Stella da Lodi’s Online Notebook
Records of Stella’s Adventures in the Current Middle Ages
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Horizontal Loom part 1
The theme of a local event was Mesoamerican, so I looked up what kind of weaving Mesoamerican folks developed. They used backstrap looms, with which I was already somewhat familiar, so that’s not as much fun as learning something completely new. They also used horizontal looms, which looked fascinating! All of the horizontal looms I’ve
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So Many Strings, Not Enough Weights
I have developed a fascination with ancient looms. It fascinates me that you can literally take a bunch of sticks and cording and assemble a loom from it. The Greek-style warp-weighted loom that is my first ancient loom project is also very portable. You just untie the pieces of the frame, move the pieces, and
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Cotton Confessions
Cotton is a very interesting plant. Each boll I’ve picked has been a bit of a wonder, some more than others. The potential pigments are amazing. For example, check this out: This unripe boll fell off the plant while I was looking for ripe bolls. According to my observations so far, bolls do not ripen
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Naalbinded
Naalbound? What’s the past tense of “to naalbind”? I think I might have managed to cast on and do a few Olso stitches. This is the video I followed: How to Nalbind. Step1: Make a Starting Chain using the Oslo Stitch on YouTube. I watched the video a few times, then picked up the yarn
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Colorful Cotton
I had 5 or 6 cotton bolls that were either ripe or mostly ripe, and I picked the seeds out during Arts & Science Night this week. Mistress Argent was also in attendance, and she graciously tested out my tahkli, a tiny Indian-style spindle for spinning cotton. Mine is made of metal. So it is,
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The Year of Random Cotton
I am usually meticulous about my garden records. Seeds go into the ground with labels that specify their variety. Plants are transplanted with labels. Everything is labelled! For science![1] Not this year, 2025 CE. This spring all of my gardening energy and a good deal of my life force itself was consumed by groundhogs. Please
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Hello World!
stelladalodi.org was once a Google Site, back in the day before Google decided to drop Sites unless you bundle it with a bunch of other expensive stuff that I don’t need. So this is my first foray into WordPress. I’ve built web sites from scratch back in the day and I’m familiar with SquareSpace. WordPress