Current mood:	in cloth heaven
Entry tags:	living history

Got the fabric swatches!
Aidan Campbell, Regia in England, announced a PROJECT last fall, which I joined. In the interest of "less posh, more common" he was coordinating hand spinners and weavers -- getting the yarn to the weavers -- to make lots of various weaves & weights accurate to our era for members to make clothes in natural (undyed) colors so, at the various shows Regia was contracted to do, there would be going toward a more accurate portrayal. [One of his points being that when the norm was people never left their area there would be much less attention to "making a good first impression". "This means simple weaves and un-dyed yarns, something which were still common place in rural Britain up until the time of World War I."] Doing it as a coordinated project, he got a variety for the same typical price of ordering a custom bolt of cloth of one variety. (Which wouldn't work for the "typical" goal, as members would have looked like they were in uniform...)

I first heard about the project in October. In Febuary he "[took] delivery of more than [his] own body weight in cloth" and today I got my swatches -- one of each variety, to show as examples. I'm in cloth heaven, all beautiful creams, browns, greys. Folo wants to make me a reliquary box to keep them safe.


My plan is do a blanket stitch along all the raw edges to stabilize the swatches, starting will the most ravelly, & use the wool thread I've been spinning.