Laurenz Berges

Things organized neatly

Urban Knitting

Wendover Air Force Base in Utah

more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/

penelope

She’s up to something, she’s weaving

histories, they are never right,

she has to do them over,

she is weaving her version

Kalevala

Kalevala Ch. 23 - Instructions and a Warning

"Kun tulevi kehruuaika, kankahan ku'onta-aika,
k�y el� kynsi� kyl�st�, oppia ojan takoa,
tointa toisesta talosta, pirran piit� vierahalta!

"Itse langat kehr�ele, omin hyppysin kutehet,
langat laita lievemp�iset, rihmat aina kieremp�iset!
Keri kiinte� ker�nen, viipsinpuulle viskaele,
suvakolle suorittele, kani siit� kangaspuille!
Iske pirta piukkeasti, nosta niiet notkeasti,
ku'o sarkakauhtanaiset, hanki villaiset hamoset
yhen villan kylkyest�, talvilampahan takuista,
karvoista kev�tkaritsan, kes�uuhen untuvista!

When spinning-time comes
and cloth-weaving time, don't go
to the village for wrinkles
beyond the ditch for guidance
tot he next house for warp-thread
to a stranger for reed-teeth:
spin the yarn yourself, and with
your own fingertips the weft
make the yarn lightweight
the thread always tightly spun;
wind it into a firm ball
on the reel toss it
on to the warp beam fit it
then set it out on the loom.
Strike the reed smartly
and raise the heddles nimbly
weave homespun caftans
and make woollen skirts
from one strip of wool
the fleece of a winter sheep
from the coat of a spring lamb
the down of a summer ewe.

Translated by Keith Bosley
The Kalevala, Ch. 23
Oxford University Press, 1989

Hyperbolic Coral Reef

http://crochetcoralreef.org/

http://crochetcoralreef.blogspot.com/

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is a project by the Institute For Figuring in Los Angeles. The Crochet Reef resides at the intersection of mathematics, marine biology, handicraft and community art practice, and also responds to the environmental crisis of global warming and the escalating problem of oceanic plastic trash.

coral forms

Spiderweb

More fishing nets

unusual commercially used textiles

Soy Silk fibre contains natural anti-bacterial agents which can restrain the growth of certain types of bacteria and is therefore considered a very sanitary fiber
Sting Plus nettle fabric is woven from the stinging nettle, which "produces a uniquely strong, soft and naturally fire retardant textile fibre" and, blended with pure new wool, it is "the ultimate environmental upholstery solution."
Lenpur is a biodegradable fabric made from white pine tree clippings, and "offers the comfort of silk, the touch of cashmere and the lightness of linen."
Seacell is a fabric made out of Lyocell (a 100% wood pulp fiber) and seaweed. The theory is that your skin will absorb nutrients from the seaweed, which is quite mineral- and vitamin-rich

Herbarium

In botany, a herbarium (plural: herbaria) – sometimes known by the Anglicized term herbar – is a collection of preserved plantspecimens. These specimens may be whole plants or plant parts: these will usually be in a dried form, mounted on a sheet, but depending upon the material may also be kept in alcohol or other preservative. The same term is often used in mycology to describe an equivalent collection of preserved fungi, otherwise known as a fungarium.

Human Hair as Fibre for Fabric

If humans made necklaces and armlets using pebbles or bone, it has to be asked what they used to string them together. One answer is that they used their own hair as the basic fibre to spin, braid, or weave. Assuming that hair grows at 0.5 mm per day, and that there are 100,000 hairs on a head, then daily production is 50 metres per day. Furthermore, this fibre is produced on the immediately accessible crown of one's own head, not in some remote field or grove.

Humans could use their own hair for a variety of purposes. It could be braided into fine twine or thick rope. It could be woven into sheets or felt mats. It could be the matrix which bound together stones, pebbles, pieces of wood. This could have served to make the armlets and anklets needed for defence. It could also be used to make pouches and bags.

Stones, twigs or bone need not have been pierced to allow a passage for string, but simply notched to allow the twine of hair to grip from outside. Cutting notches in stones would have been much easier than laboriously boring holes through them. Since the twine could be very fine - a few hairs - or coarse rope, almost any size of stone could be bound together.

Simple weapons could be constructed using the same principle. Using a single heavy stone, its sides deeply notched to take thick twine, and a length of rope made up of braided hair, a heavy cosh could be made which could deliver a powerful blow. These might have been used to drive off predators which were attacking an individual human.

Bags or pouches, made of woven hair, could have been waterproofed using natural latex or tar. This would have enabled humans to carry small waterbags, long before they could use animal bladders or skins for the same purpose.

The resources of hair available in a human community could include those of previous generations, if hair flexibility could be retained for long periods using natural oils or resins. Thus a human community would probably have a considerable store of hair products, which could be re-used.

Humans may have been expert weavers long before they began using stone tools. Little or no evidence of this would appear in the fossil record. The ropes, garments, and bags they made would have ultimately degraded, leaving no fossil evidence except a few dispersed notched stones and bones. Skill in weaving human hair would have formed the basis for subsequent weaving of cotton and wool.

Use of human hair in thise way would have resulted in artificial selection for abundant, long hair in humans. Those humans with more abundant hair than others would be prized, and given high status, because the hair that an individual produced was as valuable as the work they did. Different kinds of hair would have been used for different purposes. The fine hair would have been used for small detailed work and garment lining, and robust thick hair for ropes and bags.

lace flowers

Melancholia

Hair Wreaths: Fancywork from the Victorian Era

During the Victorian period (1837-1901), European and North American societies believed that a middle- or upper-class woman should function as manager of both the house and family. The interior of the home subsequently became a showcase for a woman’s best handwork and decorative taste. The term "fancy work" came to describe both functional and purely aesthetic objects a Victorian woman made or embellished in her free time. From 1850 to 1875, one of the most popular forms of fancywork was the hair wreath. Appealing to the tendency among Victorian women to incorporate the importance of friends and family into their work, hair served as a tangible remembrance of someone.

Human Hair

Adult humans typically have little body hair, but abundant hair on their heads. In part this may have served as protection and insulation for the skull. But it may also have had another use.

Human infants are able to grip very powerfully. They may have needed to. Busy mothers, with work to do, could not have held their babies in their arms. The babies would have had to cling on to something. The most likely candidate is a mother's long hair, since there is little else that an infant could clutch. That hair may have been tied together at the ends to form a cradle below the mother's breasts, in which an infant fed at will.

One explanation for male facial hair may be that human mothers weaned children from breast feeding by passing them to males. Males would have had to be stronger to carry these older children. The weaned child fed from the father's mouth. Beard and moustache enabled an infant, clinging to male chest or head hair, to pull open his mouth. The weight of a child hanging from his beard may have been sufficient to pull the mouth open.

Behind this is the suggestion that humans did not spend much time actively caring for their children, simply because they did not have enough time free for it. Both males and females were too busy collecting, carrying and preparing food, and performing numerous other tasks. Infants had to fend for themselves, and clung to their mother's hair, and suckled at will, while the mother busied herself in other tasks. Adult males were similarly busy, and it was left to children to open their mouths to access chewed food. Mothers weaned children when they could no longer carry them. Fathers left older children to their own devices when they in term could not carry the weight.

One result of this relative lack of care from too-busy parents may have been high infant mortality. To the extent that infants had to fend for themselves, by clinging onto parents and feeding from them, they were in danger of falling or being underfed.

nice nets