Wonderwool Wales

I have just come back off a week long holiday in Wales, finishing off with Wonderwool Wales, a fibre fest for those crazy about wool and fibre related crafts - I was in seventh heaven. I went on the Saturday and it was absolutely amazing, in fact I really wanted to spend another day there. At wonderwool I bought some Finn fleece to make a felted wall hanging. Finn fleece is amazing to felt as it felts very easily, and produces an amazing piece of fabric. To make it you take four layers of the fleece and soak it in hot water. You then rub your hands with olive soap and work the fleece until starting to felt. Then you fold in the edges and felt them into the fabric to create an even edge. Once that's done you place a thin piece of bubble wrap about two inches from the top and fold the fabric over the bubble wrap to create a gap to hang the picture from. When the original piece is made you can then turn it over and felt in strips of linen fibre and other pieces of fleece to create a design on the front and felt it all in with the bubble wrap and voila, you have yourself a finished wall hanging. A picture of my wall hanging is below.

I also made a cord to hang the wall hanging, using a different naturally coloured humbug fleece.  The fleece was spun into yarn, and then I made a twisted cord (braid) to hang it.

Making the braid

The finished braid

Hanging now from the braid

Now thats one of my four projects for the silver arts award done. Next is the crocheted handbag which I have just finished sewing up. For that I have used multicoloured 2ply merino  and jacob humbug to make. A picture of me sewing it up is below.  The crochet stitch is simple single stitches, as I wanted a close knit fabric, so that the handbag is strong.  The handle was crocheted separately and here I am below, sewing it all together.

The two remaining projects now are the knitted cravet with dorset buttons to accessorise and the hand woven and hand dyed cushion cover.

Me spinning the white blue face leicester for the hand woven cushion.

The finished skein of blue face leicester yarn.  It needs to be washed to set the twist in the yarn, so here it is drying outside.

Me completing one of the dorset buttons.  One done, 3 left to finish.  In another post I will let you know how I make these.  Simple enough but fairly time consuming, especially with single ply thin yarn!!!!

Thats all for now.  I will give you some more updates when I have completed some more of the work.  Now that the yarn is ready for weaving, I am going to warp up the loom.  You may have noticed that the scarf is now called a cravat, as I realised that there is not enough of the silk and merino yarn to make a long scarf.  However, it will still be a fashion scarf with the dorset buttons as accompaniment.
Meghan

Basketry Exhibition

I wanted to tell you all about a basketry exhibition I went to recently at the Sainsbury's Centre at the University of East Anglia. It was spread over two floors with a mixture of old and new pieces made by various artists. The gallery on the ground floor was entered via a steel basket wavy "wall".  This was part of a larger piece and was very impressive.  Another imposing piece, was a large work spilling over the wall separating the exhibition from the cafe area.  This felt almost threatening as it seemed to be growing as a large lump of basketry on the wall.

However downstairs was the best thing of all. There was a small cabinet holding five of Peter Collingwood's pieces of weaving.  Peter was an incredible weaver who was highly thought of in the weaving world, and died a couple of years ago, so it is sad that I shall never be able to meet him.  It was amazing to see some of his actual work in person.

To be honest I found the rest of the exhibition very average. The downstairs was definitely the best, with a wicker boat and international pieces.

It was good to visit the one time but it certainly isn't worth going a second time.
Unfortunately I wasn't allowed to take any photos in the exhibition so I can't show you.
Thats all for now
Meghan

The Hub

I wanted to tell you all about an art and craft exhibition centre I visited recently. It is called The Hub and is located in Sleaford in Lincolnshire. If you are close enough you must visit it. The exhibitions change but at the moment they have a big selection of Vivenne Westwood shoes to celebrate her 70th birthday. It includes collections like the animal toe shoes/boots, pirate boots and prostitute shoes!

One particular favourite of mine are the bag boots which are big pieces of fabric taken round the sole of the boot and brought in at the top of the boot which creates a baggy middle that look like literally a bag with a sole attached.

The pair that remind me of a bag - notice the animal toes!

The exhibition also includes a bright green pair of electric blue high heeled shoes that are the same as the pair that toppled Naomi Campbell on the catwalk.

The pair the same of those that toppled Naomi Campbell

 Another pair I partiularly like, and would love to own, is a pair of boots that are part of the pirate boot collection. They are an average height made of a sort of canvas fabric with a gorgeous pattern on. They are sewn about a centimentre from the edge so the edge is left to fray. It is all held together with real leather buckled straps, amazing.

My absolute favourites 

The only pair of shoes that I didn't like were the snake shoes.

 I believe these shoes were intended for men and are made leather to look like snake skin which to be honest I find a bit disgusting.

