Blog
The Typographer's Manual
I received a beautiful Typographer's Manual and a typometer, produced there by Joana from Clube dos Tipos.
Learning to shear
Here are a few photos of the Shearing Workshop that took place last saturday in Serralves, right after the morning demonstration.
Growing
As we get ready for next saturday's shearing, our flax keeps growing. If all goes well, that empty area above the linhal will become a small Dyer Plant’s Garden.
Sheep shearing workshop and demonstration at Serralves - 21st of May 2016
The 2016 shearing season has already begun and there will once again be a shearing open to the public at Quinta de Serralves next Saturday, May 21, this time with something new: a practical workshop for beginners!
Flax sowing 2016
After the trouble we had finding Galego Flax seed to start our crop in Serralves last year, it felt good to have it multiplied and have this year's sowing assured without having to count seeds.
It's that time of the year again
Yes, it's true. I didn't even finish telling the story of last year's silkworm raising and silk reeling and the 2016 silkworms are here already. But that's what happens when you want to get a farm to produce, wool, flax, silk, write about that, make a study about portuguese wool, run a shop and also have a baby by the way.
A matter of perspective
I've written about the case of Daniel Harris before, in 2012, but it's a case I want to revisit because his work has grown and consolidated in the meantime, and he's now a proven example of what I wanted to show at the time.
We should probably look at what we're wearing too
Rebeca Burgess, founder of Fibershed, in this interview;
![[wip] Portuguese wool - a practical guide](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/648982341579d12f2111cfb5/1687858372291-XW3CG5XCRV8I4N978MEQ/image-asset.jpeg)
[wip] Portuguese wool - a practical guide
The very tedious part of doing the sample photoshoot is the very satisfactory part of seeing your work finally come together.
At the shop: books about flax!
Finding books on flax cultivation written in Portuguese is not easy. Most of the ones I find that are actually useful for practice were published in the first half of the 20th century and are rarities, really.
![[wip] Portuguese wool - a practical guide](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/648982341579d12f2111cfb5/1687858404902-N0Z3Y2AQ41DDESC95Y97/image-asset.jpeg)
[wip] Portuguese wool - a practical guide
Well, There's a problem that I just never have...
Did I know that transforming bags of raw wool from every corner of our country into teeny-tiny envelopes like these would be so much work? Of course not. And I'm glad I didn’t, otherwise I would have chickened out.
The Woodworking Tools book is back in the shop
After being sold out for a couple of months, the Woodworking Tools book is again available at the shop.
In the meantime: national sheep breeds.
While I don't finish the marathon that this small study about the wool from portuguese sheep breeds as turned into, here's a little video on the subject.
The first experiments
Although I'm buried in work and do not have the time to write all the posts I need to write, I had to come here and share Guida Fonseca's first experiments with some of the wools she discovered through our ongoing small Portuguese Wools study, in her own work.
In search of the lost scutcher
By the end of June, there I went, all the way up Minho, hoping to find one of those mechanic scutchers still in working condition.
The festival
Just like last year, it was a very intense day fully spent teaching spinning, weaving and basketry. Although we ended up extremely tired, we all agreed that it is very important to open this kind of activities to the general public, that for the most part, never did anything of the kind.