OT word of the day

Just sprinkle it on the floor close to the walls. Especially where you see the roaches. And under any low sitting shelving/furniture and so forth. The borax doesn't exactly "repel" the roaches and such it affects the coating on their "shell" so they die. They also carry it back to the nest and spread it to the others, effectively eliminating the whole group of them.

In the desert you will always have some "bugs", it is the nature of where we live, and it doesn't matter how clean everything is, they still show up. sigh.

Good luck, and have fun, Pati, >

Sounds good -- borax is going on my shopping list this week. Thanks.

Yes, I know that -- after living in the desert for over half a century , it's something I've learned to live with. But somehow cockroaches seem so ucky.

Point and Point Laces

Point is light gauze or netting used as a ground for point laces. It is very fine, and there is some arguement as to whether it was created as an alternative to the using some of the very fine stitches used to make grounds in needle laces, many of which progress in terms of inches or fractions thereof per day. In some examples the point is made as a bobbin lace ground, and then worked as point lace. Point laces are sort of a cross between embroidered laces and needle laces. It uses stitches from both. In design it generally makes use of the conectivity between motifs as is found in needle lace, while incorporating some of the more elaborate elements of embroidered lace. Since it utilizes point as a permanent ground, though the use of cutwork techniques is not uncommon, it progresses fairly quickly as the process of making the ground is unecessary.

Bucks point, Romanian point, and Rose point are probably the most recognizable examples of the art.

Pictures:

american cloth

This term is used in the United Kingdom to describe a waterproof fabric produced by glazing the surface of an oiled cotton cloth. Used for household applications, bookbindings, and inexpensive upholstery, it has now been mostly replaced by polyvinyl chloride (PVC) coated fabrics.

Boutis

A wholecloth quilting type from France, best known is that from Provencal where it is thought to have originated. It is quite different from standard quilting, though it is somewhat similar to trapunto. Two pieces of fabric are put together, and the design is traced on top. Then the quilting stitches are placed over the lines. Sometimes outline stitching is done instead of the standard running stitch in order to add depth to the work. After the stitching is complete stuffing or cording is added. Stuffing is added in the traditional trapunto fashion, seperating the threads in the weave of the fabric and poking it in. Cording is done by threading the cord, usually cotton or wool yarn, into a needle, and slipping the needle into the area to be corded, and bringing it up again a little away. The yarn is then cut, and the ends left while more yarn is inserted. When the section has been stuffed completely, the ends of the yarn are poked back through the fabric into the stuffed area. When useing yarn like this it may be inserted side by side to cover a broader area, or confined to narrow channels. A multitude of narrow corded channels in the backgound of the pattern are typical in boutis design. There is no broad area of wadding (or batting) in boutis, the only stuffing is that within the confines of the patterned areas. Boutis is always reversible, thus similar quality and weave fabric is used on both sides unlike traditional trapunto wherein the backing fabric is often a coarser looser weave. Though silk has seen much use in boutis, fabrics like batiste are more commonly used.

As it is so time consuming the technique is traditionally used for trousseau, wedding, and baby items primarily, though not exclusively. In Provencal one of the traditional parts of the baby's christening outfit is a petasson, a small boutis used to wrap the infant.

Orlon

Trade name the first acrylic fiber. Discovered in 1941 while a scientist for DuPont was attempting to improve rayon, it went into commercial production in 1950. Noted for soft hand, absorbency, chemical and sunlight resistance, and warmth without weight. It is shrink resistant, and a fairly strong fiber. It blends very well with other fibres, and is commonly used in yarns and knitted clothing as well as an assortment of garment fabrics.

New York Hem Superhem

A method of altering the hemline on jeans, trousers in general, skirts, and etc. Useful for preserving an ornamented, or otherwise difficult visible hem.

The fabric is simply cuffed up wrong side out, until the sewing line of the original hem is at the correct length for re-hemming minus the amount of length in the original hem. A new line of stitching is placed immediately below the original hem. The cuff of fabric is then usually trimmed away before being pressed under, and then the hem is topstitched just above the new stitch line. Some places that do alterations serge the raw edge in addition to or instead of topstitching.

Illustrated minus the topstitching here:

Kapok

Fiber harvested from kapok trees in Aisia and Indonesia. The fiber is the fluff surrounding the seeds in their pods. It is consiidered to be a superior fiber for stuffings, and has been used extensively in water safety equipment, life preservers and so forth. Sometimes called "silk cotton" or java cotton, it is lusterous, soft, quite resilient, water resistant, quick drying, and extremely buoyant. It is also naturally hypoallergenic, resistant to rot, and oderless. It gets its buoyancy and some of it's softness from the fact that it is a tube. Each fiber is hollow, with air sealed inside of it. It can support over thirty times its own weight in water, and will only lose about 10% of its buoyancy after a month of soaking. It is eight times lighter in weight than cotton, and because it is pretty much a bunch of little tubes full of air it makes an excellent insulator. It has been favorably compared to down as a stuffing for pillows, matteresses, and parkas. A quick seach shows the parkas are harder to come by, at least labled as kapok filled. While it is pretty sturdy stuff as a loose fiber, it does not hold up to spinning well, so it is sold strictly as a stuffing material.

