Sheep and llama wool, alpaca, goat and dog hair and even rabbit fur from across the country comes to Gail White's doorstep.

Mrs White and her husband Jim have operated Ozark Carding Mill from a shop behind their home in rural Warsaw, Missouri for a decade.

Mrs White, 63, takes bags of wool and other animal hair shipped in from cottage industry producers throughout the US, cleans it, picks it, cards it and turns it into rovings, long stretches of clean wool ready to be spun into yarn or woven.

The operation is not your grandma's spinning wheel and hand-held carding tools. It consists of a laundry room with seven modified clothes washers, a drying room and four large pieces of heavy machinery used in an assembly line that runs almost all year. In 10 years, the couple have expanded their shop three times to meet demand.

It all started when my daughter had an Angora bunny in 4-H, Mrs. White said. It had lots of babies. When I was growing up a set of jacket and skirt made of Angora was the rage in the '60s. Remembering that, I couldn't throw it away. I'd been keeping bags and bags of the stuff.

Mrs White found few places willing to process small amounts of Angora fur. She started doing it herself and her interest grew. She got her own herd of about 30 sheep. Now she fills a niche, catering to producers with small herds, flocks of three to 40 sheep.

Unwashed, unprocessed wool sells for about 20 cents a pound. Mrs White sells her roving for $2 an ounce and up. She charges about $8 a pound to turn customers' wool or other more exotic hair into roving.

The process begins in the washing machines, where the wool is soaked and spun with biodegradable soap. It is then air dried before being put through a picker, which cleans out plants and chunks of dirt. Some wool comes in better quality depending on health of the animals.

Heat stress, nutritional problems, parasite infestation such as worms, anything that takes nutrition away from the flock affects the quality, said Mrs White, who puts blankets on her own small flock of sheep to keep debris out. Washing it is pretty icky when you think they have everything from the barnyard in their wool.

Wool then goes through a carding machine, where a series of rollers with metal prongs pull strands apart and lines them up into a cord of cleaned wool.

The string is combined with other strings, sometimes a mix of colorful dyed wool in the pin drafter, a machine with a series of bars with fine comb-like teeth that strings together straightened strands of wool or other fiber into a strip ready to be woven or spun.

You kind of have to have a feel for colour, and everybody's color wheel in their head is different, Mrs White said. I work probably 10 to 12 hours a day out here. Invariably, there will be something that has to be done.

The roving goes back to customers or to Sharon Meador, of Lebanon, who owns Full Bobbin and has equipment to turn the roving into yarn. A skein, several yards of finished yarn from Full Bobbin, can sell for $8 and $16.

Mr White, an engineer at the metal finishing plant BurrKing, in Warsaw, is the mechanic and adapts and fine-tunes the machinery. He also does some late-night wool washing, Mrs White said. His current project is adapting a cotton spinning machine to spin fine wool thread.

While hours are spent at the shop, the couple also tour the country selling roving at trade shows and picking up wool and other animal hair to treat, card and rove for customers.

It's become an addiction, Mrs White said. It's a habit, a lot like car racing.

A hairy situation — The Sedalia Democrat

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A hundred-and-one-year-old Rajaram Padalkar, one of the few Puneites who believed in practising the Gandhian principle of vastraswavalamban or fulfilling one's clothing needs by spinning yarn, passed away on Wednesday after a brief illness.

His enthusiasm to spin khadi and to teach how to do it remained unwavering 'til the end. Until a few days ago, he spun yarn on his ambar charkha and was ready to teach the domestic help how to read and write, his son Dr Ajit Padalkar reminisces.

Padalkar, who, through his career had been a banker and lawyer began to spin yarn regularly in 1975 after his retirement. He used clothes and sheets made from his own hand-spun yarn and on special occasions, he would present gifts of khadi which he had spun to family members, his son remembers.

Padalkar leaves behind three sons, two daughters, grand children and great grandchildren.

Gandhian Padalkar no more — Pune Newsline

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The contents of a woman's handbag have long remained a mystery — often even to the owner — but a new design offers to shine a light on the problem.

A solar-powered handbag designed by a student from Brunel University promises to make finding keys and other items at the bottom of a bag easier.

The handbag, dubbed Sun Trap, uses a solar cell attached to the outside of the bag to trap energy from sunlight.

The energy is stored in an internal battery which lights up the lining.

The lining is made from an electroluminescent material similar to that found in mobile phones and is lit up by the bag's zip which acts as a switch.

The bag goes dark when the zip is closed or after 15 seconds if it is accidentally left open.

Safe and useful
A secondary use of the portable battery is as an emergency charger for mobile phones and other wireless devices.

Safety and usefulness were uppermost in Rosanna Kilfidder's mind when she came up with the design.

I had the idea for Sun Trap handbag after seeing so many friends frantically searching their bags for house keys, usually on a dark doorstep, said Ms Kilfidder.

I also noticed friends using their mobile phones like torches to examine the contents of their bag, which gave me the idea of lighting up the bag, she said.

