linen lawn

Beeson

Joy Beeson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Lee,

do you have the IE tab extension for firefox? I've just checked wmboothdraper.com and I can see the whole site just fine. You can get the extension at

scroll down for the IE Tab. If you need any help,email me chris

:-)

"chris" wrote in news:44cdeb70$0$1211$ snipped-for-privacy@news.optusnet.com.au:

oh! it's an add-on now? i wondered where it went... my old version of Firefox had the ability to swap, but i couldn't find a way to switch to IE on this new version. thanks! i'm sure that'll help. lee

Vurra strange. I'm using Firefox, and I haven't had the least difficulty. And I've never downloaded *any* extension.

I gather that NOBODY can clean up the stuff FrontPage puts in !

Meanwhile, as long as I'm there, I'll drool over the hemp twill some more. I desperately need cooler slacks, but the size of my stash forbids me to order more fabric before I finish making my almost-as-desperately-needed white linen dress. It's only a back, a front, and two sleeves, and it's already cut out and the sleeve caps gathered, but somehow I don't make progress. (Perhaps because the next step involves turning on the iron?)

I also want a yard of his second-best handkerchief linen to make a bra, but I have more than enough to have a fresh bra every day, and one bra is suitable for wear under Sunday clothes -- not to mention that I have enough fabric left from the Sunday bra to make another -- so there's no hurry on that.

Joy Beeson

Joy Beeson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

which version? i can see it with the IE tab extention, except half the pictures aren't loading... i'm willing to blame my dialup connection for that though :)

when i had to use it at one of the ISPs i worked for, i went back & manually cleaned up the HTML, but that was FP2. i have FP3 around here somewhere, as i had to use it for a client site about 7 years ago. who knows what horrors the current version contains? ;) the ISP had a seperate server for FrontPage websites that wasn't connected to any other server because of the safety issues inherent with FP. we also used a stand alone in-house computer when designing sites with FP extentions because having those on an internet connected computer is inviting a hack...

i guess you're getting the same heat wave we are? i moved all my sewing stuff to a screen porch with a ceiling fan. it's less unpleasant than my upstairs room anyway.... i'm debating making a handkerchief linen high neck chemise today. the handkerchief linen shirt i made Boo came out so well & i bought half a bolt of the linen... i'll need to check the stash for lace though. i was thinking that hemp twill might make a good lower class Renaissance gown, or be good for making a corset. does hemp dye well? i was told linen doesn't, but the linen i've dyed seems to have taken ok. lee

"About Mozilla Firefox" says: "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.8.0.5) Gecko/20060719 Firefox/1.5.0.5

I think the very last number in that mess is the one you want.

I'm on cable. The dial-up connection is good for another month; I should turn it on (I shut the computers down just before NIPSCO dealt with the final aftermath of the willow-tree collapse and haven't used that one since) and try reading the page with Mozilla 1.0. I *think* I bookmarked William Booth, Draper while still using the old computer.

Yep, but we have central air. Which I *finally* appreciate! Most of the time I turn it off when DH is out of town -- but not lately.

Appropriate to the weather -- especially if you mist it with water.

I have a long-sleeved linen jersey, which I wear instead of greasy sunscreen on the bike.

Still no progress on my linen dress, but I cleared three chores off my "giant storage hook" today: the hems on a T-shirt I made some time ago, and two repairs. And I finished the toe shaping on a sock during knitting class. Again, I was the only one to show up but I heard a passing book club talking about it and called out to them that the Sewing Circle is already in operation. Also replaced the poster with a slightly splashier one; pity my few needlework illos are extremely low resolution and inappropriate. I'm not skilled enough to do much with typography alone.

That sounds *extravagant*! How many yards are a linen bolt?

Linen is hard to dye compared to wool: you can boil up wool with any old weed and get a fast, attractive color, but you have to know a little something to dye linen.

Mom had printed linen curtains in her kitchen for quite a while, and I don't recall them ever fading.

I think that hemp should work with any linen recipe, but I have almost no experience with dying vegetable fibers -- Dharma would know; the last time I poked around, there was a lot of information on their web site.

Joy Beeson

Joy Beeson wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

ok, that's the version i have, so it must be more a dial-up issue. darn! i can't get DSL out here & i don't have cable (i got satallite after cable kept going out & they wouldn't prorate my billing. i can't see paying $50/month when service is out for

7-10 days month. i certainly would be having fits if my internet connectivity was thay poor, too). satallite internet is $100/month... so i'll stick with my free dial-up.

willow tree collapse? we lost 1/3 of a 200 year old sugar maple last fall to the tailend of Wilma. fell on the power lines & took out power to every house on my street & half of Nottingham. we had power because the line comes in through the pasture. Public Service cut the back power (transformers) before the llamas investigated the downed lines too closely too.

icky! sunscreen :p sunscreen gives me hives.

ah, which toe shaping did you use? i find knitting socks & gloves rather addictive. my current knitting projects are a rat & a fulled cat with PJs. the cat is done. i'm working on his jammies. the rat needs it's tail finished but it's kind of boring, so i only do a bit at a time.

