comfortabletextiles

[comfortabletextiles]

Hmmm... I don't really buy in stores anymore, but here are a few that seem fun!

https://wolle-und-schoenes.de/

hi! i think i saw you mention you’re from germany - what are your favorite stores/local brands for weaving or knitting yarns? i’m going to be visiting munich and maybe some other areas in the spring and looking to pick up some fun stuff 🧶

Hi there! I am from Switzerland so unfortunately I am not well versed with German stores. I have visited Munich before tho and it's a cool city to explore, I'm sure you'll have fun :)

I will tag @comfortabletextiles here who may be more experienced in Southern Germany!

If you ever get to Switzerland I do highly recommend Spycher Handwerk! Lovely old farm out in the lush countryside with a MASSIVE fiber crafts shop. Also lots of alpacas, camels and sheep to look at. Plan it as a day trip!

[comfortabletextiles]

Another thing that had been on The Pile for a long time was this space waistcoat! I dye painted this piece of cotton back in 2015 when we were doing silk painting in Textiles class. I think I started cutting the waistcoat about 2 years ago, covered the buttons, and then got distracted. I had to piece part of one shoulder because I'd already used up part of the fabric to make a couple of handkerchiefs, but I don't think it's too noticeable. After dyeing the cotton I had splattered some fabric ink on it and painted a few stars, but after lining the fronts recently I painted a lot more stars on, and then painted glow in the dark ink on top.

It was a bit tricky to get photos of the glowing, and the first two are brighter than it looks in real life, at least with the small amount of charging it had when I took them. I also did a running stitch around the edges with glow in the dark thread which I've had for at least a decade and never used! Then I accidentally melted part of it with my iron and had to redo that bit.

The lining is a thrifted cotton sateen bedsheet and the back is blue linen from I forget where. The buttonholes are done by machine first, same as the last one, and then covered in silk twist.

[comfortabletextiles]

Could be!! There are wheels with two flyers!

But I can't imagine working with them 😬

Anna Forsvik, 1870-1957, Sweden.

[comfortabletextiles]

Look look I turned a bunch of leftover fabric scraps into a little bag! (It's not completely done but it's visibly An Item)

[comfortabletextiles]

Mayhaps 😌

Ordered a shuttle Tatting book from around 1910

And even managed to follow a pattern!

[comfortabletextiles]

I finally found a pattern that feels worthy of this yarn 😌

The cowltopus MKA!

I had to restart around 3 times. But I'm happy now!

It's a really fun knit, after I managed to understand the manual 😅 (had some trouble concentrating)

Also @swords-n-spindles you wanted to see the yarn. This is easier then searching through my phone 😅

Finished the last rolag, from @swords-n-spindles color fade yesterday! And today I could strat the ply process!!

2oly ball + plyed in chain ply = easy 6 ply yarn!

Even though my singles are always horrible overspun, the ply is very soft so far :)

[comfortabletextiles]

oh y'all are gonna love the christmas gifts I've made

[comfortabletextiles]

Absolutely! It's by Claudia wollny

It's in German and English

The tablet woven belt for a friend I am working on right now. It was a total bitch to wind on, but holy sh*t does it look cool!

Also there is a spinning group near my city (due to Corona no meetings but in the future again) so now I need a spinning wheel that I can transport by train... 😅. (luckily I get a 500,- corona-bonus, from my state, because I am a nurse) because there is a travell wheel in suitcase Form?!?!?

So fucking cool?!

Also because it is a suitcase by day it would not take too much space. I already have two wheels and our apartment is not very big 😅

[comfortabletextiles]

not been photographing stuff much recently because i’ve been sick, but i’ve still been making stuff!

this is some beaded laceweight i’ve spun up over the past few days - 75% Gotland 25% bamboo, with toho iridescent glass seed beads. it’s day 8 from my world of wool advent calendar, “Takomi”. the pictures don’t capture it very well, but the bamboo is subtle green / blue / orange tones in the grey that add a remarkable depth to the yarn.

i’ve never done a beaded yarn before, so it was a bit of a learning curve. the two most important lessons were “don’t try to bead Gotland because it’s too fluffy” and “don’t try and do beaded yarn with a plying bracelet”…

[comfortabletextiles]

Happy Winter Solstice!

(It’s not yet, but let’s pretend it is. I’ve been convinced)

Last mystery box of the year! First of all, I would like to take this moment to get soppy like I always do and thank you all for the support and for selling out in three days!!! That’s wild!! It’s been so much fun doing these this year, and I’m excited to take the concept further next year with new themes. I’m still figuring out what to do platform-wise, and I’m super bummed about this being my last thing sent out to an EU customer because of the new regulations. But enough of all that! Let’s get to the real reason we’re all here!

