Kitties and textiles of yore

While I was editing, I came across these old pictures of the dynamic duo assisting in the textile studio.

Just to show my helpers at work.

There was a Hajii Baba Rug Club presentation today by Jacqueline Simcox, researcher, writer and dealer in early Asian textiles, of which I selected a few images, the captions not needing any help from me. She wrote the book in the first slide.  

Many of the works she showed included pearl rondels - those circle shapes around the borders of a lot of Asian woven garments and hangings, and animals. 

There were interesting versions of lions by weavers who had probably never seen them, but, undaunted, they did them anyway. Their mythical animals such as dragons, including the five clawed imperial dragon, were more assured. 

wonderful rendering of flowers here

This is a meditative mandala

yellow being the imperial color, this was a court garment

and here a diagram for people unfamiliar with embroidery, of the stitches used in the last piece

The last piece is an archery armguard, probably only symbolic, maybe for funerary rites. Actual armguards would have been leather. This one depicts the winged horse Pegasus, made a thousand years after the story originated, this one even with the snake from which Pegasus was born.

A lot of color has faded, purple fading to brown, reds sometimes vanishing, but indigo tends to persist. Where pieces have been kept away from light, the colors are vivid, madder red included.

More humbly, my home cotton spinning is in progress. The last time I tried to spin cotton from, probably over processed, roving, it was impossible. 

Two other, more experienced, spinners had given up on it before it came to me. I ended up using it to stuff comfort dolls, since it was clean and nice to handle. 

But my own minimally processed cotton is working fine. The thread has nups here and there, little lumps, but I'm not going for perfection, to put it mildly.

Happy day, everyone.  

Very cold here, snow due tonight, meanwhile I'm making soup. Stock from veggie bits, potatoes, red lentils, later I'll blend, then add chicken bones from those thighs a couple of weeks ago, take them out,retrieving any meat, then add pasta. 

And I've been reading about Christianna  Brand for a while so I'm trying an e-book.

Stay warm if applicable, stand with Minnesota 

Sez Ted and Big Ursy