The battery should not need conventional charging as it will be topped up every time the bag is outside, but it does have the facility to be charged from the mains as a back-up.

Ms Kilfidder's bag design has already won a competition held at Brunel University aimed at finding a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Brunel Enterprise Centre, an organisation set up to help students develop their ideas commercially, is helping her apply for a patent and eventually get the bag on the High Street.

Solar handbag lights up contents — BBC

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Texture is what makes a garment. Knitters achieve texture by using a pattern or a fancy, designer yarn.

For beginner knitters, introducing a designer yarn adds a new dimension to an otherwise plain piece of work. This trend has been picked up by retailers. Not to be outdone, the Hand Weavers and Spinners Guild of NSW Inc recently held a competition to challenge members to create a designer yarn.

The challenge was to create a yarn to fit a specific purpose. Entrants described the process and structure of the yarn and include a knitted sample for judging. Thirteen prize yarns were selected from thirty six entries. Yarns with the most appeal were those with lots of texture either from added materials, such as beads, or creative spinning techniques.

The popular choice was Margaret Long's vibrant purple/deep blue bouclé yarn which was a mix of English Leicester wool and silk top. The combination of the thick loopy textured wool with the lustrous silk looked luxurious.

Another winner was Ruth Saunders who created a dark, chunky yarn of mauve, pink and blue which integrated ten different fibres, including flax, wool, silk, alpaca and snippets of a commercial yarn. The outcome was a complex, fun and light yarn with lots of texture.

All entrants showed how hand spinners have total control over the creative process which makes each yarn they spin a designer yarn. The fun to be had while exploring with fibre is what draws many people to spinning.

The Winners of the 2005 Designer Yarn of the Year Award:

• 1st Margaret Long (Skein 16)
• 2nd Jenny Hopper (Skein 4) and Helen Halpin (Skein 6)
• 3rd Prue Hill (Skein 19)
• 4th Ronda McMorrow (Skein 11)
• 5th Michelle Cossalter (Skein 12)
• 6th Ruth Saunders (Skein 3) and Helen Halpin (Skein 20)
• 7th Geraldine McCulloch (Skein 2) and Michelle Cossalter (Skein 24)
• 8th Brigette Sieber (Skein 13), Lucille Ryan (Skein 32) and Michelle Cossalter (Skein 26)
• 9th Bev O'Keefe (Skein 1)

A select number of the yarns are available as a package that can be mailed to members for further study. They contain the yarns, the separate components of the yarns and an information sheet which provides directions on how the yarns were created. Please contact the Guild if you would like further information.

Anthea Stewart

Posted by Red Wolf at 3:52 PM | Permalink

Shadow Knitting by Vivian Høxbro is a new addition to the Guild library.

Shadow Knitting, aka hidden or optical knitting is a simple but effective technique for creating a raised pattern in your knitting using a combination of garter and stockinette stitches and light and dark coloured yarns. The secret design is revealed when you look at the knitted fabric from different angles. Vivian says that the technique creates more subtle patterning than say Fair Isle or Intarsia. She was inspired by a Japanese knit.

Previously I borrowed Vivian's other book called Domino Knitting (aka magic squares) from the library. There are several techniques that are common in the books, which made it quite easy to follow for a relatively new reader of knitting books and patterns. For me it was a natural progression from Domino to Shadow.

The basic techniques of shadow knitting are:

• only use knit and purl stitches
• always use at least one light and one dark colour
• knit with only one colour at a time, alternating dark and light rows
• keep patterns as large and simple as possible
• use a chart for patterns to keep place of purl patterning, (stitch markers help too)

So far I've only managed to make the pot holder (made one in magic squares too!) it's basic, but it looks quite good. And Vivian gives a good tip that a large piece must be knitted before the shadow patterns begin to show. Definitely not instant gratification like the magic squares, but an intriguing technique none the less. Her web site, www.viv.dk, has more shadow knitting designs according to the book.

Anthea Stewart

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Communal harmony surfaces in most parts of India in the most novel of ways.

Take the example of the Rajasthan village of Kaithoon, located 15 km from the town of Kota. Here, Muslim women weave saris for Hindu women, a tradition that has been maintained for several generations.

Kaithoon has hundreds of Muslim families engaged in spinning, dyeing and weaving of the exquisitely designed Kota Doria Saris, a drape patronised by millions of Hindu women across the country.

Every member of a Muslim family in this village has been engaged in the profession. However, with changing times, men are opting for alternate vocations, leaving their womenfolk to keep the tradition alive.

We teach it to daughters only. Sons can go out and work, but daughters have to remain at home. So, they learn to weave saris, says Mobin Bano, a weaver.

Kota Doria, a transparent muslin fabric woven with cotton and silk threads in an open weave, is ideal for the sweltering summers. While cotton lends substance and strength to the drape, silk imparts gauzy finish and sheen to the fabric.

With the price ranging between Rs.200 (4.56 dollars) to Rs.15, 000 (342 dollars), these drapes woo women from every strata of society, including office-going women.

