Pouting

I had a very lovely discussion with some fellow weavers at KASF about my need to find a smallish table loom to do sampling on.  It's really a pain to warp up the big floor loom to do a small amount of weaving to test thing like set and thread suitability, especially since there is so much warp wasted on the bigger looms.  Imagine my joy when one of those weavers found a perfect loom, in wonderful condition, for sale near by for a really fantastic price!  And my little business had been doing well enough that I could have totally swung the cash.  Well...then Tuesday I was working away on some cornhole bags (bean bags for the non-initiated/tailgating redneck types, yes I am bitter) and my sewing machine decided to throw a fit.  The tension has gone totally bonkers.  Back to the repair shop it went, only to be told it's pretty well done with it's reliable and useful life.  


The good news is I now have a beautiful new babylock that should last me a good long time, even sewing cornhole bags and other thick fabrics.  The bad news is no loom and no money (anyone need a knitting needle case?)  So I am very sad and sort of pouting about the whole weaving situation, I really was hoping to get started on the Perugia project in the next week or two but oh well.  With some luck I will be able to go visit a friend who has a table loom for a couple of days and do the sampling there.

In the mean time, before the great Sewing Machine Disaster I was able to order all the linen for the DH's new suit of cloths so I can at least get started on that.  With a spanky new machine that will sew things nicely too!  Yay for that!  I've started looking at briaes patterns and images.  The pinboard is here if you are interested in what I'm finding. I'm learning towards a style like that seen at left, which is from Tacuinum Sanitatis (BNF Nouvelle acquisition latine 1673), c. 1390-1400: making millet bread (fol. 56).  Since he will have chauses over these rather than split hose, some extra length in the leg (as opposed to the brief style that you see a bit latter) will be more modest.  The super long ones with the weird floppy legs seem like too much for the poor boy to deal with.  This is a nice compromise.
The plan is to make one pair, make the chauses, see how it all works, then modify the briaes as needed.  He's not a big event-goer but he'll still want more than one set of these.  There are a couple of camping events I can get him to in a year so he needs enough manties to get through a weekend.