Badge of Office

As a textile artist I'm fascinated by the ways different trades and occupations have identified themselves in years past. People of all sorts have found ways to tell the world , "this is what I do" by means of their clothing and accessories.

Often the Twenty-first Century version of that occupational identification involves a lanyard. So, as I set out to thread my loom ready to start a new year of weaving, here's my lanyard:

Blue cord to go around my neck, to set off my eyes and make me smile:). The thread snips are extremely handy and the way the spring is set up, they hold themselves in to the little cap which keeps them secure. The other accessory is to measure the thickness of my yarn.

There are much more conventional and sleek gadgets, for measuring yarn thickness, but I do like my personal take on it. I've carved an exact inch and two inch length out of a small eucalypt branch. To plan my weaving I need to know how many times the width of the yarn will fit into a one inch length. The measurement is called "wraps per inch" or wpi. The wpi of the yarn allows me to calculate how many warp threads I need per inch of weaving so that the fabric will behave the way I want it to. Likewise when I'm spinning the same measurement gives me a good idea of what sort of yarn I'm producing. So I keep this little carved stick hanging around my neck. I like to think of it as my "badge of office".