These saris are very comfortable. They are very light as they are made of cotton. The sari doesn't slip and therefore is good for office use and we can carry it off well. Even if it's an old sari, starch makes it almost new. I really like wearing it, says Pushpanjali Chandra, a customer.

The fabric is considered one of the finest weaves in the country. Weaving an entire length of the sari takes almost four to five days.

Almost every Muslim home in the locality has a handloom, which churns out these beautiful saris. But with a long chain of supply and procurement along with multiple buyers and middlemen, the weavers are not in pink of health financially.

Kota Doria offers unique patterns besides the traditional chequered designs woven in white and dyed in choicest of colours later. However, in the latest trends, the threads are dyed prior to weaving. These saris are so famous in Kota that they have a market exclusive meant for them.

For a week's weaving the artisans are paid hardly Rs.250 (5.70 dollars). The mass production from power looms established in past few years is also threatening the weavers. The poor weavers have sought government intervention to nurture the traditional art of weaving saris.

Sari's weave strands of Hindu-Muslim love in Rajasthan — newKerala.com

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Golf can be an expensive pursuit, with costs of travel, equipment and greens fees, but Joni-Dee Ross has found a creative way to make a living at it.

Ross, known to many as the daughter of Woodlawn Avenue residents Harold and Betty Thompson, uses her basket-weaving skills to create one of the trademark features of Merion Golf Club. The course, in Ardmore, Pa, is considered among the nation's best, and most recently played host to the US Amateur Golf Tournament.

The name of the game is wickers — gourd-shaped baskets that mark hole locations on the Ardmore course, in the same way that small flags are used at most other courses. Ross makes them, helping guide today's top golfers along the same course that has been played by Ben Hogan and Bobby Jones, among other giants of the sport.

They look like the top of a hot-air balloon, she explained. If you imagine it woven, that is the shape of the basket.

The longtime weaver, a native of North Augusta, hooked up with the golf club in the mid '90s, when the search was under way for a weaver to succeed Guerrio D'Achille, a Pennsylvania construction foreman who had previously made them. Someone spotted Ross' baskets at a craft show in Dover, Del., and recommended her to the golf club. Officials approached her and made an offer.

Ross, who now lives in central North Carolina, recalled how her husband, David Ross, helped speed the process along. David walked in and looked on the dining-room table, and there's this business card that says 'Merion'.

He wanted to know what it was about, and I said, 'You know, some whacky thing — they want me to make some wickers or something. I'm thinking about it,' and he looked at me and said, 'No, you have to do it! Do you know what Merion is?' He told me all about Merion. They had to send me the wickers and I had to figure out how to do it.

Ross' routine now varies from year to year, fluctuating from high production (about 20) to low (five to 10). It just depends on the weather, she said.

The size of the wickers also varies, with large ones being used on the course, medium-sized ones on the putting green and smaller ones employed as decorations within the clubhouse.

The wickers are made out of the same material that wicker furniture is made out of — the cane palm, and it's just round reed ... It has to soak in hot water for about six to eight hours. I can get by with four hours sometimes, before I can really bend it or shape it, so it's not like with the regular baskets. A lot of them, if I have an hour, I can run down and work on a basket and then come back and do something else, but with the wickers, I have to block out an entire day, because they have to soak, and then I can work with them.

The idea originally came from a golf course in Ireland or Scotland, and was imported by a member of the Merion golf club, she added.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the wickers date back to 1912 and were the idea of course designer Hugh Wilson, a Merion member who was sent by the club to the British Isles for seven months to study golf-course architecture.

Exactly where Wilson spotted wicker baskets over there remains a mystery. He apparently never said, and each time the club has believed it finally had the answer, it has turned out to be wrong — or plausible but not provable, the newspaper noted.

Merion has two courses (east and west). Wickers are only used on the eastern one, with those on the front nine being dark red and those on the back nine being an orange-red tone, to help golfers distinguish between the course's outward and inward sections. Ross handles everything but the painting, which is done by the Merion greens staff.

Ross' creations also weave their way into North Augusta life on occasion, she said. Her brother, David Thompson, is owner of Lake Construction, on Old Sudlow Lake Road. He makes it a habit to give one of her baskets, as a welcoming gift, to each family for whom he builds a home.

I use 25-30 a year, Thompson said. They're all handmade by my sister — each one.

While the gifts from Lake Construction are completely legitimate, it's unlikely for anyone to acquire one of Ross' golf wickers without breaking the law. They are removed from the golf course each evening to protect them from memorabilia collectors, in the words of an account from the Detroit News.

Ross confirmed that the Merion crowd is very proud of its wickers. This is something that I can only do for Merion. It's kind of a fun and unique thing to be able.

The Philadelphia newspaper noted that the baskets do occasionally find an authorized home away from Merion, such as when the Atlanta Athletic Club underwent a renovation a while back and named its formal dining room the Merion Room, and Merion donated a basket and pole which are now mounted on the wall at the room's entrance.

