My guild exhibition opened on Wednesday. we had a vernissage Thursday evening.
I can now show you the hat I have been working on for ages. First I had to make a prototype, modeled her by my son. It was how to make, attach and manage the horns that I needed to work out.
Very Monty Python to me.
The finished hat looks like this
I will do a post about making it in the near future.
I also have some pictures in the exhibition.
I think they look great hanging. You can get an idea of how big the Cityscape is in the hat picture, it is in the back ground .
Here are some of the other things in the exhibition.
Collapsible weave scarf and a lace shawl hand spun and knit.
Hand woven shawl and close up of the pattern.
Hand dyed, hand spun and hand knit. hand spun and hand knit art yarns.
Pillows from handwoven fabric. Hand woven metal wall hanging.
We, Marilyn (Pandagirl) and I (Luvswool), had never attended a “fiber fair,” so there were expectations and then the reality of the Fair. We had planned for many months to attend the annual Fair and met there early Friday morning with great anticipation. The advance program showed photos of sheep, fiber, workshops, art exhibits, bags of fleece, etc., and the Fair delivered all of that except for the sheep. One of the organizers explained to me that August is too hot for sheep, and I guess that makes sense. So, the only live animals were a lonely llama and a couple of angora rabbits. Still, it was an enjoyable experience.
The Fair has been held for 8 years in Grayslake, IL, a far northwestern town in the extended Chicago metro area, and it’s a Fair that celebrates the work of many hands. We saw spinners, felters, and knitters demonstrating their crafts, and there were many workshops offered during the 3-day fair. There were a couple of folk singers and a few food vendors outdoors, but everything else was contained in an air-conditioned building. The majority of the indoor vendors were geared towards knitters, with many beautiful displays of hand-dyed, hand-spun yarns and goods. Neither Marilyn nor I are knitters, so we headed first for a walk around to scope out the lot.
First stop was the Art Exhibit, which displayed fine fiber art–among them, my own display of five fiber wall-hangings. There were other fiber wall hangings, sculptures and “vintage” handbags (crafted from vintage patterns but otherwise entirely new).
Cathy Wycliff’s Exhibit
(Cathy had a very prominent display! It was the first thing to see on our way in. Very exciting! — Marilyn)
Next up were the vendors, which included some crazy rag rugs, lots of beautiful yarn and bags of alpaca fleece. There were also felted hats and you’ll notice I didn’t snap pics of the roving, since I was busy buying it. Marilyn and I purchased some fibers we have not previously felted with–including Navajo churro, 100% Organic Polwarth, white Falkland and I bought some black Blue Faced Leicester with silk. Since there was so much yarn, I did pick up some white wool boucle for embellishment, as well as silk hankies, which I have never used.
As we neared the end, we were able to view the judging of alpaca and llama fleece. Two judges followed a quality control checklist and had to concur on all points.
Then it was goodbye to Princess Athena, the lonely llama, and our day at the Fair came to an end. We would love to attend another fair, but next time would like to see sheep–sheep-shearing, sheep-judging, sheep fleeces, border collies herding sheep, etc. Maybe there’s a trip to New Zealand in our future!
This is the last Demo until spring. the carp Fair was celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. It was a beautiful weekend cool in the morning and hot by mid afternoon. There were more people their than ever before. We demoed an extra hour. It was alot of fun chatting with everyone that came by
Here is my display, I was making sheep again.
Here is hand spinning on her tiny wheel. I think it’s called a road bug. It’s designed so you can spin sitting in the passenger seat in a van.
This is Julie, She was working on an inkle loom and a 4 harness table loom and
This is Bernadette, she is showing me how to use combs. They are English combs I think.
And last but not least is Linda who is making a tail spun yarn.
We where not the only ones sharing our passions.
There was more to this display but I couldn’t get a good shot with the sun in my lens. All in all I think everyone had a great time.
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.
The museum is also working on getting an old Jacquard loom working. This is the one that will stay as just a static display.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This Last weekend was our local medieval fair. I share a booth with a friend. It was the hottest weekend of the year.
That’s my friend Linda in the booth.
I looked like this
Dressed up for the fair
It’s the picture from last year but I had the same outfit again. I did give up the head gear in the heat. I demonstrated on my drop spindle all weekend. I sold quite a few spindle kits and needle felted gnome kits. Maybe there will be some new addicts for both.
Here are some more pictures from the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Conference.
It was a really nice venue with tons of good food and really nice rooms this is the courtyard where there where two magnolia trees in full bloom and a nice waterfall feature.
There were lots of things to buy in the vendor mall
There were some interesting classes.
This one was called Viking Knitting and I would have liked to take the class.
Unfortunately only 2 of my pictures of the displays turned out
the first is a cowl by Mireille Gagnon Moes who got honorable mention.
the other one that turned out was this large felt leaf by Diane Gonthier.http://www.savoir-faire-textile.com/eng/ It was displayed laid out on the floor. I think about 5 feet long.
