more on linen

This past weekend at a local living history farm museum, they ran a program called Just the Flax.  It was a one display, short program concerning the processing of flax fibres.  In just 45 minutes I learned so much!  I could not get over how quickly the flax can be processed into fibre, it was like magic.  I was able to spin a bit of it too...first time sitting at a wheel, I only have every spun from a drop spindle.  I was so easy, I cannot stress to you how easy it was!

So after some serious thinky thoughts since Saturday, I am wondering if I could have gotten a tighter weave structure on my shirt linen if I had gone with a finer weft thread.  This is something I am going to have to experiment with once I get my loom set up.

I am also left wondering why we as a province producing more flax and linen.  We have the perfect growing conditions, it really should be a crop that we produce...more thinky thoughts...

here is a link to the living history farm http://rossfarm.novascotia.ca/

back at the computer...

The thumb drive I uploaded my presentation to would not speak to the computers at school, so I had to fly by the seat of my pants and do my presentation old school.  Thank god I brought my sketch book.  I felt pretty shitty about the whole thing, but I know that it was a test run for my thesis presentation coming up.  I may bring the laptop for that one, and a mood board, and hopefully three of my outfits.  It'll happen mid March now, I suspect.

Why so late you ask?  Well, I have one last rewrite to do, stating the obvious in my opening paragraph what my thesis is.  I am sitting at the computer to do that today.  Then I will send it off in all directions and set up the meeting of the committee.  I will be ready for that!
I am well on my way of having two outfits finished by the end of reading week next week, and hope to have the third patterned out and cut in good cloth.  I will wear one of the outfits in the presentation, and have the other two on manikins.  I also will put together a mood board of the women of Punk that I'll be referencing in my thesis.

I am excited to finally be working on the project.  It's been a rough year but I made it through.  Dr Randi talks about the project to everyone she can.  I hope that with this thesis project, we can open up the space for a broader conversation, and we can, as a discipline, stop trying to put people into boxes they don't need or belong in.  In other good news, Dr Randi has not just been voted Best Professor in Halifax, but it's looking like she'll be Chair for the Cultural Studies department for the next couple of years.  This is exciting news!  I may be in a women's and gender studies program at another University, but my thesis advisor is the Chair of a department that I would have rather been in, if they had a Master's Program.  Here's hoping that my project can open that door as well.

Well, I should go write...I have someone sitting on my shoulder, piss nooshing me in the ear...

Oh look, there went January!

Well, things are progressing, even if at times it doesn't feel like it.  I started cutting my collection last week, made the first piece, did some refining of outfits, added a couple.  I really need to sit down and tidy things up and refine my design sketches.  I also have a presentation on Thursday to do, so I will try to sit here at the computer over the next couple of days, do that and create a proper blog entry for you all.

Maybe I'll upload my presentation...

I picked up my loom that weekend.  It is beautiful, but we moved it right into storage so I wouldn't be tempted with even more projects.  It will stay there until we move again and I have a studio.  I have more than enough projects on the go right now that need to be finished...apart from the thesis and collection.  Yeah, I'm feeling a little scattered.

Well, I'm off to bed, I promise I will do something up proper for you all this week!