Weaving her way into history at Merion Golf Club — North Augusta Star

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An enormous pink bunny has been erected on an Italian mountainside where it will stay for the next 20 years.

The 60m long toy rabbit lies on the side of the 1,500m high Colletto Fava mountain in northern Italy's Piedmont region.

Viennese art group Gelatin designed the giant soft toy and say it was knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool.

Group member Wolfgang Gantner said: It's supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can't help but smile.

And Gelatin members say the bunny is not just for walking around — they are expecting hikers to climb its 20 foot sides and relax on its belly.

The giant rabbit is expected to remain on the mountain side until 2025.

Artists erect giant pink bunny on mountain — Ananova

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What was heralded as the world's first Renaissance Knitting Faire, took place last weekend in Stratford. Over a three-day period, which began with a reception on Friday, a total of 185 people came to watch demonstrations, take classes or in some other way, learn about the fiber arts employed by women of the 14th through 17th centuries.

The themed event featured costumed local instructors offering classes in knitting, lace-making, spinning and other techniques appropriate to the Renaissance period, an era of artistic and cultural enlightenment in Europe that began in 1300.

This is, in reality, the world's first themed knitting event, said Janet Kemp, owner of Fine Yarns and Needlework in Stratford. Kemp, who dressed in a garment fit for a queen, came up with the concept and organised the faire, which also featured a concert of early music at Christ Episcopal Church and a slide show of Knitting Madonnas.

The Knitting Madonnas are oil paintings of the Virgin Mary knitting with the Christ Child sitting nearby, sometimes playing with the yarn. The paintings date back to the 14th century and are the first documents of knitting in Europe, but the technique may have its origins in early Egyptian culture, Kemp said.

The paintings generally show women knitting with double-pointed needles, as was customary at the time. Today, most knitters use single-pointed straight needles.

The participants in Carol Mallquist's sock-making class used a magic loop, a circular knitting instrument that allowed them to make tubular socks.

It's an early European cast on style. There's no seam so it's comfortable on a foot, said Millquist, of Fairfield.

Kemp chose the Renaissance period because, There are [knitting] classes and events conducted all over the world, but not with a theme. Anybody can teach knitting. I thought it was important to choose a time period by which people could learn [fiber art] techniques and something of the history as well.

From the historical perspective, Kemp taught participants that most denizens of the Renaissance era were illiterate. People did not read so there were no knitting instructions. They must be told and they must be shown what to do, Kemp said.

She also told them that during Renaissance no one had pockets so everyone had to carry things. Women's reticule bags dangled from their wrists or a finger, or were sometimes fashioned on cord tied around their waists, while men carried a purse or pouch secured by a shoulder strap.

That was normal back then for men to carry a purse, Kemp said.

Men back then also wore a lot of lace because lace was an expression of wealth, said Clare Settle, of Milford, who taught bobbin lace-making and weaving techniques. Settle wore a costume reminiscent of a Flemish lady in Renaissance times because the Flemish were known for their lace-making skills.

Sherri Swihart, of Ansonia, was dressed as a well-born lady as she taught participants to make beaded heirloom bags using very thin knitting needles.

Marta Koch, of Stratford, opted to dress as a tavern wench, to represent ladies of ill- repute. The ladies of the night were taught to knit to keep them off the streets during the day, Koch said.

Koch taught women to knit a baby soaker, an article of clothing similar to today's diapers. It was made of wool and kept the baby dry and odorless, believe it or not. When wool gets wet it felts or mats so that moisture won't drip out, she said.

Pam Blasko, owner of Dream Come True Farm in Oxford, brought wool recently shorn from her sheep and taught several women to spin wool into yarn on a device called a drop spindle. It took some practice, pulling the wool and spinning the device like a child's toy top in mid-air.

This is how people first spun wool, with a rock and a stick, said Suzy Stark, of Monroe, as she fed the wool into the spindle.

I wanted to go back to the origin, the roots. I've tried this before, but never mastered it. Now I feel like I have a command of it, said Leslie Alexander, of Oxford. Alexander said using a drop spindle is universal and made her feel connected to all cultures and to the past.

Throughout the event, Kemp was treated royally. Her husband Randy Kemp took to calling her Queenie. Women curtsied, and as Kemp spoke to several women on the sidewalk outside her store, a man walked by, gave a deep bow and said, Your majesty.

Experienced and novice knitters alike enjoyed the unique event. About 30 women had registered for classes. About a dozen were offered on Saturday and Sunday.

It's cool how you can see how people knitted back then and how easy we have it now. We don't have to sit at a spinning wheel. We can order yarn through a catalogue or go to a store, said Erica Johnson, 13, of Stratford, an enthusiastic crafter who came to observe the faire with her mom, Linda, and grandmother, Edna.

Two Dominican nuns from Our Lady of the Rosary in Monroe also attended the Renaissance Knitting Faire. We are both avid knitters and always looking to learn new techniques to share with our students, said Sr. Mary Catherine, who was accompanied by Sr Mary Imelda.

