villa Rosa

very near to villa Bordoni (the one in the previous post) is the Glass Museum of Altare,
housed in a beautiful Liberty building, villa Rosa.
What about this as a weavers' colony?

adventurous

we normally don't do this things but we had already seen this house on a previous trip,
so this time we wanted to get closer to take some photos.
Then the main door was open, too inviting to say no, and we stepped in...

(some more photos here )

Dutch masters

Yesterday I spent a few hours taking photos with a friend for a future project.
After the serious shooting we got carried away "a la Hendrik Kerstens" with the full set of towels and plastic bags...
The day ended with a well deserved pizza. Thank you Cristina!

finalmente friday

wishing you a happy weekend!

Lou Leygnac

.... °°°°

days have been dark, with heavy clouds drifting by...

in the meantime some painting has been done (just the first coat!) and some sampling too.

this is going to be a light curtain for a small window - but the sett is clearly too wide.
I was afraid that after washing it it would become too dense.
I re-sleyed the reed with a closer sett, another sample on its way!

I like this collection

#---

while searching for a copper pot in the thrift shop I stumbled upon a small collection of carpet beaters.
I just couldn't leave them there!
(this must have something to do with a recent obession with all types of basket weaving)

we've got mail

last week we ordered some books - they normally post them individually and they take a few days to arrive, usually one or two a day.

this time it was like Christmas - they all arrived together in a big sack!
the postman wasn't very happy, though...

today I like wooden textiles and paper weaves by Elisa Strozyk

.eucalyptus.

I collected two types of fresh leaves from different trees, and some dried out leaves from the ground.
One batch of fresh leaves I left out to dry - will try those in the next days.
I followed the instructions on India's book:

I used a stainless steel pot - although it would be really interesting to use an iron or copper pot
(will have to scour some thrift shops for that)
and simmered the leaves for about 50'.
Once cool I strained the liquid and added a wet skein of merino-silk blend.
I heated it again for another 50' - making sure it didn't boil.
I left the skein in the liquid to cool down overnight and repeated the day after with another skein in the same dyebath.

In another stainless steel pot I did the same, but using the dried leaves collected from the ground.
The result is a warm light brown colour; the skein dyed with dried leaves has a slight green shade.
They smell beautifully!
While the leaves were simmering a sweet eucalyptus scent was wafting around the house.
Now I wish I had more to keep on experimenting...