[Sca-cooks] RE: hot pads

[Mark.S Harris]

> Stefan, thank you for directing me to the Florilegeum. Interesting reading
> at the very least.

I'm glad you found it interesting. I'm never sure if such mentions of
the various Florilegium files will help or fall below someone's
experience level.

> I've made felted goods before, but cannot imagine
> devoting the time and effort that a yurt would take.

Yes, but many of us can't imagine constantly walking around with a
distaff and drop spindle to make the thread needed to spin all their
cloth either.

However, it might not have been that time consuming, at least in
time specifically dedicated to the task, as you think.

The Mongols spent quite a lot of their time on their horses. Spread
the wool fleece under the saddle. With plenty of horse sweat and the
constant motion of riding, I imagine you could make pretty good felt.
While there would be a limit to the size of the felt sheet you could
create this way, you could create multiple sheets and then fasten
them together some way.

> I chose to knit before
> felting for a couple of reasons. My felting experience has been in toys (cat
> toys, balls, and color experiments) and I didn't want to take a chance on a
> thin spot (Youch!) or any shifting (I'm also lightly quilting the finished
> holder to minimize that).

Yes, I experienced that 'thin spot' problem in the class I took. That
problem is fixable, but it does take some work.

> Secondly, I was given this wool by a friend to
> practice spinning on, so making it into yarn was kind of the point. She'd
> spun up some of it, but it's so scratchy that she made up a gag gift scarf
> and gave the rest away to folks who need practice. But it's nice and lofty
> and catches heat, so it's ideal for this use.

The first class I took, at Pennsic, was on making felted shoes. I
could only observe since I didn't beat the crowd to sign up, so I
don't have any direct experience with this. But it would seem that
this rough, scratchy wool would make an excellant shoe if you topped
it with a softer wool where your foot would touch it (or wear socks).
Duribility would be a major advantage for shoes.

After that class I did buy a bag of uncleaned, uncombed wool to make my
own shoes. However, it was several months before I got around to getting
the supplies I thought I needed to clean the wool (of the dirt and other
'stuff' mixed in). But I couldn't find my plastic bag of wool. I later
found out my wife had thrown it away, for some reason. :-) So, maybe
I'll try to make the felted shoes in the future sometime.

Stefan li Rous
stefan at texas.net