it's from TSWLTH, on sale, & used a coupon. it may not be exactly half a bolt. there were 8 or 9 yards left, so i took all of it. amazingly enough it didn't lint all over when washed! it's a good linen & less than $5/yard!. i also bought 5 yards of brown mid-weight linen (that linted in the first wash, but has been fine since) & 6 yards of a greenish linen/rayon... i hope i'm remembering correctly that rayon is a good hot weather fiber... it has a great drape.

mordanting... plant fibers do take dye differently from animal fibers. i wrote a term paper on plant/vegetable dying in college for one of my plant science classes. i used mostly wool for samples though. easier to get (sneak into the sheep barn & clip a sheep ;) )

i like Dharma. they're very helpful. lee

Or the phase of the moon, or cosmic rays, or you had your tongue in the wrong corner of your mouth. Computers are not in any way predictable.

I'm running under Windows 98e, if that matters. DH wants me to "upgrade" because I hate all the random delays. But each version of Windows has been worse than the one before; what reason have I to believe that the next one will be better?

The huge willow tree that used to stand in the park next door used to have a limb that was bigger than some of the trees in our yard stretching out over our driveway. When the limb cracked, things got very complicated for a while. Only data lines were broken -- the tree removers broke a TV cable and reported it to the phone company, which occasioned some of the complication. But a power line was left in contact with a data line, and a few days ago the Nipsco guy came back and took care of that. On his first visit, he only removed a limb that had been knocked off one of our trees onto the power line. It was raining willow when he arrived. The next time I went to the brush dump, it was all willow!

I call it a "swirl toe". I devised it to be possible to work while I'm paying attention to something else -- and also to avoid having decreases too close together. On each decrease round, I knit two stitches on each of the four needles together. The first decrease is the first two stitches, the second decrease is #2 and #3, and so on -- the nth decrease is always the nth stitch from the needle, which makes them self-counting. I still work a bit of pink thread in with the first stitch of each decrease round, until I get to the part where every round is a decrease round. Or if I'm undisturbed and have good light, I'll knit the every-other round decreases without pink thread.

I decrease every fourth round once, every third round three times, then every other round until the socks are long enough, then every round until it's down to sixteen stitches, then I knit one plain round, followed by eight K2tog, then break the yarn and draw the end through the stitches. The plain round, I have found, is essential: without it, the toe puckers. And without it, four of the last eight decreases would be on top of decreases in the previous round..

And a solid color, too! I scored twenty yards -- I think; an "upgrade" erased my record of fabric purchases -- of excellent linen; no linting at all and the slubs are quite thin and not too close together for only one dollar a yard -- but that was because it had been printed crooked -- and it's a REALLY LOUD black-on-white houndstooth print that I hate, so I only use it for underwear. And one shirt I made when I needed a sun-reflecting shirt *now* and who

*cares* how it looks. Which started my custom of using the fabric wrong-side out, since that side is a trifle more reflective.

Even though I use the print wrong-side to, it was printed so well that the spots on three of my bras show through my thin linen-rayon blouse

-- when I first noticed it, I said "Oh dear, I look as though I had splashed water on myself!" My sister looked and said "Don't worry; it will dry."

My best score was entirely by accident. Back when fabric.com was Phoenix Textiles and they had an "all for a dollar" page (now revived under the title "Everything's $1.95") I was looking for some all-cotton gingham to test patterns with when a blue-plaid cotton-and-linen shirting slid down into the all-for-a-dollar section. Says I to me, "that's as close to cotton gingham as you're ever going to see at *that* price", and bought thirty yards.

This fabric is exquisite! Looking down at my knee-knockers, I can find only one slub. And it's so comfortable that after testing patterns to the tune of four pairs of gardening pants, two matching shirts, and a hat, I started finding other stuff to test my patterns with even though I've hardly dented the roll. It's now pretty much engraved on my mind that "blue-plaid clothes are for dirty work", but I *live* in my dirty-work clothes in the summer time, and I've worn out the two shirts. Luckily, I also made a poncho shirt for DH that turned out too big for him (I absent-mindedly allowed for boobs), so this morning I asked him whether he would ever wear it again, then appropriated it.

Just yesterday, though, I learned that there is enough cotton in the blend that it isn't a good idea to wear pants made of it while wading in the creek. Luckily, I had a dry pair to change into when I came back to the house. They are fine for wading where they only get splashed a little.

And the black silks . . . drool. Speaking of which, I can't buy any if I don't get back to work and sew up some of what I've already got.

Joy Beeson

Win2K is very much better than Win98. Really, really, honest and true. I've not had a software BSOD in ages (I've had a couple BSODs in the last 6 months, but a failing case fan or power supply is not the fault of the OS). I have friends who complain about it, but I'm not sure there's an OS that can handle what they want to do, since they're trying to have over a hundred apps (or iterations thereof) open at once.

-- Jenn Ridley : snipped-for-privacy@chartermi.net