Setting the house on fire
May. 21st, 2008 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mmcnealyA while back, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rectangularcat, said that she couldn't find a food grade wheat bran that would ferment properly to use for an indigo vat.
Well, I've solved that problem, and nearly started a house fire all at the same time....
It may surprise you all that I do actually research other periods and places besides 16th century Germany, amazing but true!
True confession time, I'm an infovore and I like collecting information. Google Books and I are old friends, especially for interesting reads like Miss Leslie's Lady's House-book; A manual of domestic economy containing approved directions and then she goes on to list just about anything and everything you could possibly want to do in a house in 1850.
One of the things she mentions is making a brick pincushion, and she specifically mentions how it is very helpful in hand sewing long seams. Hand sewing long seams is one of the biggest strains on my hands, having something heavy that I could pin the item to and use that to hold the fabric taut would greatly improve the speed and comfort of hand sewing.
The instructions basically say:
- Take a brick, cover it with fabric
- Make a bag slightly larger than the brick, stuff it with bran until it is hard.
- Sew the bag to the brick
- Sew green baize to the bottom of the brick
- Cover the the whole thing except the bottom with a pretty fabric so it looks nice.
Sounds simple enough, right? What could possibly go wrong?
Bricks, I have plenty of those in the yard, scrap fabric, check. At the advice of my friend at the fabric store, I got some really nice heavy cotton ticking, and left it unwashed. For the green baize, she recommended using green pool table felt.
Everything went fine until I tried to stuff the bag with bran, and the bran was impossible to control. So I decided to get smart, I got the bran damp and then stuffed it in the bag. It packed down nicely then, and I finished up the bag and sewing it to the brick.
I left it to dry out a few days, and then covered it with a red linen that I had around. I wasn't able to finish sewing the cover down all the way because Henry got squirrley, so I left the last 3" for another day.
The next day, I sat down to finish sewing the cover, and I put my hand on the top, and it was *HOT*.
"Oh, its just been sitting in the sun" said I.
Then I realized that the sun hadn't been shining through that window for hours. OOOPS.
I had unknowingly started a fermentation process with the bran when I got it wet. Now it was in an enclosed space, tightly compacted, and composting. It was also producing quite a lot of heat too....
I ripped the stitching off the cover and took the bag off the brick, cut it open and stuck my finger in, man that bran was super HOT! I've heard of compost spontaneous combusting before, so I threw the bag and bran away. I'll try the pincushion again, but with dry bran this time
I guess it was a good thing that I wasn't able to finish sewing the cover all in one day. It would have been pretty, errrm, amusing to call up the insurance adjuster and say "Hi, we had a house fire, it was caused by my pincushion"
rectangularcat, said that she couldn't find a food grade wheat bran that would ferment properly to use for an indigo vat.Well, I've solved that problem, and nearly started a house fire all at the same time....
It may surprise you all that I do actually research other periods and places besides 16th century Germany, amazing but true!
True confession time, I'm an infovore and I like collecting information. Google Books and I are old friends, especially for interesting reads like Miss Leslie's Lady's House-book; A manual of domestic economy containing approved directions and then she goes on to list just about anything and everything you could possibly want to do in a house in 1850.
One of the things she mentions is making a brick pincushion, and she specifically mentions how it is very helpful in hand sewing long seams. Hand sewing long seams is one of the biggest strains on my hands, having something heavy that I could pin the item to and use that to hold the fabric taut would greatly improve the speed and comfort of hand sewing.
The instructions basically say:
- Take a brick, cover it with fabric
- Make a bag slightly larger than the brick, stuff it with bran until it is hard.
- Sew the bag to the brick
- Sew green baize to the bottom of the brick
- Cover the the whole thing except the bottom with a pretty fabric so it looks nice.
Sounds simple enough, right? What could possibly go wrong?
Bricks, I have plenty of those in the yard, scrap fabric, check. At the advice of my friend at the fabric store, I got some really nice heavy cotton ticking, and left it unwashed. For the green baize, she recommended using green pool table felt.
Everything went fine until I tried to stuff the bag with bran, and the bran was impossible to control. So I decided to get smart, I got the bran damp and then stuffed it in the bag. It packed down nicely then, and I finished up the bag and sewing it to the brick.
I left it to dry out a few days, and then covered it with a red linen that I had around. I wasn't able to finish sewing the cover down all the way because Henry got squirrley, so I left the last 3" for another day.
The next day, I sat down to finish sewing the cover, and I put my hand on the top, and it was *HOT*.
"Oh, its just been sitting in the sun" said I.
Then I realized that the sun hadn't been shining through that window for hours. OOOPS.
I had unknowingly started a fermentation process with the bran when I got it wet. Now it was in an enclosed space, tightly compacted, and composting. It was also producing quite a lot of heat too....
I ripped the stitching off the cover and took the bag off the brick, cut it open and stuck my finger in, man that bran was super HOT! I've heard of compost spontaneous combusting before, so I threw the bag and bran away. I'll try the pincushion again, but with dry bran this time
I guess it was a good thing that I wasn't able to finish sewing the cover all in one day. It would have been pretty, errrm, amusing to call up the insurance adjuster and say "Hi, we had a house fire, it was caused by my pincushion"
