#horsehair

[illustratus]

The Sword of Damocles by Richard Westall

#damocles #sword #art #richard westall #neoclassicism #neoclassical #dionysius i #dionysius #king #courtier #power #peril #fear #allusion #sicily #syracuse #magna graecia #ancient greece #ancient greek #cicero #maidens #swords #horsehair #court #dionysius i of syracuse #mediterranean #classical antiquity #timaeus of tauromenium #europe #european

[marianbijlenga]

2024

.SCRAPS

.PAPER

#marian bijlenga #most recent #recent works #horsehair #fiberart #textile art #art #contemporary art #wall art

[sierra-censored]

A horsehair hem on a Prom dress 👗

#seamstress #spool intentions #alterations #dress #sewing #before and after #blue dress #princess dress #prom dress #butterfly dress #horsehair

[bomberqueen17]

on horsehair in fibercrafting

so I’ve been pondering using horsehair ever since I read that description of the one Hallstatt tablet-woven braid that used horsehair as the weft. (Information on that here-- if you scroll you dont’ actually have to download the PDF at all)

Tablet weaving is warp-faced, meaning that all of the colors you see on the final product are the visible face of the warp-- the threads you dressed the loom with. The weft, the string the weaver has put in place to form the strings into a fabric, is only visible as loops at the edge, and occasionally peeking through if there are skip-holes in the threading pattern. You rarely see it, and I’m learning the best practice as a weaver is just to select a weft that’s similar in color to the warp at the edges, so that it’s unobtrusive where the weft turns around.

So you need very long strings for the warp, but the weft can really be anything. Anything strong, and I imagine in the time of the Hallstatt tablet’s weaving-- some of those finds are estimated to be as old as 800 BCE, which is a very long fucking time ago-- horsehair would be readily available, basically free, and perfectly strong enough for this purpose.

But it got me wondering, what else do people make from horsehair? And of course the answer is, a lot of things.

Horsehair fabric was traditionally used for upholstery, and I remember learning that as a kid and misunderstanding it-- at the museum my mom curated before I was born, I remember visiting and my mother saying that this historic chair had a horsehair cushion, and I thought it was stuffed with horsehair, like as the padding-- and I think my mother thought that too, and it’s possible it really was. but the fabric was certainly woven of horsehair. As I’m researching now, horsehair fabric traditionally had a warp of something else, often cotton or linen, and the weft was horsehair, ideal because water-resistant and hard-wearing and glossy and fairly abrasion-resistant. Again, the horsehair would not be spun-- it was sourced by cropping horses’ entire tails, which was regularly done for work horses, and then the whole tail would be brought and hairs picked by a child assistant to the weaver, and added in to the weft individually, set to overlap slightly, alternating hair directions. There’s an explainer here, from a woman who learned how to recreate it, but it’s worth mentioning there is a company in the UK who still does it commercially. (There’s an article about it but it’s requiring me to register and I’m not doing that.)

There’s also a traditional cowboy craft of making horsehair ornaments for bridles and saddles, which I could only discover is very time-intensive, and now I can’t remember what it was called or find more information about it. I’m sure it’s in the browsing history on my other computer, though.

Anyway that made me curious about making cord from horsehair, and the only thing I can find is a lot of Pinterest boards about making friendship bracelets, which is cool, but most of them are kumihimo cording, which is fine and good and not a thing I’ve ever done before but probably could pick up if I felt the need.

I wish I’d discovered this back when I had horses. I had a buckskin gelding with a wonderful mixture of browns in his mane and tail, and a Quarter Horse/Appaloosa mare who had a lot of gray and white shades. I saved a coil of the gelding’s mane when he died, but we sold the mare, and I don’t think I kept any mementoes of her. Alas!

I’m of course now remembering that one of my original novels featured a horseback culture that had a cultural tradition of braiding horse and human hair into bracelets as talismans, but I can’t talk about that with anyone because I never finished or published that book, so lolsob, wonder where that went on my hard drive.

Anyway-- this is a thing I’m now thinking about a lot, LOL.