Needless to say, we like things medieval. Our order dates from 1216 so we felt an affinity with the era, Sr Mary Catherine said.

Stratford yarn shop brings back Renaissance fiber arts — Connecticut Post

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Sara Lee Branded Apparel has purchased National Textiles, a yarn and textile maker based in Winston-Salem.

National Textiles has 2,900 employees and operates NC plants in Gastonia, China Grove, Forest City, Sanford and Eden, as well as a distribution center in Advance.

Its other plants are in Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia.

Sara Lee Branded Apparel is in the process of spinning off from its parent firm, Sara Lee Corp of Chicago, and becoming an independent publicly traded firm.

Sara Lee also says it has recently acquired DFK Trading Corp, an Asian sourcing company.

As global trade dynamics continue to evolve, control of textile resources is a competitive advantage for large apparel companies, Gerald Evans, Sara Lee Branded Apparel's chief supply chain officer, says in a written statement.

He added, These acquisitions are a good investment for Sara Lee Branded Apparel. We were principal customers of both companies, and bringing their capacity in-house will greatly increase our efficiency and speed-to-market in highly competitive apparel categories.

National Textiles supplies open-end and ring-spun cotton, plus blended yarns and finished tubular fabrics. Hong Kong-based DFK will source raw materials in the emerging Asian market.

Sara Lee purchases National Textiles — BharatTextile.com

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It's a classic scenario: Five friends with a mutual passion, disillusioned with their choices after their East Coast college, pile into a van and head to California to break into the big time.

But don't think rock 'n' roll fantasy. This group came straight out of MIT, and its members don't do guitar and vocals; they do patents and prototypes. They make up Squid Labs, self-billed as a design firm that does differential equations, and they're already picking up the hits: solar panel driveways, swarming parachutes, a SourceForge for hardware and a comic book series for kid engineers.

Squid Labs is housed in a generic warehouse in Emeryville down the street from the elaborate Pixar Animation Studios gates. The building is full of toys and half-completed projects, seemingly more chaos than inspiration. The desks of the five founders — Saul Griffith, Colin Bulthaup, Dan Goldwater, Ryan McKinley and Eric Wilhelm — are scattered with papers, scrap metal and wood, and small, bare electronics.

The guys themselves have the weathered and slightly scarred look of people that have too much fun doing foolish things to their bodies. As he pads around the work area barefoot, Griffith admits that while they came to California partly for the tech center, it's no coincidence that one of the best kite-surfing spots in the world is a 10-minute drive from their Emeryville office. At Foo Camp, the invite-only tech camping event, they turned up in a retrofitted school-cum-tour bus full of home-grown hardware hacks, and they were the stars of the show.

But if the look is rock, the vision that ties Squid Labs projects together feels more like jazz. Griffith explains the ethos that ties their seemingly disparate projects together is one of working around and finding new ways to interpret the physical world: "We think of the world as programmable," he said.

That philosophy paid off earlier this year, when the group announced its first product, a smart rope that displays information about its state in real time. The rope, which can be cut and generally used like normal rope, has a display out the end that tells how much load it's carrying and even how frayed it is. It's expected to be on the shelves of Home Depot in about six months.

Other current projects include a laser location system for emergency first responders, a tablet PC and camera that overlays data on the real world for utility workers, a molding machine that creates prescription lenses in minutes for a few dollars — and those are projects they can talk about. More half-made prototypes point to projects sealed under nondisclosure agreements.

Any of these brought to market could very well make a company, but that's not what Squid Labs is about, explains Griffith. We're an incubator, in the business of... reinventing other people's industries.

Despite being mostly about hardware, Squid Labs survives — like other hacker firms — on its intellectual property. It invents, and licenses those inventions to companies that want to make and sell the products.

Between us we have more than 20 patents, 8 to 10 in progress, said Griffith. We're about to go on one of our quarterly patent binges in about five weeks.

Boca Raton, Florida-based inventor Jonathan Oleinick, of Oleinick Energy, is one of Squid Labs' first clients. The two companies are working to bring a solar electrical pavement for driveways and sidewalks to market by next year. Oleinick and Squid Labs' Wilhelm share inventor credits on an application filed last week for a photovoltaic-embedded surface.

I went with them about a year ago — in that year they have taken this idea of mine, an idea many people in the industry said couldn't be done, and made it into a working reality, Oleinick said. They anticipated problems I hadn't thought of, and solved them.

For one of the hotter young startups around, Squid Labs has somewhat surprisingly avoided the lure of large venture capital firms. At the beginning they kept the electric bill paid by bootstrapping the company themselves with individual contracts. More recently, they've held talks with some angel investors, Griffith said.

He sees some projects as works for hire for other corporations and some spinning out of Squid Labs to become their own companies.

Ultimately it will be multiple focuses and resources as appropriate (to the particular project), he said. We are experimenting with a business model at the same time as with new technology. It's something you're told not to do.

Squid Labs: Suckers for Novelty — Wired News — (via BoingBoing)

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Talk of converting a historic western suburbs textile mill into a $300 million housing development has enraged the clothing union and could close down Yarraville's textile industry.