Addenda:

The kapok tree has a largeish range. It is a ra>Kapok

Hari Kuyo Festival of the Broken Sewing Needle Shrine of the Broken Sewing Needle

In Japan both Buddhism and Shinto are intertwined within the culture. This gives rise to the recognition of the spirt imbued in all objects. Tools are honored for their own beauty and the partnership they have with the craftsperson. A master craftsperson carries with themself a certain reverence for the tools of their craft. They are not merely objects that are used to make a living, but friends that aid in the craft reliably on a daily basis.

So of course tailors and kimono makers in Japan hold their needles in high regard.

There are specific shrines for broken sewing needles in most areas where the textile industry is prominent in Japan. In Wakayama province they are found in every village.

February 8 in specific is the Festival of Broken Sewing Needles. On this day kimono makers, tailers and housewives take the day off from their usual chores to organize their sewing boxes and carry their broken, bent, or rusted needles and pins to the shrine. There the needles are placed on a bed of soft tofu in honor of their service. Mostly observed by women, often they put their troubles into the needles and pins and ask the gods to take them away. Usually they also pray for help in improving themselves in their craft.

I love it, too! Lacking film containers, I now use prescription medicine bottles. The advantage to those is the child-proof caps -- which I only use when I'm ready to dispose of the whole shebang, as who knows whether I'd ever get the lid off again? ;)

Plush

A variety of velvet wherein the pile is much longer. Traditionally a fabric was not called plush unless the pile was at least an inch long. These days it is applied to fabrics with a shorter pile, especially when they are synthetic or synthetic blends.

Epitropic Fibre

Epitropic fibers are fibers that have particles on their surface that modify some of the properties of the fiber.

The most common example would be polyester or nylon that is coated in graphite to change it from a fiber that generates a static charge into one that dissipates a static charge. When these particular carbon coated fibers are woven into a nylon or polyester fabricalong with regular fibers, the result is a nearly static free fabric.

Sometimes one gets a glimmer of manufacturing techniques, through the ether; but I have never even been vaguely aware about the coating of fibres for anti-static properties. Fascinating. I doubt I'll remember the detail, but I'm chuffed to know that it exists. Thanks Nightmist - again! . In message , NightMist writes

Turkey Work Smyrna Stitch

I hold turkey work to be a distinct thing on it's own and entirely seperate from candlewicking, though the two may be combined in a single piece. I am saying this straight out because I know a good many people use the two terms interchangeably. I have also seen redwork called turkey work, my best guess there is that the color has something to do with the mislabling.

Turkey work is a needlecraft that gives a piled, or even fuzzy effect. It has been used for any number of things over the years from rugs to bedspreads to upholstry to toys and so on. It has been around since at least the seventeenth century, and has had periodic fads over the centuries. While some of the original turkish stitches involved useing a cluster of threads to make individual tufts on the surface of the fabric, modern turkey work is primarily makeing loops and cutting them to create the piled effect. It can be worked on almost any fabric with a distinct weave, and with nearly any decorative thread. It is most commonly done at this point in history by needlepointers, so the majority of readily available instructions call for needlepoint canvas and wool. I have used it on cushion covers with common embroidery thread and pearl cotton, and found it easy enough to do on embroidery linen or canvas duck. When done with wool or knitting yarns it is often brushed to make it fuzzy, a nice effect for animal fur or teddy bears and what have you.

Here is a picture of a simple bit. The squirrels tail was made in this stitch, obviously cutting the loops to leave the threads rather longish:

Here are two different sets of instructions for doing this stitch, one standard, one modified:

I can't tell you how interesting I find these daily nuggets of information, Nightmist. Thankyou so much!

(And I'm also very impressed by your personal breadth of knowledge and practical experience!)

I've used this stitch to make hair on Raggedy Ann dolls. It also makes the mane on the donkey on the "Adoration" wall quilt I'm making

Julia > Turkey Work

Candlewicking

Candlewicking is really nothing more than whitework done with a heavier thread. It is generally believed that candlewicking came about back when embroidery was mostly done in silk, and embroidery silks were considerably more expensive than today's standard skein of floss. So those who wished to embroider but could not afford the costly silks improvised with less expensive threads. Whether candle wicking was ever actually used is a matter for debate.

There are some basic differences in technique between embroidery and candlewicking. Candlewicking uses a single thread doubled for almost everything, as opposed to varying numbers of fine strands. There is usually much more couching in candlewicking. While there are often many knots in the work, those knots are much more often colonial knots (figure eight knots, Quilter's Knots) than they are french knots. Candlewicking is also traditionally worked on un-shrunk fabric, most commonly plain muslin. Like most embroidery candlewicking eschews final knots (tying off knots). Washing the work to make the ground shrink after the work is done also "fluffs" the thread, and thus between the shrinking of the ground and the expanding of the worked threads the work is more secure. Between this and the heavier thread used, candlewicking is considered to be one of the sturdiest forms of decorative work. This has led to its frequent use in bedclothes, cushions, and other household items that see much use and frequent laundering.