert, into a textile era I knew little about, but now would like to know more. I messaged a thank you note to the speaker.

Meanwhile, back to the present, yesterday I had a great urge for granola and next thing I knew, I'd made a batch. Almonds, cranberries, avocado oil, honey, cinnamon, lemon zest, whoa!

As I was picking out clothes yesterday, I noticed yet again a few items I like and never wear, so I took them out, posted them on Freecycle, and within a few minutes was reminded that there are odd ducks everywhere.

The three items on the right make a nice outfit, and the crop tops go with the rayon pants very well. I have another pair of these pants, no need for both, in fact I've been thinking of converting them to a skirt, lovely deep pockets,  but wide legs that can make me trip, but that means plenty of fabric..The tunic is a linen mix, the shirt cotton and the pants rayon, the crop tops  knitted cotton. Mainly  Indian and Indonesian, the rayon pants fair trade. The blue top has applique I painted and stitched on.

The odd duck messaged me very quickly saying she was interested in picking up. No indication of day and time as requested. 

I looked her up, found she was a brand new account, so instead of ignoring her, I figured she hadn't quite got the hang, and messaged that she needed to note my request and give estimated day and time. I'd noted the town name twice in the post, to help estimate if the distance was worth it.. 

Whereupon she got back and said she'd done that. Which she hadn't. Then she messaged twice more, once to say she lives in a town about an hour north of here, and hoped that was okay by me. I wondered what it had to do with me and the price of bananas, when her third message arrived, and explained she couldn't drive this far.

Yes, you see where this was going! Looked like she hoped I'd not only give her the things, but do a two hour round trip in the process. Evidently she confused free cycle with a free delivery service. So I  didn't continue with the pen pal exchange. 

Meanwhile a very stable and businesslike, different,  lady messaged with day, today, time, whatever I wanted, and the parcel of things was gone in an hour to a happy free cycler.

Happy day, everyone, look out for people who are not quite with the rules, and crafty, too, they're everywhere, everywhere, I tell you!

Textiles from Guatemala

Today's lecture, presented by the Textile Museum of GW University, featuring Raymond Senuk.

These presentations are by academics, researchers and collectors, showing examples of textiles, often indigenous textiles of people whose culture  they've traveled to live among and study.  Unlike the Textiles and Tea series, these are not themselves makers.

I'm happy to note the increasing frequency with which they note the precious textiles are in the custody of the original culture, some of them surrendered by major museums and collectors for the purpose. 

Some of these pictures I had to crop more than I wanted, to eliminate rubbish captioning which didn't come within a country mile of having the terms loaded on their algorithm. And the presenters are not very techie, often allowing captions to obliterate the very image being discussed. I deleted a lot that way, too.

Onward. It was a very well organized presentation, classic academic style, useful to give the framework to see what it is you're seeing. 

Not exciting unless you're excited, as I was, about the murex dye, brilliant different colors, from the exudate of -- snails! He made a point of explaining the snails are not hurt, just lifted off the rock, placed on the raw thread, and replaced after they've deposited the fluids. This is a renewable natural dye source. Just so you know when you see the dye listing.

There are 120 recorded styles of huipils, the main garment people wear. Often villages have their own preferred patterns, or on it may reflect what's available in dyes and threads, as well as the differing skills of the makers, usually women in this tradition.

Religion gets intertwined with the story, with the devotion to the Black Christ, and the dressing of statues of the Blessed Virgin with huipils, particularly on festival days

The scenes are from a festival in mid January, he didn't specify which. However the village is San Pedro, so that might be the connection.

The huipils for the statues are clearly different from regular huipils. The neck opening is tiny, since they are draped on the statue, not put over the head like a woman's huipil.

You see women here with the interesting mix of covering the head, Catholic style, and wearing the traditional huipils, one as a dress, one as a shawl. Not all of them observe the covering. 

The underskirt shows the date of making. Irreverent to lift the robe, but they rationalized it as research.

Huipils for regular people, and weaving patterns

Most of the weaving is done on back strap looms, as this weaver shows

Amazing to see the origin of the wonderful textiles we just observed. Not pictured is the world class skill of the weaver. 

I like the respectful tone of this speaker. We're getting that more as researchers become educated in the etiquette of observing cultures generous enough to let them in.