so in cube class (as i've affectionately renamed it), we've now worked with cement and acrylic as well.
we had to cast and clad cement cubes
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| made a mold to cast into |
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| mixed concrete |
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| poured into mold |
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| removed from mold after a few days |
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| mixed cement to clad with (concrete proved to be difficult to clad...very difficult) |
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| dried cement clad cube! concrete attempts behind it... |
we also had to make an acrylic cube using the laser cutter and joining our sides in at least 3 different ways
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| top view |
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| made small rope hinges for the top |
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| used a finger joint for one side |
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| made small slits to tie string through on another |
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| cut slits for brads on this corner and wove some string around them |
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| this one was my favorite-i cut strips out of the acrylic and wove some hand-spun wool through |
in internship news...
another visit to louise brought me to an alpaca farm!
wild rose suri ranch is located in havre de gras, maryland and is an awesome place! we got to meet some of the gang and learned a lot about grading fleeces.
grading is based on the ratio of primary (rougher, guard hairs) hairs to secondary (finer, softer) hairs. we got samples of various grades of fleece to spin and weave and report our findings as to which were easier to spin, etc. louise and i split the samples and put them into unlabeled bags to see if we could guess the grades by working with them. so far, i've only worked with bag #1 and it was very soft and easy to work with!
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| oh, i also made a spindle out of sticks, twine that i made, and wool that i spun! |
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| 3 1/2 hours for such a small ball of yarn... |
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| it wove beautifully |
i also made a for-salvage loom while at louise's
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| progress shot |
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| so many parts! |
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| samples woven before the loom was put together to test how many threads per inch i wanted to work with |
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| her workroom has such good lighting... |
i also made myself a frame to weave samples on here at home with sticks i found in the local bog garden
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| i made a pretty big mess, but it was done in the name of weaving! |
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| not bad, eh? |
and finally, hannah, my research professor has an abundance of husky hair in her office from her dog (with intent to spin it) and she let me have some to spin! it's probably the best fiber i've worked with so far. she carded it on her drum carder (which i will soon explore) and so i just picked it off of the carder and spun it with my little twig spindle.
soon to come: i attempt to extract the fibers from some bamboo i came across in the bog garden, a dyeing workshop with louise next month, and weaving on my loom!
also, we're making rotational mold machines in cube class so stay tuned for photos and more progress there.