Apart from a couple of pairs of shoes the overall exhibition was brilliantly staged and set out. There was also an amazing short film on replay in one corner performed by a theatre group. All of the actresses in the film were wearing a pair of Vivenne Westwood which you zoomed in on every so often. However, it was difficult to understand what it was all about - very arty!!!  The whole exhibiton was fantastic and well worth a visit if you are near by.

 In the hub there are two galleries, the main one where the shoes were held and the roof gallery which is smaller than the main gallery. At the time the roof gallery was exhibiting masculine fashion photographs. The whole room was filled with photographs of celebrities in different styles of clothing. This included various periods of clothing like the 80's  90's and so on. It was a good exhibition but could have been improved by having actual clothes on show as apposed to just photographs. Obviously I was unable to take photographs of photographs, so don't have anything to show you for this.

Finally, there were cut flowers from paper hanging from the staircase.  The paper was laser cut and then the artist put them together in a garden!

This is an example of the laser cut paper "garden"

This was shown very creatively, and was something I had not seen before, so was really interesting and inventive.
Meghan

Worstead Spinning

In my last post I talked about how I am going to worstead spin my fleece for the four projects mentioned above. I just wanted to clarify to anyone who doesn't already know what worstead spinning is. You can spin in two different ways; worstead spinning and woolen spinning. Woolen spinning means to let the twist go into the fleece a bit before teasing the fleece out. This method doesn't produce quite as stronger yarn as the worstead method but it is ideal for most projects and especially for a knitted project that requires warmth.  As the fibres are "haphazard" when they are spun, more air is included which therefore increases the warmth of the finished yarn.

I prefer to use the worstead method especially when I am using it to weave with, as it makes a stronger yarn which will be ideal for warping a loom as the yarn needs to withstand a lot of tension.  With worstead spinning, the fibres are teased out before any twist is allowed to move into the fibres.  This way, the fibres are all "in line", so that the twisted yarn is strong.
Speak soon
Meghan

Silver Arts Award

I have recently become involved in doing the arts award for young people. It is a very broad term of the word art and you can choose a particular field to achieve your arts award in. I am choosing textile design. I met with Nick Neal today at Kings Lynn Arts Centre who suggested to go straight in at the silver award as it isn't much more to do than the bronze.  I have to say that this morning was a very positive experience and enjoyable, and I am thoroughly excited about getting going.

The Challenge


Within part 1 of the silver arts award  you must set yourself a challenge, which I have decided should be to use fleece in various ways to produce four finished pieces of fibre arts. I will felt  the fleece to make a wall hanging; spin the fleece into yarn, which I will then weave into a cushion, knit into a fashion scarf and crochet into a 3d bowl.  I also intend to use the resultant yarn, to make a braid to hang the wall hanging, and make dorset buttons to embellish the scarf and make earrings to match.  Finally I would like to make a woven flower, to sew onto the cushion.  I will spin different fleece and for the woven piece, will be white blue faced leicester fleece which is worstead spun for strength, then dyed once it is woven to make an individual piece.

My Action Plan

I have come up with an action plan of when it is all going to be completed and it the whole thing will be completed by the end of April to be moderated in May. My action plan is displayed below.

February- Spin and ply the red merino and silk blend (this will be used for knitting).  Make 1 large dorset button with the red merino and silk blend.  Start spinning white blue faced leicester fleece (get as much done as possible).

March- Finish spinning white fleece and spin "tutti fruiti" merino blend fleece. Make another large and 2 small dorset buttons from the red merino and silk blend. Use the small dorset buttons to make earrings. Crochet a bowl out of tutti frutti merino blend. Knit a thin fashion scarf out of red merino and silk blend. Sew on the 2 large dorset buttons to either end of the scarf.

April- Put the white warp on the loom. Weave a cushion, "Spot" dye the fabric. Make up the cushion and finish off. Make a felted wall hanging ( this will be done after wonderwool wales in April as there is some Finnish fleece I wish to purchase at the event). Make a braid to hang the felted wall hanging.

I then have 4 finished products:
A crocheted bowl out of tutti frutti merino blend handspun yarn
A woven cushion out of whiteblue faced leicester fleece that is then dyed
A felted Finnish fleece wall hanging with handmade braid
A knitted scarf with large dorset buttons on either end to match with dorset button earrings in the same yarn

Arts Events


I am attending a basketry exhibition at Sainsburys Centre of Visual Arts in Norwich next week. I shall do a review of the event after I have been. Watch this space!!!

Meghan

Introduction

Hello everyone.
My name is Meghan. I have several hobbies which include weaving/inkle weaving, spinning, dyeing and felting/needle felting. I also enjoy making dorset buttons and wire jewellery. I have a sewing machine which I enjoy playing with from time to time and I am thinking of looking more into making clothes. I love designing anything I can think of in note books and have designed a couple of items of clothing to make on a sewing machine. This blog will be all about the hobbies mentioned above and any ideas I have along the way I shall let you know of.
Nice talking to you
Meghan