The plan comes three years after the state and federal governments allocated substantial funding to ensure the viability of the Bradmill denim mill.

Textile Clothing and Footwear Union Victorian secretary Michele O'Neil said the Federal Government's Strategic Investment Program had been flagrantly abused by Bradmill owners, the De Lutis Group. The Federal Government has continued to give millions of dollars to companies like this, who take the money and run, Ms O'Neil said.

The State Government is believed to have allocated almost $1.5 million, but revoked part of the grant after the owners failed to achieve set employment and capital expenditure targets.

Bradmill was placed in receivership in 2001 with debts of almost $50 million and De Lutis Group director Colin De Lutis vowed to resurrect the ailing business after paying about $10 million in 2002.

Over the past three years, Bradmill's workforce of 400 has been slashed to fewer than 100, with most of the production moved to China.

Several property sources said Mr De Lutis wanted the 40 hectare site for residential housing to capitalise on booming house prices in the inner-west and the rapid gentrification of Yarraville. The Francis Street site would be subdivided into more than 1200 blocks to be sold for about $350,000 each, a source claimed.

Ms O'Neil said Bradmill had been run into the ground with only 70 production and administrative staff remaining on the site.

It suited him (Colin De Lutis) to be portrayed as a white knight, but his armour rapidly became tarnished and there was never any intention to keep a long-term manufacturing presence in Australia, she said. Concerns over the mill's future were raised when several senior managers without any textile industry experience were appointed in 2002.

It was always clear that the value in the business for him (Colin De Lutis) was more about the site itself than the people and their jobs and the future of the Australian manufacturing industry, she said.

But Mr De Lutis denied any plans to convert the 78-year-old mill into a luxury housing estate. The site will be there for a very long time and the business is going quite well, but other than that, no comment, he said.

Maribyrnong City Council said talks had been held with the De Lutis Group, but there had been no move to have the industrial site rezoned residential.

Yarraville textile mill in danger — The Age

Posted by Red Wolf at 5:51 PM | Permalink

A lucrative export deal for Tasmanian woolgrowers, which will promote the Tasmanian brand to some of the world's top fashion houses, has been made with a Chinese textile company.

Delegates from China's largest wool textile enterprise, the Sunshine Group, visited the state yesterday and signed a memorandum of understanding in a commitment to do future business with Tasmania.

The textile company, one of the world's largest, plans to create a new line made exclusively from Tasmanian wool and promote Tasmania's clean, green image to the fashion houses of Europe and America.

In the first year it will buy up to 5000 bales of wool, which usually sell for $1000-$1200 each, and demand is expected to increase as the rest of the world recognises the wool's quality and strength.

Elders national wool manager Mark Rodda, who organised the Tasmanian visit, said the arrangement opened many possibilities for Tasmanian wool, which is now at its lowest price in five years.

There's no doubt the wool market at the moment is at a low point, he said, and that's why we're excited by this announcement in that it'll give woolgrowers here in Tasmania a real chance to build on demand and ideally increase the prices of their wool.

We see this as sending out very clearly [a message] for Tasmanian woolgrowers that if they can keep producing the top quality wools they do now, there'll be even more markets for their wool in the future.

The Sunshine Group is the single largest buyer of Australian fine and superfine merino wool, purchasing more than 140,000 bales each year.

The company's delegates, who are on a five-day tour of Australia, have been fascinated by the state's clean, green image, as well as by the wool's quality and strength.

Last November they paid top price for a bale from a Grindstone Bay property at Triabunna and eagerly visited the same property yesterday to see first-hand where the wool was produced.

They recognise the difference Tassie wool makes to the finished garment, Mr Rodda said.

Tasmania has wonderful recognition around the world for its clean, green image and wool quality and they are keen to be involved in that brand name.

State in wool deal with China — Sunday Tasmanian

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The Central Highlands province of Gia Lai has opened a training course on brocade weaving techniques for 50 Bahnar people in Glar commune, Dak Doa district.

This is a part of a programme to preserve and develop local people's traditional brocade weaving.

Participants at the three-month course will also be taken on a tour of Dam Yi Brocade Weaving Cooperative and A Ko Tourism Hamlet in the province to learn how to market their products to earn more income.

Huynh Huu Sam, Deputy Director of Dac Lac's industry promotion centre, said his centre will set up a club for brocade weavers in Glar commune after the course. The centre also plans to organise more training courses on this traditional craft in other areas.

Central Highlands province works to preserve brocade weaving — Vietnam News Agency

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YARN Magazine is a quarterly print magazine with a difference: intelligent, well-written articles, original patterns and a sense of humour threaded through. It is available via subscription, Australian yarn stores and in newsagents nationwide. The magazine's web site features a free 24-page sample issue.

