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A Busy Week and an Half

A Busy Week and an Half

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I went to a small sale the other weekend. It was at a small pioneer village. http://www.langpioneervillage.ca/

I demonstrated spinning with a drop spindle and sold 10 drop spindle kits. I think I could have sold 10 more if I had had them.

lang museum

The museum is also working on getting an old Jacquard loom working. This is the one that will stay as just a static display.

lang jaquard loom

If you are old enough you will probably think the cards look like computer punch cards but these pre date computers by quite a bit. The cards are the pattern, they are sewn together. I will post more pictures of the loom over on the forum. http://feltandfiberstudio.proboards.com/thread/1059/jacquard-loom

After the show I stayed wit my friend Maureen who owns Dreamspin Fibres,  http://www.dreamspinfibres.ca/ (shameless plug for a friend) I made a hat using prefelt. I hadn’t done that before.

pink and green hat

The green stuff is some of that strange yarn everyone is knitting and crocheting the spiral scarves with. It is a tube so I cut the tube up one side and opened it out. It came out great.

Then this Monday I taught a bobble cuff workshop for the first time. The ladies in the class where a lot of fun. Audrey’s granddaughter was there and very interested so I gave her some wool and she made a small picture in a plastic bag and I showed her how to make a tube bead with some pencils.

cuff class

By the end of the class they had the marbles in the cuffs. The cuffs have to dry before you can cut them to get the marbles out. They will do that today. I made everyone a sample with marbles in them so they could try cutting the felt while I was still there.

cuff class finished

That’s been my very busy week and a half. I almost forgot to do my post today as I was busy making hats and scarves for a sale I have on September 7 and 8 in Almonte. http://mvtm.ca/museum/?page_id=2675 If you are in the area come out and say hi.

Sewing, Felt Hat to Purse, Felt Boots.

Sewing, Felt Hat to Purse, Felt Boots.

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Last time I told you about organising one section of my room and clearing off the table. My next area is the sewing area. It’s coming along. It started like this:

sewing area before

There is also a bunch of stuff on the floor under and around it that you can’t see in the picture. I have made progress but the shelves to the bookcase have disappeared so it’s hard to fill them up. I did switch the old singer that needs a part for a newer one. I haven’t tried it but it may need a cleaning. I still have the pfaff I can use. I want to set it up for free motion embroidery. It is a work in progress

As part of trying to do some fiber art everyday I have been working on converting a hat to a purse, well, 3 hats actually. The hats started out looking like this:

hat to purse 2

I cut the holy part off and did this:

hat to purse 1

This should add some interest with great texture.

Here is one that has the texture done. The colour on the left one is more what it looks like I think it’s called Laurel.

hat to purse 3 hat to purse 4

I had planed to get the lining in before posting but that didn’t happen. I will show you when I get it done. It will also get a zipper too. I haven’t decided if it should be a clutch or I should find some sort of strap for it. What do you think?

Lastly I have started my on-line boot class. It took me  a while to convince You Tube to let me see the videos and then my Internet went out for a week. So all I managed to do was my sample and get my pattern drawn out.  The sample of gray Finn wool shrank a little more than 50%.

shrinkage

There was a lot of measuring and some math to get the pattern the correct size for the shrinkage.  This is what it looks like at the moment.

boot patten

My mom came for a visit so I couldn’t lay out the boots today. I decided I want to make a leave motif on the boots when they are done so I cut out leaf shapes in white and black. the booths are gray. I stretched a couple with some vintage “artisanal silk”. I am told it’s not real silk but its pretty.  I don’t know if I like it. I was thinking of sewing some veins on with my machine to see how that looks. I have some dissolvable interfacing I thought if I put the leaves on that I should be able to stitch them.

leaves

So I haven’t been able to actually do some fiber art every day but I have been thinking about it everyday and getting to play most days.

Exhibition and Sale

Exhibition and Sale

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The guild I belong to, the Ottawa Valley Weavers and Spinners Guild, had its annual exhibition and sale this last weekend. I had a booth selling scarves and wraps and flowers and cuffs and hats etc. The guild does a display on a theme and has demos and promotes our classes. It’s our big event for the year. The venue is beautiful it is a community center now but used to be a church and has a huge domed center.

Here are some pictures of my booth and me explaining what nuno felt is to a customer.

 

 

This is one of the organisers wearing an exquisite shawl she knit using her own hand spun alpaca.

This my friend Judy,http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jumaka.com%2Fspinning%2Fpetfur.html&h=fAQGCIXhy , she not only likes to spin yarn, including dog and cat fur she also likes to spin wood on a lathe to make nostepinne for manually making a center pull ball) and  drop spindles in several styles and weights including supported spindles like she is using in the picture. This is her booth, she shares it with another friend who is more camera shy.

 

The Guild display had the theme around the house  and of course we had spinners and weavers demonstrating.

 

Lastly here are pictures of some of the many booths that where there. We had a good variety with both finished goods and supplies.

     

     

All in all it was a good show with not as many people as usual but the ones that came were buying. I hope everyone’s upcoming sales are good.

Hat Making Class

Hat Making Class

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I thought a hat making class last saturday. We had a great time and everyone had a wonderful hat at the end. I forgot to take pictures till the end. After a year of blogging you would think I would be used to taking pictures of everything I do. However I do have some pictures from the class I taught last winter. They were given to my by Jan who is in the class. I lost most of my pictures in a computer crash. The hard drive is off hopefully getting my pictures recovered.

Trolley for class materials.

This is my trolley that I use for class. My bins of wool for embellishment and my tub that has the little buckets, pool noodles, bubble wrap, resist material and other odds and sods.

Jan starting to layout of the wool.

Here is Jan starting to cover her resist with wool and the 2 halves of her hat finished and ready to put together.

Laying out the wool for a pill box hat

Here is another student who decided to do a pill box hat in cow print.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a red and white hat with a few embellishments to help it not look so Christmasy.

Red and white hat ready to wet.

Getting the wool wet using a ball browser. It is a bonsai watering tool that felters are using now. It sprinkles the water just where you need it.

 

 

 

Sorry no pictures of the felting everyone was to busy to take pictures. They did some rubbing and then some rolling then some kneading and throwing.

This is Jan’s hat ready to do some shaping.

 

 

 

 

 

The 2 pieces of the cow hat are ready to sew together once they are dry. The sides are a bit floppy with being wet.

Jan modeling her hat form 2 sides. She did more shaping and ended up twisting the tale and inserting inside the brim.

Jan’s hat finished

and now the red and white hat

Red and White hat finished

And last but not least is the picture of my student from last Saturday  wearing their hats

Hat Class Oct. 2012

Everyone had a good time and ended up with a hat that fit them in a style they wanted. Whenever I here someone saying their head is small or large of too round or flat or whatever I always say well come to a class and make a hat tat fits you. The best hat block you have is your own head. So give it a try on your own or in a class make the hat of your dreams.