Blog
Dye plants - the seeds
This spring I started studying dyeing plants, in order to make a selection that I thought was good for a dyer's garden. I gathered seeds for all of them and passed them on to Carlota, who germinated and transplanted them to the garden, later.
The tools we have
Gathering good tools for next saturday's flax processing workshop was not easy. I wanted to find good ripples and hackles, that had been used in real flax work, not because I'm nostalgic about other times, but because you can't easily find new ones for sale and making them with the same quality would be expensive, because of the specific metal work necessary.
HOW TO PRODUCE SILK - practical workshops and demonstrations at Quinta de Serralves
On Saturday June 11, Saber Fazer brings to Serralves a day entirely dedicated to silk fibre and its small-scale production, with demonstrations, experiments and guided tours of silkworm rearing, which is taking place for the second year running at Quinta de Serralves.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
Shearing at Quinta de Serralves - 2015
Last saturday we had fabulous weather, an interested audience showed up, and after the nice shearing done by Martin, the sheep are now much lighter and we have some beautiful fleeces from the Bordaleira-de-Entre-Douro-e-Minho to work with. It was a perfect morning.
Shearing is coming!
We're almost in May and shearing season has been open for a while now, but in Serralves, the first time the Bordaleiras-Entre-Douro-e-Minho sheep will be sheared in the farm will be in the next saturday, the 9th of May, starting at 11h in the morning.
The flock of Casa da Lã
Last monday we went to see the sheep where the wool spun by the Women of Bucos come from. Over there, the women have only two terms to differentiate the wool they work with: the “lã brava” (something like wild wool) and the “lã meirinha”.