Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Get yourself a fabric store that will light your fabric on fire for you
No but legit I asked what the fiber content of something was and the guy didn’t know so he cut a chunk off and lit it on fire and felt the ashes and was like. Yeah this is mostly cotton with a lil bit of silk. And that was the moment I knew. This is it. This is the fabric store for me. Also that guy is marriage material. Not for me but damn some person is gonna be so happy with him.
Ok but this is actually one of the easiest ways to tell what something is made of! I did a textiles degree and one day as part of a class we all went outside with a pile of scrap fabric and set fire to the little pieces and recorded how they burned. We were given a chart that looked something like this to tell what each fabric was (it gets a little tricky is it’s a mix of fabrics though). Why did we do this? There is very little regulation in the textiles industry so a lot of materials are mislabelled as something they aren’t and sold for more than they should be, also sometimes people buy fabric second hand or discounted which doesn’t have any label at all. If you have a fabric you are having doubts about, cut a tiny piece off and do the burn test and you should know pretty fast what you are dealing with. Anyways your fabric store should be lighting things on fire because this means that they are actually checking what the fabrics are and aren’t trying to pass cheap stuff off as more expensive than it is.
Ooh! I knew it was a standard test but I hadn’t seen a chart as detailed as this thank you!
We also figured out—the hard way—that the ancients probably cut each layer of linen to the proper shape before gluing them together. For our first linothorax, we glued together 15 layers of linen to form a one centimeter-thick slab, and then tried to cut out the required shape. Large shears were defeated; bolt cutters failed. The only way we were ultimately able to cut the laminated linen slab was with an electric saw equipped with a blade for cutting metal. At least this confirmed our suspicion that linen armor would have been extremely tough. We also found out that linen stiffened with rabbit glue strikes dogs as in irresistibly tasty rabbit-flavored chew toy, and that our Labrador retriever should not be left alone with our research project.
I love this in every way possible. What is it from? Where can I read more?
The pitfalls of experimental archaeology and puppies.
link to source:
“Unraveling the Linothorax Mystery, or how Linen Armor Came to Dominate our Lives.”
so i was in front of Van Gogh’s Starry Night at the moma yesterday and this girl in front of me took a picture with the flash on (WHICH YOU DONT DO!!! EVER!!! BECAUSE FLASH IS TERRIBLE FOR PAINTINGS!!!! THERE WERE SIGNS EVERYWHERE SAYING NOT TO USE IT!!!!)
so i said “hey, dont use flash”
AND THIS MOLDY ASSBABY turns around, gives me the dirtiest look, takes ANOTHER photo WITH HER FLASH ON and fucking!!!! walks!!!! away!!!!!! and ive never come so close to beating the ever living shit out of someone before in my life.
Starry NIght is one of the most important, beloved works of art IN THE WORLD and youre such a entitled piece of shit that you risk damaging it just to get a fucking photo??????? and you know what? it doesnt even matter that it was starry night, ANY piece of art deserves to be shown safetly. just because an artist isnt famous doesnt mean you get to put their work in jeopardy. art is so fucking imporant to our histories and cultures, to our very humanity, and it makes me furious when people dont respect it.
this has been a psa from an angry art history student thank you and remember to turn off your flash
how it damages the painting is what I will now explain since OP just went on a rant but didn’t explain why it’s bad for paintings. Older paintings especially but also newer ones. Have you ever wandered why museum lighting is filtered into a dull yellow? Why it seems to be so dark but you don’t really pay it any mind until you step outside and you are instantly blinded by the sun?
Sunlight, full spectrum, will FADE paintings, and can even cause chemical reactions in some that cause flaking, particularly those that have been restored with certain compounds. YOU ARE LITERALLY ERASING THE ARTWORK WITH EACH FLASH.
White spectrum light is bad, blue spectrum is WORSE. light filtered through yellow filters seems to do less damage and that is why they ask you not to use flash. There are cameras now with settings for museums that disables the flash and still manage to pick out the artwork. For artists the world over, this is a huge chunk of history that can not be recreated once it is gone. Please. Respect the rules in a museum.
hi OP here, thank you for explaining! I honestly didn’t realize so many people didn’t know how harmful it is, so originally my post was just because i was angry people were being willfully harmful. But i realize now that a lot of people don’t know, so educating is the key!!
I lead tours at a museum and we don’t allow photographs for that very reason.