There was also a banquet with a fashion show and no of that turned out. it was dark and no one would stand still for a second to take the pictures. I was a failure as a photographer but I hope you like the pictures that did work.
Slowly the bird houses are coming along. They are now decorated, wet down.
They have been rubbed and rolled and stuffed into the tops of pantyhose. They are ready to full. With some luck that will be tomorrows job.
Two days this week I was at the Ottawa Valley Farm Show. I was demonstrating spinning with a few friends. I took some mixed batts I made buy collecting my odd bits together and running them through the carder. They have lots of colour and neps.
On day one I spun up 2 very bulky singles and one medium weight single in pinks.
Today I plied the 2 bulkies together. My wheel is not designed for such bulky yarn but with perseverance and a few choice words under my breath I got it plied.
After that I was tired of pink so I switched to my drop spindle and the blue green batt.
I am afraid I don’t have anymore pictures that turned out. We were right in front of a big picture window that was a very nice spot but not good for taking pictures as you can see from the picture of me spinning.
I think I’ve done really well with working and playing with fiber this week. I hope I can keep it up.
Around this time last year I was still doing the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge. I struggled with it, and didn’t always enjoy it, but I did like what I produced when I used some felt offcuts from a piece I’d made with natural wools for placemats and coasters. I used my own handspun thread to sew the stitches. This is one I made using chain stitch, and this is one using cretan stitch. I hadn’t used my threads in a while, but recently I’ve been inspired by my flickr-friend, Marchi Wierson, a sculptural fibre artist who uses a variety of techniques in her work, such as wet felting and crochet, and loves working with natural wools and fibres. Her recent vessel commission and some gorgeous natural fibre yarns had me rummaging through my wools and fibres and getting my spindles out to spin more thread and yarn. I decided to use three shades of Shetland Wool.
I pulled off some of the tops from each shade.
Then I looked through my embellishment fibres for some I thought would make a nice match. I chose Soybean top, viscose top and flax.
I added some of each fibre to the Shetland tops.
Then I blended them by hand.
I got a couple of my spindles out, this is one I made and painted a few years ago.
I made a small amount of thread, though even a small amount of wool and fibres goes a long way when spinning thread. This is it wound around the spindle.
Then I blended up some more Shetland and fibres and spun a thicker yarn. I will probably use the yarn in a wet felting project, though I have used them for needlefelting before.
Do have a look at Marchi’s photostream if you have time, her work is amazing and inspiring 🙂
You might have noticed a few changes to the site recently. We’ve been updating it and adding more photos to the galleries. We’ve also added a new page for Fabrics, and Ann’s ever popular Cat Cave ‘how to’ is now listed on the Wet Felting Tutorials page.
A few years ago, I wanted to make a felted vessel for my girlfriend, I had an image in my mind of how I wanted it to be, and I wanted it to be ‘perfect’, so it took a few attempts, but I was finally happy.
I used two of the practice vessels to make some ‘woolly vessels’ by needle felting locks onto them. One of them was this white vessel. I needlefelted locks of Angora, Alpaca, Wensleydale, Bluefaced Leicester and Kid Mohair onto it, then put it through the washer to make sure the locks were secure, and because a lot of them were unwashed locks.
Another one I made was this bluey green one, it reminds me of something from under the sea or around the coast. This has hand dyed locks of Angora, Alpaca, Wensleydale, Devon, Bluefaced Leicester and Kid Mohair. And I used texturey wools like dyed Icelandic and scoured lambswool to secure the locks.
Around the same time, I had the idea for making a really colourful texturey vessel, by needlefelting pieces of handmade yarn and wool twists onto one of my spare practice vessels. I had quite a large stash of handmade yarn and often made wool twists for projects so thought it probably wouldn’t take much longer than the other two had. I was wrong! 🙂 It took a lot longer… about 3 years off and on. I probably could have finished it sooner, and I did have phases where I would make up twists and add them, or sit spinning yarn for a few hours then cut it into pieces when it was dry and spend a few hours needling pieces onto the vessel but it never seemed to get any closer to being done! This last weekend, not feeling well enough to tackle my half finished business plan, I decided to try my hardest to finish the vessel. I got out all my left over yarn, stashes of wool blends and a drop spindle and set to work making a big pile of wool twists and a long length of plied yarn to cut up. I also got out my box of very thin felt offcuts and wet, rubbed and rolled some of those to add too. I didn’t want to wet the yarn and wait while it hung and dried, so after snipping it into lengths I wet and rubbed one end to ‘seal’ it and stop it unravelling. After needling all the pieces into the bare parts of the vessel, I finished off around the top, tidying it up and securing the loose fibres. And this is the result:
And then I put it into an old pillow case and put it in the washing machine with a normal load 🙂 It looked like this:
I unsquashed it and gave it a few shakes and spins, ran my fingers loosely through the twists and yarns (there’s a few strips of silk and organza in there too) then sat it on a tub to dry overnight. And this is what it looks like this morning:
I know it’s taken me a few years to finish it, but I kind of feel like making another one now! 🙂
