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Yurt Making with Kostya

Yurt Making with Kostya

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My friend Paula and I were fulling the third piece of the roof felt down at Camas Creek Yarn store on Friday, when two women came down to see what we were doing. It was a mother and daughter. Tris, the daughter, explained that she had adopted a baby boy from Kazakhstan and that he was now 10 years old. She was very interested in the yurt building process so I invited Tris and her son Kostya to join us in felting the last piece of the roof on Sunday.

kostya10

 

My sister Margaret was also visiting. So just as we started laying out the wool, Tris and Kostya came to help.

kostya11I showed Kostya how to wet down the wool.

kostya12And he was off and spraying.

kostya13Then we covered it up and did a little felt walking to get the air out.

kostya3We folded it since it’s so big and then we rolled it up. We’re all working at getting the ties tightened down.

kostyaHere I am tightening it down.

kostya5And then off it went on the tractor. Kostya was a big help and it was hard to tell who got dirtier knees, me or Kostya.

kostya9I also showed Tris and Kostya the yurt frame and how it would go together.

kostya7And here he is with the felt that was drying from Friday’s fulling operation. Isn’t he great! I had a great time explaining the yurt and felting process and really appreciated the help – Thanks Kostya and Tris. Hopefully, they will be able to make it to the yurt raising next week.

Yurt RaisingAnd speaking of yurt raising, we did a sneak peek Monday to make sure we knew how it will all work and to see what else we need to do.

yurt raisingWe had to figure out what height the tono needs to be to achieve the correct angle for the roof poles. It was a bit tricky getting the separate lattice sections overlapped properly but we got that done.

Yurt Raising

 

So we kept putting it up higher and higher. The poles on the ground are to get the circle the correct size. It doesn’t work well if your circle is off to start.

Yurt RaisingWe eventually got it fairly well figured out. Now we have to tie more cord to attach the roof poles to the walls. But it’s coming together. The party invitations have gone out and the yurt raising is happening next weekend. So exciting!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coppery Felt and Fimo

Coppery Felt and Fimo

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Do you remember the coppery bronzey felt piece I posted about last month? I cut that up recently and started to make a glasses case and purse out of it. I have so many cut out or part made up items at the moment, I think I’ll be working on them all year 🙂  I did actually finish the glasses case though. This is one side of it:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd this is the other side:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI used some gorgeous hand dyed cotton perle 5 from Rainbow Girl on etsy. The variegated colours work perfectly. I also managed to do quite a lot on the purse. I managed to sew it all together already.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI still need to choose the right button, which always takes forever, and sew the buttonhole.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’ve also been working on a Fimo tutorial the last few weeks. Taking photos has been harder than ever, it’s been really dark, stormy and rainy, which is nice but not great for taking phtotos inside. We did get a few really bright sunny days, so I worked on the opposite side of the house to the sun and managed to get a lot done, or so I thought. When I downloaded the photos, what looked good when I set up a shot, didn’t look good once hands were in the photo! I thought Monday would be perfect for working outside, it was bright but cloudy, but also really windy, so back indoors. I did get quite a few good photos all in all, including this one, which captures perfectly my attempt to get rid of the dent I caused when I released the camera from the tripod without holding it first!

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAAnd here’s a sneaky peek at one of the other pieces I worked on:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI’m nowhere near finishing it yet, but when I have, I’ll put it for sale on etsy, it won’t be expensive, but I want to put as much in it as possible, so if anyone has any ideas, suggestions or requests, if it’s something I know about, I’ll do my best to include it 🙂

2012 Review

2012 Review

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It’s hard to believe it’s almost a year since we posted about our plans for 2012! Looking back over what I’d hoped to achieve I didn’t expect to have done many of them, as the year panned out a lot differently than I expected. One thing I really wanted to do was learn some stitches by taking part in Take a Stitch Tuesday (TAST). I did try my hardest, but I found the instructions really hard to follow and gave up after about 13 weeks. I never got the chance to explore direct dyeing felt any further, which is probably a good thing, since I’d hoped to combine the results with stitches I learned from TAST 🙂  I did dye some fabrics for using in felting, though. And I did actually get around to trying out a Suri Alpaca sample, but I’d hoped to try a few more ‘controlled’ samples so never had enough to make a post about it.

suri alpacaOne thing I was really looking forward to spending time on in 2012 was working more with other felting fibres and fabrics, and writing some tutorials for the studio site. Early in the year I did make quite a few pieces exploring natural fibres with natural wools, which I really enjoyed. Some of the results were quite interesting, like this Suffolk wool and banana fibre piece, a photo of which ended up being used by a Lecturer at RMIT (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology) for a book.

suffolkI did write a few tutorials for the blog this year, but they weren’t about fibres. It seems like I spent a big portion of my time in 2012 on the phone to various government departments and agencies trying to get onto a scheme to become self-employed. I thought I had all the information I needed until it came to writing my business plan and realised I (along with everyone else, it seems) have no idea whether the scheme lasts 6 months or 12, which is quite a problem if you’re trying to forecast things! But hopefully that will all be sorted out in the new year.

I enjoyed taking part in the Studio Challenges this year, I haven’t done a piece for Karen’s weather challenge yet, but I do have some wool and fibres blended and around 40 photos of storm clouds to work from in the next few days 🙂 Another thing I enjoyed this year was finally learning how to make silk paper. I did intend to try a few more methods, but that was another thing I didn’t get around to, though I did buy a book about it!

silk paperA couple of my favourite things from this past year are the bird pods I made and using the electric sewing machine my mum gave me to make collage notebook and diary covers. I still haven’t mastered the speed pedal on the machine, but I can wind a new bobbin really well 🙂 The bird pods were great to do, I haven’t had much success previously making 3d felt from flat resists, but they all turned out really well. This is my favourite.

bird pod whiteI’m looking forward to 2013, all the challenges and exciting new things yet to come. I hope you’ve had nice holidays and if you’ve done your own 2012 review, post a link in comments, we’d love to read them 🙂