Bifröst! Current weaving on my inkle loom! I'll be donating this one to the National Nodric Museums annual Northern lights auction in a month. Inspired by the famous rainbow bridge from Norse mythology.
I'm using the baltic pick up technique for the pattern but I'm using a much thicker worsted weight yarn because that's what I have from weaving criossanna which use a thicker yarn than is generally used in the nordic regions.
"Ireland invites you" poster from 1953 created for Fógra Fáilte who did publicity for Bord Fáilte Éireann (Irish tourist board). Made by Dutch artist Guus Melai.
It shows a man from the Aran Islands weaving a crios which is a traditional Irish belt that makes up part of the folk dress of the Aran Islands. This is one way a crios can be woven using a circular warp with the tension kept with a stick held by the feet. It is likely this image is missing the sting heddles that would be used in weaving. Most commonly images show criosanna being woven tied to the foot or a stool without a circular warp so this picture is very interesting!
Poster is currently in storage at the National Museum of Ireland.
Today's crios (traditional Irish belt) weaving! Based off a black and white pattern crios from 1918 currently at the National Museum of Ireland. For anyone who doesn't know this type of belt is traditional to the Aran Islands and was originally done without a loom on the foot, but I'm using an inkle loom.
Do you have a favorite ballad or story-song?
It's not a ballad, but I adore "A Bhean Ud Thios" for its story. It's several centuries old and sung from the point of view of the storyteller, a woman who has been abducted by fairies and held prisoner for a year in their fort beneath a hill.
She describes many fine and terrible things beneath the hill. She is singing instructions to a sympathetic listener, who must pass the instructions along to her husband so he can free her tomorrow, one year and one day since her abduction. If he fails to rescue her by the end of the day, she will be trapped beneath the hill forever.
There are other women trapped alongside her, and she ends the song explaining that if her husband fails, she "will be made queen of these women." What, exactly, her role as queen of the captive women would entail is unclear, but it can't be a desirable position.
What makes the song especially eerie is that it's disguised as a lullaby. As she gives her instructions to the listener, the singer stands near a stream, rocking a fairy baby to sleep in her arms. Between each line, she sings, "Seothu leo, seothu leo," a lulling lyric to the baby, so any nearby captors might dismiss her song and miss the truth that she's planned her escape.
Cast Bronze Boar Figures, 150-50 BCE, Hounslow, Middlesex, British Museum, London
These were found together and may be the crests from sheet bronze helmets rather than free-standing figurines. Stylistically they are the earliest animal figurines found in Britain.
Traditional Irish belt weaving on the Aran Islands in 1952. Photo is from the Galway University library Ritchie Pickow photographic archive (which is available to view online!!!). The weaver is Annie Hernon. This kind of belt is often called a crios (which is also the Irish language word for belt). It's was either woven tied to the foot or looped around a chair weighted down with a large rock as is shown here. These pictures are in black and white but the crios is a very colorful garment traditionally having up to seven colors.
remember kids
Artist 🎨: @vhsdogs
So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.
I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?
They're my fucking hero.
So... I heard from a friend of 20+ years who works for the State Department who confirmed to me in so many words that they can assure me, without specifics, that "all of the suppositions you have made here are true."
So... yep. Passport folx at the State Department really did work incredibly long hours this week just... shoveling every passport out the door (and prioritizing the ones that might be A Problem come Monday) and yes, they did On Purpose make sure that all of them weren't just DONE but MAILED and out the door and in the hands of the USPS so that they can't be told to pull those passports back and deny/destroy them.
This also means they got the OK for the mountains of overtime from the Biden administration to get that done.
This is what I mean when I say that the Good Work is often not glamorous and that we have to prioritize things which actively and immediately better the lives of our siblings. The State Department worker who was still in the office last night at midnight Pacific time stuffing my passport into an Express Mail envelope and making sure that it was in the hands of USPS has done more liberatory work for the trans movement than 100 people endlessly auditing the language others use to describe their lives ever will.
These next years are gonna be real hard. Find something tangible to do for yourself and others, however small, and do it as hard as you can.