...it's a magazine! — YARNblog — (via knitting in public)

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MASS MoCA presents a truly monumental and uniquely American sculptural installation by Dave Cole. Cole is in residence at MASS MoCA with his project The Knitting Machine which comprises two excavators specially fitted with massive 20' knitting needles. The product of The Knitting Machine is an oversized American flag — a flag which can be seen as both a celebratory gesture of pride and a commentary on America's role in world affairs. The Knitting Machine is one part of a three-part exhibition of Cole's work at the museum. In addition to the installation, MASS MoCA will show Cole's Memorial Flag (Toy Soldiers) (2005), a 5' x 9-1/2' foot flag crafted of 18,000 plastic toy soldiers wrestling beneath an impermeable glaze of red, white and blue; and The Evolution of the Knitting Needle Through Modern Warfare (2001), a convincing display of hypothetical army-issue knitting needles — what Cole imagines Army needles would have been had the Army mandated them as combat equipment for seven wars, from the Civil War through the first Persian Gulf War.

Cole explains, The Knitting Machine combines the feminized domestic American tradition of knitting with the grandiose gesture of construction usually associated with masculine labour. The Knitting Machine challenges familiar notions of labor and production, while expressing a complex understanding of patriotism. When the flag is removed from The Knitting Machine it will be folded into the traditional flag triangle and will be on display in a presentation case which Cole describes as slightly smaller than a Volkswagen Beetle, accompanied by the 20' knitting needles, and a video of the knitting process.

From a distance, Memorial Flag (Toy Soldiers) becomes an impressive display of an American icon, the flag. Up close, Memorial Flag reveals its source of texture — plastic men wielding guns. For the piece, Cole obtained the exact specifications for an American flag from the Government Printing Office and created his piece to those specifications. Cole explains, Memorial Flag isn't a representation of a flag or an interpretation of a flag but is an actual flag. In Evolution of the Knitting Needle Through Modern Warfare — which Cole describes as hypothetical anthropology — each set of needles references a specific war in American history. The piece contrasts a basic form of production, knitting, with the progress of technology made through war. It is a study of the relationship between technology and violence.

Providence-based artist Dave Cole has made a name for himself by knitting using unexpected materials. His work Fiberglass Teddy Bear, for instance, is a 14 x 14 x 14 foot pink fuzzy bear. As Christine Temin wrote in The Boston Globe, It looks cuddly enough, but don't get too close. It's made of hand-knit Fiberglas, not a material you want to snuggle up to. Her review continues, saying, Cole's message is that a symbol of childhood comfort can turn sinister, that the world we inhabit is dangerous. The huge teddy is, then, the opposite of Jeff Koons's gargantuan Puppy sculptures, benign and intentionally banal. Cole's teddy is one of the showstoppers in this [DeCordova] Annual.

Cole's work is testimony to the laborious process of grappling with unlikely, and sometimes unfriendly materials. Whether employing backhoes or individually constructed needles, Cole contrasts the domesticity of both his subject matter and gesture of knitting with the grandiose physicality of industrial materials. Cole's work is about the repetition of gesture, the challenge of material limitation, and the creation of delightful, unexpected objects. Cole's exhibition is part of American Traditions, a Berkshire County-wide celebration of more than two centuries of the unique and diverse artistic bounty that only America could produce. The John Deere excavators for The Knitting Machine were donated by Schmidt Equipment in North Oxford, Massachusetts.

Dave Cole's Work The Knitting Machine at MASS MoCA — artdaily.com — (via knitting in public)

Posted by Red Wolf at 12:09 PM | Permalink

British troops combating the heat and dust of Iraq and Afghanistan have a new weapon in their armoury — germ-fighting underwear.

The antimicrobial underpants have been introduced by the Ministry of Defence as part of a new desert uniform for soldiers. They are the first undergarments issued to British troops, who traditionally have had to supply their own.

Military officials said the unisex trunks were made from artificial fibres for comfort, with silver particles woven into the material to prevent sweating.

It is coated to prevent bacterial infection, and we have tried to arrange the seams so that they don't chafe, Colonel Silas Suchanek, who led the team that procured the new equipment.

The army's new desert kit also includes boots with rubber soles designed to withstand temperatures of up to 300°C, wraparound sunglasses, light Kevlar-nylon helmets and combat sandals for off-duty wear.

The British Army has faced criticism for allegedly inadequate equipment. A government report on a military exercise in Oman in 2001 found that soldiers complained that standard-issue boots fell apart or melted in the sun and in some instances caused foot rot, while the man-made fibres of standard uniforms resulted in heat-stress illnesses.

The government acknowledged that at least a quarter of troops bought some of their own equipment, with US Army desert boots a particular favourite.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said the new equipment would make Britain's troops among the best equipped in the world, ready to face environments ranging from desert conditions in Iraq, monsoon conditions in Brunei, to winter in the Balkans.

Support for the modern serviceman or woman starts from the skin out, Ingram said.

The defence ministry said the new underwear was already being issued to troops. The rest of the equipment will be introduced by March.

British soldiers to get germ-fighting underwear — USA Today

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In an era of mass markets and uninspired design, South Africa designer Haldane Martin's new range of chairs are an example of how cutting edge design and social responsibility can go hand in hand to create a truly South African product.