The big reveal!

With previous iterations, the colours came to me very easily. This one, I kept going back and forth on. Do I do light, icy pastels? Do I do dark, cold, moody? Both of those ideas screamed winter to me and I couldn’t decide between them and eventually I just decided why not both? Contrast pairs! These will work great for colourwork hats and cowls in DK, mitts and socks in fingering. Especially in snowflake or wintery designs. With spinning you have even more options: combo drafting, self striping, contrasting plies! I’m so excited to see what people do with these!

The sticker sheets are from LunariaStickers on Etsy, they are UK based so local to me! I cannot begin to express how hard it is to find stickers, and packaging, that has a wintery theme but with no hints of Christmas, but I was committed! There’s no Christmas here!

And that is a wrap on equinox and solstice mystery boxes. I hope you all have a lovely winter, and holiday period if you’re celebrating! The shop will be closing in a couple days little over a week (probably around the 21st/22nd) whilst I do actually celebrate Christmas with my family and I’ll be back in the new year! (I will of course, still be here on tumblr doing tumblring things)

Once again, a huge thank you to everyone who bought a mystery box, or actually anything from me, this past year! I super appreciate it, it means so much to me!

[comfortabletextiles]

Sparkle cowl is coming along nicely. 😌

[comfortabletextiles]

Warped up the next one! A friend requested a sort of sash with one tablet woven selvedge, using an intentionally uneven weft yarn that she dyed and spun. Hopefully my experience with the cat blanket will help me keep looking good!

The warp weights have been working great, so they're back in business.

[comfortabletextiles]

This is the Peacock Shawl, one of my last projects from 2024.

[comfortabletextiles]

Ordered a shuttle Tatting book from around 1910

And even managed to follow a pattern!

[comfortabletextiles]

I MADE IT!!! Even all the ends are woven in!!!

It's very comfortable :D

Now that I have to pause the crochet shawl, I'm allowed to start a new project!

I'll make this sweater

But the body will be in the colored color gradient, and the rubbing parts will be in the grey-black gradient. I also want to add a collar

Still totally in love with this color

I only hope I understand the pattern correctly...

[comfortabletextiles]

Kagdjsgsh YES?!?!?

You guuuuuys, you are going to be. So. Jealous. Of what I did today

So Amgueddfa Cymru is the umbrella super museum in Wales, and it is in charge of multiple museums around the country. Seven branches specifically. Entry to each is free, and each commemorates a different facet of Welsh history and culture; of the seven, I had (until a few hours ago) been to five. I've done Caerleon Roman Museum and Amphitheatre, Cardiff Museum, St Ffagan Folk Museum of Welsh Life, Big Pit Coal Mining Museum, and Swansea Waterfront Museum. I have yet to do the Slate Museum in Eryri.

And today, I went to:

The National Wool Museum

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT we have a national wool museum. It's so cool. We arrived at lunchtime so we started in the cafe and we had soup and also cheese and leek Welsh cakes. Except the soup was so Welsh it was correctly served with a piece of cheese:

AS IT SHOULD

Anyway, the building was a wool mill once upon a time, and half of the machinery still works, and still produces 100% woollen textiles. Also they run workshops for knitting and weaving and stuff. But you follow the rooms around and they show you the full process, from fleece to flannel.

BUT ALSO at each stop they had little stands where you could try a bit for yourselves. So for example, there was an exhibit where you could card fleece by hand, with a pile of washed fleece beside, and you could just... go ham with the carding.

I deliberately tried not to photograph literally everything. But here's a lil collection:

I should have taken a picture of the carding, actually, that was my favourite.

OH MY GOD YEAH and also, they had a section on the uses of the wool. A whole display of traditional Welsh blankets, trad and modern clothes, and, of course, instructions for how to cwtch a baby in a shawl, which was so lovely because that's what my Welsh paternal grandmother taught my English mother to do with me as a baby.

Anyway, then the gift shop sold balls of 100% wool in many fun colours, and tabletop looms, and books on how to knit/weave, and bags of roving that you could spin yourself, and plushie sheep and dragons. And Welsh blankets and shawls/scarves and that.

Anyway, you lot are textile nerds. You should all go. It's in the tiniest village in Ceredigion and it is the BEST.

[comfortabletextiles]

The wool has been washed and is now drying in our dryer room. It is already super soft and squishy. Hope none of my neighbours wants to steal it XD