#horsehair #fibercrafting #weird little essays

[tigersmoondesign]

Free new pieces from the most recent firing at Tigersmmoon Design Pottery.

#tigersmoon #potterylove #horsehair #ceramics #design #clay #pottery #hickorynorthcarlinaartist

[lovingcare-1210pro]

#foals #paint horse #baby #horsesanctuary #wild horses #horse photography #photography #beautiful horse markings #beautiful #red hair #red horse mane #horsehair

[bleg5]

More pottery, I thought these dudes looked pretty cool especially the one on the left, with the patterns being made using horsehair.

#pottery #art #ceramic glaze #horsehair #potterywheel #clay #ceramic bowl #cermaics #ceramicart #2022

[ardiebeaphotography]

Edgar's Cello 21 by ArdieBeaPhotography Via Flickr: A friend invited us to a cello concert a year ago, and afterwards he agreed to sit for a photo-shoot for me. It was delayed by covid, and then Christmas, and then... etc. Recently we got it organised. Here are the results.

#cello #string #instrument #playing #bowing #bow #horsehair #jeans #t-shirt #glasses #man #musician #smile #seated #inside #piano #wallpaper #stool #portrait #Tamron SP AF 28-75mm F/2.8 XR Di LD Aspherical (IF) #music #flickr

[aworldinfocus]

Chira; Church of St. Mary of Zion; Axum, Ethiopia The “chira” (fly swatter) is made of horsehair and has been the most immediately recognizable part of the Christian Ethiopian Empire’s regalia for centuries. #axum #ethiopia #church #orthodox #christian #horsehair #flyswatter #regalia https://www.instagram.com/p/Cfu9abGrN5P/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#axum #ethiopia #church #orthodox #christian #horsehair #flyswatter #regalia

[dirtyiicecream]

#fur #horsehair #shawl #sewing

[danielsmountain]

Uncovered from the lair of an ancient red dragon.

#kobold #skull #dungeons and dragons #ceramics #horsehair

[marianbijlenga]

Works 2022

.Scattered Nature

.Multicolor Dots

#most recent #marian bijlenga #recent works #horsehair #wallart #contemporaryart #textile art

[sierra-censored]

🪡 Working on a horsehair hem. 🪡

#seamstress #spool intentions #alterations #sewing #dress #bride #wedding gown #horsehair #sewing machine #Instagram

[bomberqueen17]

reply about horsehair

mxbuster replied to this post

Tailoring uses horsehair fabric as a stiffener, as did Victorian crinolines and bustle pads. There’s a contemporary braided trim that’s called horsehair braid but is in fact now synthetic used to make hairpin tabs and such in hats, also edge stabilizing in wedding garments.

OH YEAH i can’t believe i forgot to mention horsehair braid and crinolines. I believe “crinoline” even literally means like. horsehair-and-linen.

There was something I was looking at horsehair braid for, I don’t remember now, a few months ago, and I was like “could i just braid horsehair for this” and i literally did not look into it any farther than that because like why would anyone do that, but I did have a bunch of it in my cart. I do wish I could remember what I was getting it for. I know you use it in the hems of retro-style circle skirts too sometimes, maybe it was for that i was thinking about it. Never did make that circle skirt did I.

#horsehair #fiber nerd #pondering #replying to replies

[tigersmoondesign]

This tear shaped bud vase is a lovely addition to my puccess stories for this weekends kiln firing. With a final natural wax finish to protect it the surface is soft and supple.

#ceramics #pottrystudio #clay #rakupottery #design #my art #pottery #horsehairpottery #horsehairraku #hickorynorthcarlinaartist #hickory nc #ncart #ncartist #ncpotter #ncpottery #potteryobsession #budvase #horsehair #tigersmoon #my artwork #artforsale

[enigmahorsehairjewellery]

For an elegant way to showcase your horsehair, any of my braided items can have sterling silver or 14ct gold wire incorporated into the braid.

#braidedhorsehair #horsehairbraid #horsehair #horsehairbracelet #equestrianjewellery