Fiber Arts Extravaganza

Okay, maybe extravaganza is a bit much. However, there are some things on my list that are done, but I haven't said anything about, and several of them are fiber-arts related (because I'm a card-carrying fiber-geek).

Inkle Looms and Their Results

I started weaving when I was a fairly young kid, first with potholder-looms and knitting mushrooms (yes, knitting counts, dammit), then with a rigid heddle loom made of popsicle sticks at camp (and gods-eyes...remember those? Weaving!).
My mother had a thing for changing up summer camps every week or so, and one of the many I attended was Helderberg Workshop. Every summer I took one class there: one year it was doll making, one year archery, but several years in a row I took weaving, because I loved it the minute I tried it. The instructor, Karin Demis, is an excellent weaver, and also spins and dyes, and used to raise her own Angora rabbits. She taught us about mohair and wool, took us out gathering goldenrod and sumac for dyeing, and every year I came back, she suggested a new and more difficult weaving project. One year I did a wagon-wheel pattern with stripes of different colors, and my final year there she had me weave lace with lovely, soft, shiny, cream-colored cotton thread.

the tinkle loom:
strings in the middle are heddles

Of course, a four-harness table loom is pretty expensive, and a floor loom more-so, and neither one is particularly portable (some four-harness looms fold up, but it's a little terrifying watching the warp get all tangly-looking, and you never know what might happen).
After my introduction to the SCA, I discovered inkle looms, and that was very exciting to me.
There's a limit to how wide your fabric can be, but you can get pretty interesting without cards, and if you add cards, you can get downright complicated with your patterning.
I think of them as warping boards you can weave on (except there's some tensioning with a regular inkle loom that isn't possible on a warping board).
My first inkle loom was actually a "tinkle" loom (tiny-inkle...yeah...). It's capable of a similar width to a medium inkle loom, and much more portable, and you can move around the pegs to determine your width and increase your tension. The maximum length is about 2 feet, which is enough for a basic piece of trim, two garters for me, or one for a larger human.
I made lots of small trim and garters on that, and played with some silk thread to make ribbons.

linen striped trim

silk ribbon

linen garter

 Finally, a few years ago, I got a real inkle loom, and began working with wider trim and fabric belts.
Being me, I jumped right into the deep end of inkle loom weaving, because why not? I bought a set of cards made of wood veneer from Spanish Peacock, and warped up a really complicated red and black pattern in linen thread, which ended up interesting, and not completely obvious as a screw up, but it wasn't quite right, either.
Also, it turns out, linen thread gums up the works really quickly. As you work with it, it frays a little, and the more it frays, and the more you turn the cards, the more gummy it gets behind the cards, until it's nearly impossible to work with. I lost a few threads and had to tie them back in, and I snapped a few cards, and it was very frustrating.
I have worked with cards since, but I spent quite a while working with card-free stripes before I started anything more complicated again. It's possible to do some pretty nice things with horizontal and vertical stripes, though.

I found that with my inkle loom, I can get just enough warp to go around me twice, but not enough to keep going (so I can make a Norman-style fabric belt, but the dangly-bit has to be plain strings, or a simple braid). The only problem with this is that you have to plan it out way ahead of time, because if you do what most people do, and wind the thread for the same color around and around instead of tying it off every time you finish a revolution, you'll end up with ends that are only barely longer than the piece, and no strings to braid.
No problem if you're making trim, but a problem if you want a long piece at the end.
So far I have worked in linen, pearl cotton (for demos), wool, and silk. They all have their own issues, but they are all fun in their own ways.

wool, card woven, reversed

pearl cotton, from a demo

this is not edge-weaving
it is trim on a Viking apron

 Weaving on the Edge

One interesting thing about card-weaving, independent of inkle looms, is that in the 14th century, people used it to reinforce the button-hole edge of their cotehardies. I decided to try this a few years ago, when I was first starting in the 1391 group, and trying to hand-sew everything. I did a quick, two-card pattern on the edge of my husbands cotehardie, using my big toe as a tensioner (it worked okay. Moving from one room to the next in the middle of the project was a real pain, though). It went beautifully. Sadly, a few years ago his cote got caught in the washing machine, and giant holes were ripped in it, so I no longer have it for pictures.
This is where I got my information.

Drop Spinning

Over the years I've tried drop-spinning a few times, learning it for a few days, then forgetting how to do it, then re-learning, etc. This is actually my pattern of learning for a few different things, including knitting.
A few years ago, a lady in my Barony was running a drop-spinning class, and she gave away the spindles at the end. They were cheap, just a thin wooden weight on a skinny dowel with a paperclip hook on the end, but the nice thing was that, with the ability to take it home, I was able to keep practicing. Then I bought my beautiful drop-spindle, again from Spanish Peacock, and got way more into it.
I'm most comfortable with the top-hook method, which results in very thin thread, and is somehow less likely to fall on the floor (at least for me).

I don't do it a lot, but it's a great thing to do for demos, because you can do it while talking, and it gives people something to ask you about. Also, it's pretty much period for any time in the Medieval Era, and before, and after.
I have spun on a spinning wheel (also at Helderberg Workshop), and I have an inherited flax wheel at home, but it has a tension issue that hasn't been addressed yet, and it squeaks like crazy. Someday I will fix it, or just save up for a modern one, and begin spinning more regularly.