Martin, a furniture designer from Cape Town, weaves elements of South African vernacular crafts and traditions into contemporary designs with his new range of chairs — Zulu Mama and the Reempee collection.

Martin is a man on a mission. I create contemporary furniture that gives us a sense of belonging to our world and the times we live in. I strive to do this with as much integrity and humanity as possible.

The result is strong, individual pieces that marry modern values of simplicity and lightness with a uniquely South African quality.

Woven into Zulu Mama is Martin's own inner strivings. Zulu Mama is an expression of my current internal journey, the harmonious integration of opposites. A marriage between the feminine, woven, egg-shaped form and the masculine, stainless steel frame providing a solid, enduring structure.

During the design stage Martin travelled across rural South Africa, exploring the rich tradition of weaving, and collecting hand woven baskets.

The indigenous spiralled coil baskets are ideal at creating the rounded organic forms that I was looking for in a comfortable seat, he says, adding: the baskets also express the archetypal activity of gathering and holding, appropriate gestures for seating.

But it's not just the design and the melding of traditional and modern that make the chairs unique. He's also working with local communities to source the materials for his designs.

The seats are woven by women from rural areas and townships with fabric derived from recycled polyethylene milk bottles.

Haldan's Reempee continues the tradition of borrowing and reinventing, replacing traditional leather riempies with recycled plastic in bold colours.

Weaving a new way — iafrica.com

Posted by Red Wolf at 11:56 AM | Permalink

While Iraqi political leaders were debating the constitution and women's rights this week, Mary Hamza was busy running a state-owned company with more than 800 workers, most of them women.

The company, which produces handcrafted carpets, was on the verge of collapse when she became general director in 2001. The State Company for Handmade Carpets was established in 1971 with 17 factories scattered around the country. By 1991, the company was making carpets mostly for the government, which meant many went into Saddam Hussein's palaces. Some of the palace carpets took three years to make, Hamza says. Exports had dried up.

Wars and sanctions continued to take their toll. By 1993 the company had shrunk to seven factories.

After the US-led invasion, the company was spared much of the looting that swept through the country, thanks to vigilant guards who kept watch over the property. The company had a five-year supply of silk and wool inventory in its Baghdad factory. If we had lost that, the company would be shut down, Hamza says.

Hamza, speaking in her small office decorated with Iraqi rugs, said she hopes to boost the image of the nation's rugs and begin exporting them again.

That's a tall order. Unlike Iran, Turkey and other countries known for their handmade carpets, Iraq was never renowned for its rugs. Haider As-Sawaf, a Baghdad antique dealer, says he considers most Iraqi carpets to be inferior to rugs from Iran and Turkey.

To keep revenue flowing in, Hamza has set up a manufacturing line for beddings and linens. She has also contacted the Foreign Ministry to convince Iraqi officials to give out her carpets as gifts to envoys and foreign dignitaries. She has set up arrangements with Iraqi artists for them to provide rug designs that reflect Iraq's history and heritage.

The weavers, all of whom are women, make the carpets by hand in factories lined with tables.

Hamza prefers to hire women. Men do not have the same tolerance and sense of beauty women have, she says. The smallest rug will take her no less than three months. Men cannot wait for that long time. Many of the workers are from Sadr City, a mostly Shiite slum in Baghdad.

The Baghdad factory gets hot during the summer and has only fans to cool the building, but Sana Ali, 35, says the work is satisfying. Mopping her face with a towel, she says she's been at the factory for nine years.

I feel it is part of me, she says of the work. And when I complete a rug, you can not imagine my happiness.

In Baghdad, women weaving new image for Iraqi carpets — USA Today

Posted by Red Wolf at 11:51 AM | Permalink

A full-size replica of a four-wheel-drive truck made out of grass has won this year's National Aboriginal and Islander Art Award, the most prestigious Indigenous art award in Australia.

The work, entitled Tjanpi Grass Toyota, was awarded the $40,000 first prize in Darwin today.

The work was a collaboration by a group of women from Western Australia, who call themselves the Blackstone Tjanpi Weavers.

Awards judge Destiny Deacon says the piece stood out because it was art you could smell.

I know it's to do with bloody Toyota and stuff and the brand name, but it's a fact of life in the bush and it's so important for travel, to get somewhere and they usually break down, she said.

[This is] a vehicle that can't move either, but it's something you look at which is what it's like... in the bush.

It is the first time the prize has been awarded for a collaborative effort.

Speaking through a translator, community elder Kantjupayi Benson says the group worked very hard to finish the sculpture in three weeks.

We worked all the way through the week and sometimes we stopped on Sunday for a short while, but we worked all the way through and stopped on Friday.

Woven car wins Indigenous art award — ABC News Online

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Patricia Waller crochets amazing, bizarre sculptures, including teeth in a jar, bloody rabbits crushed by carrots, schwa aliens with huge genitals and inexplicable monsters with dozens of IV drips

Bizarre crochet sculptures — BoingBoing

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