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Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

22 Mar

1 - Welcome to #ThreadTalk, muslin edition. Muslin has been all over my feed, so let me cut to the chase:

The finest fabric in human history was perfected by the Bengali people but tragically lost in the wake of imperialism & economic ruin at the hands of the English.

🤬🤬

2 - Muslin was once called "The vapor of dawn" by a Chinese trader named Yuan Chwang. Other names were "woven wind" & "wonder gossamer" - yet it's now synomymous with Regency period dramas.

There's no way around this: it is not a happy story. But it's one people need to hear.

3 - In many ways, this is a companion thread to my original #chintz talk. Chintz and muslin are both made from cotton & both arose to fame b/c of the art, vision, & craft of Indian weavers.

Muslin is a basic plain weave, that means it's just a warp and a weft. But there's more.

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Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

16 Mar

1 - It's time for #ThreadTalk. That's right: it's time to dye.

Warning: This feature includes insects🐞, poison☠️, dead bodies 💀, human combustion🔥 & general yuck🤢

And of course colonialism👎. But also gowns! Like this French afternoon dress in yellow & chartreuse from 1866

2 - Most natural fiber fabrics are bit bland at first. Getting them vibrant means the adding of pigment.

Natural wool is often an ivory hue, & it takes a lot of processing to get the right hue. Raw wool pictured below to give you an idea. Carding video:

3 - Red is the color of passion, desire, and… insect secretion. Yes, we get carmine red from carminic acid, a substance we extract from female cochineals. Yum!

Cochineals are scale insects found in the Americas and are often found on prickly pear cactuses.

Read 25 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

9 Mar

1 - Welcome to #ThreadTalk. This week’s subject: #embroidery.

This fabric art—both fine and folk — is a world heritage art, meaning its inception goes back before recorded times.

So tonight, I’m taking you on a tour around the world.

2 - The word "embroider" comes to English by way Frankish and Proto-German & may mean “braid” or “embellishment.”

From simple decorative stitches to complex beaded patterns, embroidery is often a matter of national pride and identity, too, like this Croatian blouse.

3 - The width and breadth of the embroidery on Earth is striking in variety & beauty. It transcends class, status, and rank & has been used both as symbols of the oppressed and the oppressor.

This hand-stitched Mandarin rank badge is from the Qing Dynasty in China.

Read 30 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

8 Mar

Pertinent to discussions about neurodivergent writers: WORKING MEMORY.

This means we get very tripped up with complex forms, multiple-step processes, and guidelines.

So, we make mistakes, even if we don't mean to & we can immediately forget directions, numbers, etc

I used to think there was something wrong with me because I couldn't remember phone numbers.

I still can't. I took an ADHD screener a few months ago and my working memory is SHOT.

Pair that with our trouble understanding time, and if we don't do it NOW it often doesn't happen.

Someone once said that when you have ADHD, there are two different states of time: NOW and NOT NOW.

You could imagine how hard that is to manage with agent queries, book submissions, contracts, payments, etc.

Read 4 tweets

Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

2 Mar

1 - Welcome to tonight's #Treadtalk.

#Velvet may bring to mind 1970s couches, or your 90s goth stage, but that's a long way from its luxurious roots.

So let's brave the Black Plague, the cold, and questionable fashion choices together, in the name of this truly royal fabric.

2 - As with many fabrics, there is debate as to where velvet began. Some say China, others say Egypt & others point to the Middle East.

What they can agree on is that it’s a pain in the ass to make and $$$$$ AF. Original velvet was silk, too.

3 - Velvet is a pile fabric, which means it relies on lots of sharp objects & a touch of violence for production.

Yup! Velvet’s pile yarn is on the warp direction & must be cut on the loom or, in face-to-face methods--slicing down the middle to create two mirror-like textiles.

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Natania Barron

@NataniaBarron

27 Feb

I think my next writing piece is all about shame.

Which is something we don't talk much about, but boy howdy do we exploit.

There's internal shame, but there's also what I think of as "shame-baiting"--content that's designed specifically to invoke shame in other creatives.

Critique, advice, support, these are all connected. But they can be flavored with shame.

Shame, as an emotion, is incredibly potent. And many people turn their own internalized shame outward.

For some people it works. At least temporarily. But I don't think it's sustainable.

I've been a lifelong marketer my whole career, and click bait has warped our senses.

We're totally okay with emotional manipulation, playing to people's fears and darkest shame.

It's a dangerous game. It's damaging. It's ultimately very, very shitty.

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