Passementerie, dyeing and works in progress

Yesterday,  fast food from scratch. Tuna and cannellini bean fritters with steamed baby spinach, to get my energy up. Sprig of curry leaf plant which gives flavor even just resting on the hot food.

The Tuesday knitting group was great

The dye in the container is Green Shades,  shown by M, an environmentally friendly dye, this one giving that lovely shade she's working on behind there, very similar to the cotton I'm working in.

S. with her lace shawl in progress while she studies my glove pattern with future plans in mind 

Priti the librarian puts out a selection of different books each week to study and borrow. She tells us we're running at least through March, probably into summer then she'll see. I think there may be space considerations if summer programs need the space we're meeting in. We'll see. 

Talk ranged over home care for ill relatives, the local fire commission budget, the insanely warm weather, nearly 70°f this afternoon, blogging, tai chi, Eight pieces of Silk, countertops, green dyeing and more.

Then home to a pot of tea and Textiles and Tea, a great episode, about passementerie, which I vaguely knew from braid on military uniforms. 

But in the hands of  much awarded and acclaimed modern artisan, Elizabeth (Libby) Ashdown,  so much more. Weaving, dyeing, cording, all to create decorative edges for clothes and furniture. 

Elizabeth also makes wallhung art, working on many commissions at the moment. There are only four professional passementerie weavers in the UK, an endangered craft. She's by far the youngest.

She teaches and has written a book to help keep it alive, and she was a ton of fun to see, so full of verve. Her use of color is the modern vision, compared to ancient examples.

Here's a traditional use of passementerie work, on a man's Court outfit. Contrast this with her saturated, exciting colors

You can work passementerie on practically any loom, even a frame loom, though there are special looms for the purpose. She uses a floor loom as you see.

She used to run an open experimental weaving studio, seen here,  but it's in London, the building was demolished, they're still looking for affordable space in the city. She was working on this art form within five minutes' walk of where it was first introduced, centuries ago, London being the center of it.

Here's her book, first printing sold out, second due late March

She's such a great person to have on the series, generous, funny, very happy.

Happy day everyone, and I want to say this, because you can't know how important your words and encouragement are to me.