Blog
Being Merino in Portugal
The merino confusion began with our work on portuguese wools, when terms we had been using for some time got mixed up with new terms we were learning. Merino, Merino Alentejano, Merina Branca, Merina Preta, Merina da Beira Baixa, merino extra, merino fino, merino médio e merino forte. What do they mean, and how do they relate to each other?
Portuguese Wool national classification system
One thing that is good to know, is the classification system that is being used in our country. These two tables aren't the easiest thing to find (this book is from 1947), but I was lucky enough to find it in a bookshop right here in Porto, at the moment I started looking for it.
Plying with a portuguese spindle
Surprisingly for me, most of my Portuguese Spindles have been traveling to the other side of the Atlantic. I guess it should be no wonder for two reasons: first, fiber culture out there is much more developed and intense than in our country, and second, I know that this spindle is quite unusual, so it should spark some curiosity in the community.
Where do your plastic clothes end up?
There are other costs, as well. This disposable, mass production of fast fashion is amplifying one of the biggest environmental problems you’ve probably never heard of. Billions of micro fibers—small bits of plastic easily consumed by aquatic life—are being emitted into the environment from the clothes we wear.
The number one
The number 01 of the Woodworking Tools silkscreen that I saved for us, framed and ready to hang.
Saber Fazer at the Fall Festival - September 27, 2015
Save the date: sunday, the 27th of September, Saber Fazer will once again be present with two activities at the Festa de Outono in Serralves.
The true cost of what we wear
This documentary is a must-see. It took me a few months to get around to watch it, because the trailer made it look like a compilation of stock footage simply edited to prove a point, but I was wrong.
Flowering Flax
Most definitely, the most beautiful time in flax growing: the flowering. The plants already have their maximum height, and they get the typical purple flowers in the morning, that then fall throughout the day.
The first one to form a cocoon
The thought on my mind was “But when will these silkworms start cocooning?”, when we found this pioneer working on her cocoon, on one of the sides of the wooden trays.
Watching them grow
They are born measuring about 1mm and they grow to be approximately 7,5cm, before starting to show cocooning signs. When I suggested to raise silkworms in Serralves, for textile purposes, I was thinking about starting with a few - something around 150, not only because we were doing it for the first time, but also because I wasn’t sure about how much food they needed and if the Serralves mulberry trees were enough.
No silkworm will be left behind
When the silkworms are just babies, they take up a single tray, and cleaning up one tray is quick and easy. But when they start to grow, we need to spread them along several trays, so they have enough room, and suddenly, cleaning up 11 trays isn’t that quick.
Portuguese Wool - the locks
In the meantime, the processing and analysis of the portuguese wools keep going, down in Viana do Alentejo, in Guida's and Isabel's hands. Here, I'll share some images of the work in progress that I'm following from a distance
Fleeces and more fleeces of portuguese wool
We started by opening all the packages that had been arriving for the last weeks, to analyse and separate all the wools. From the Trás-os-Montes Churras to the Algarve Churra, from the several merinos, the Saloias and Bordaleiras, it was a real pleasure to get to see and touch all these wools for the first time.
Portuguese wool from north to south
These are only a few of the packages that have been arriving to Serralves, from all over the country, filled with raw wool from all our sheep breeds. Since late April that we have been working hard at making the necessary contacts to be able to have all this material gathered, and start what, along with the development of the three textile fiber cycles, I also proposed to do this year for the Saber Fazer em Serralves program: a little book dedicated to analyzing and comparing all the wools produced by our local sheep breeds.
The growing Flax
A week after sowing and it seems none of the catastrophes I feared occurred. The birds didn’t flood in to eat the seeds, we didn’t bury them too deep for them to sprout, and we didn’t kill them from lack of water.
How many seeds do we need and why?
I think the question I tried hardest to find a clear answer to from the people I consulted and the material I read was the exact amount of seeds I would need for a given area.
Flax growing advice from Eng. Flávio Martins
There are books that are more extense on the flax subject, but I consider these written in the 1940’s by Eng. Flávio Martins something special because they had a clear mission: to ensure that the farmers that were growing flax for EFANOR had all the necessary information to produce good quality crops.
Here they are!
Four days after the sowing, the little galego flax sprouts started peeking out.
Flax - Sowing
The research I've done so far has made me realize how complex this little plant is and how the quality of the flax we'll get depends almost exclusively on what is done at the time of sowing, and well, also on a series of meteorological factors that we can't control.