Muddy stems

My hemp samples proved actually to be ready, so I took them up an hour ago. As I guessed before, it wasn’t very pleasant and I got almost completely drenched. Hemp stems were muddy and smelled a bit rotten, which should be a good sign anyway. Bunches are now drying a bit on the shore. I’ll try to cart them to Garveriet tomorrow and set them dry in front of a heater.

I was muddy, wet and miserable after wading in the river picking and throwing the stones away from the bottom of the frame, so I went straight to the shower after coming in. I’m feeling myself a bit sick and having some fever, so I try to spend this evening in my room spinning with a spinning wheel.

Hemp was in the river exactly 2 weeks. Very short time, I think, Jan’s and Katerina’s hemp at last September were there according their report 3 weeks.

Photos of fat tanning

More pics added to Flickr’s leather and tanning -section.

Hemp, wool and spinning

Hemp is still laying in the running water. After couple of days I have to wade to the river and pick some samples and dry those, so I’ll see how long they have to lay there. I’m not waiting for it very enthusiatically, because the water temperature has sunken to 9 Celsius. Brrr.

Åland sheep wool is quite soft and nice to handle. I have researched a bit about Finnish textile finds and decided that skirt fabric will have about 6-7 yarns /cm in the loom and about the same in the weft. The loom is S-doubled Z-yarn, weft undoubled Z like in most grave finds in Finland. Interesting enough is that in Sweden they have spunned with a different spindle type, so the yarn is mostly undoubled S both in the loom and the weft. I’m spinning, as it was planned, the loom by the spinning wheel (it’s the matter of time, I’m having about 4 months active working time) and the weft by the spindle.

I love spinning with a spinning wheel! It’s _way_ faster than spinning with a spindle (although I like a spindle too). It takes lots of time anyway to spin so much yarn I will need, so I should be more active with working. Tanning the skins just takes so much of my energy that it’s too easy to forget spinning when I come in and just sit down in front of my laptop…

There’s not much more to say about spinning. It’s repetative work and brushing wool with wool combs or scribbling takes much more time than the spinning itself. I’m listening to music and podcasts and thinking my own things when working.

Stirring the bark bath

My purpose was to take goat skins out from the willow bark bath today and begin to tan skins with sheep brains and egg.  Nevertheless, I have been reading the last Harry Potter whole weekend. Because of that I haven’t done anything else than stirred bark bath here and then and sank deer skins to Ljusnan river (rinsing the lime out takes so much time that it’s easier to let running water do most of that work).

Willow bark seems to give a quite nice, reddish brown colour to skin. The bark bath doesn’t have any tanning purpose: only reason to put skins into it is the colour. I have been running to the Handicraft house and back again: if I don’t stir the bath often enough (= after couple of hours), goats will have lighter and darker spots, which doesn’t look so nice.

I’ll take goats up tomorrow and put deer skins to the bath instead. Means lots of time spent in Handicraft house and  lots of stirring.  I’ll take my wool with me so I can spin and be  productive.
My cow is still in the lime bath. Hopefully I can scrape the hair off on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Only 160 pages left in Harry Potter…

Scraping skins

Couple of days ago I scraped half of a cow, three goats and two deer skins. Their skin sides have now thick layer of lime. Hair should begin to fall away off during the week. When they’re loose enough I’ll scrape all hair off and begin to tan goats and deer with fat, which will be either brains or seal train oil. I’m probably also colouring them brown with willow bark before tanning, because without that they’ll be all white. Goats, deer, and couple of sheep which I will get later will be my frock.

Pics are here.

Soaking the hemp

I’m uploading photos to Flickr – check more pictures from my Bäckedals collection page.

Hemp stems are now in Ljusnan (the pics are here). I tied hemp stems to a frame and carried them in the river. Standing and moving in cold water when trying to sink hemps by big stones which I picked up from the bottom of river wasn’t – well, nice at all.

It’s blowing very hard and I hope that my knots will keep their hold and hemp don’t float down the river. Water temperature is now about 14 C. Hopefully the temperature will remain the same (or at least over 10 C) next three weeks. Then I’ll pick them up and dry them.

I almost guessed that writing in English will cause pauses to this blog. It’s too easy to just put back updating.

Beginning with the hemp fibres

I’m beginning to get a faint picture about what I’ll be doing during this autumn. I have spoken with both Aja and Ellinor. It seems that I really have to work quite hard, which I will absolutely do – the only problem is that I should not only remember, but also _do_ something to my university studies while being here…

Yesterday I started to work with hemp. My another apron will be made of hemp, another of leather. I have been mostly taking the leaves off from hemp, which is a very, very dusty job. That means that I’ve been sitting with a scarf on my nose and mouth on a small bench drawing hemp through iron spikes (rohkiminen). Dull and dirty job, but podcasts help me to amuse myself while working. I have couple of buckets left, but I should be ready quite soon. Then I can put those hemps to Ljusnan-rivers water for soaking (liotus/rötning). Books about linen and hemp tell that running water should work badly with soaking the fibres, but my teachers say that there has never been problems here with that.

I also set yesterday a half of a salted cow (only the hide, not the whole thing…) to a water bucket. I have to change the water every day, but it may lay there to next Monday, when the salt has melted and I can begin to scrape the skin. After scraping I’ll put it to lime water for getting cows hair off. The skin will be very, very thick. I’ll be using it for the shoe soles.

Soon I should begin to take the hair off from 6 another hides too. Those will be my frock (alusmekko), which I will tan with fat.

Forming the idea of my project

I met Ellinor, my project leader, shortly after I arrived today. I’ll take part to the textile course linnen lecture and make a short written description about my project principles. In any case I will be quite much with textile people during this autumn.

Tomorrow we’ll speak about linnen and begin to sew an linnen apron. It’ll be a handy thing to have.