Spinning, plying and stepping out

 I've been spinning and plying industriously, as far as I can, considering my arms start whining about it after about an hour, but okay, I can work with that.  And here's where we are, with today's plying on the big spindle, which is good for plying, except that these two yarns were finer, and it might be better to back off to the medium spindle, because the thread broke a time or two.  Not a problem, I can splice when I'm knitting, to I just knot it and carry on.

But, to raise the tone of this blog a trifle, there's a wonderful textile museum in DC, part of George Washington U, which you can see more about here:  Textile Museum

It's closed to visitors now, but it's putting some great offerings online via Zoom, and if you go to that link and scroll down a bit, you'll find them.  I've signed up for the Saturday morning one coming up, about carpets and auctions and history.  Just register, and they'll send you an acknowledgment and if you ask them to, a reminder email before.

I have been at presentations of theirs long ago when people could do this, and one was particularly lovely, where their carpet expert did a spot appraisal program in a posh back yard in DC, forget where, where people laid out their rugs on the grass to get them explained to them.

These rug folk take no prisoners. One kicked aside one rug, saying, this is a cheap modern knockoff, get it out of here! to the abashed owner, who slunk away.  But another tiny little tattered item I'd noticed, they focused on with great intensity, asking the owner where he'd got it.  It was in his family for ages, a silk prayer rug, evidently used for prayer for decades hence the wear, and the appraiser sternly told him to pick that up off the ground right now.  Never allow anyone to step on it.  Mount it properly on a wall if you're not using it as a prayer rug, and it's one of the best specimens I've ever seen. The owner looked a bit stunned, but very pleased about this, probably thinking, hm, better get an insurance rider on this.

The early days when rugs were used in tents in the desert, they were walked on, but over soft yielding sand, not hard floors, and either barefoot or with soft slippers, not the brutal hard shoes we trot about in now. They were treated as artworks and respected.  If you know anything about the hand production of these works, you'll see why they were expensive and cared for.  Wonderful work, with all kinds of mythical and cultural references in them. 

Anyway, I'm hoping for great things on Saturday from the presentation.