Category Archives: shawl

A Productive Week

23 Replies

Not sure what happened to me this week but it’s like someone put amphetamines in my coffee. Last week I could barely motivate myself to cook for myself and only managed to produce one piece of felt. This week I have turned into a felting whirling dervish… Here are a few of the things I have started / finished so far this week:

I dyed the lacy scarf I made on Sunday but after looking at it for a couple of days decided I wasn’t that happy with it so put it back in the dye bath.

Much better!
It now makes me think of autumnal leaves falling into a river.

Some felt cuffs using a similar technique to the scarf, there is an adult and 2 child sizes, I think you can just see where I have cut some slits in the adult one, I hope the cuts will open up to make a lacy effect with a little felting persuasion.

A little felt pod made using an adaptation of the lacy felt technique to create the loops you can see in the second picture.

A felt vase made from some shibori dyed prefelt, this is still very much a WIP but I hope the top will look like a 5-petal flower when it’s finished.

A Halloween-inspired bag, still quite a long way to go on this one but I think you can make out that it will be a pumpkin… one day!

I started this “coral” piece before I went on my hols but it takes so long to needle-felt each strip into place that I only just got as far as wet felting it this week. It is currently drying and waiting to be fixed to some stretcher bars.

These 2 pieces were started at Dagmar Binder’s class in September. The pale blue piece was an uninspiring, flat multi-layered disc that I have been looking at for weeks trying to decide what to do with it. I finally picked it up and started playing with it this week, folding it this way and that and this shape was born. An hour of stitching later and it is now drying in it’s new form. Given that I was ready to throw it on the reject / recycling pile a few days ago I’m rather pleased with how it turned out.

The dark blue piece below is a sewer’s bowl, the raised ring around the outside is a perfect pin cushion, while the bowl will prevent your reels of thread, beads etc. from rolling away. It was inspired by photos of a coral polyps:

A nuno felt scarf (would you believe, dyed the silk, felted and finished this week, including a rolled hem).

I also felted this cotton scrim and embroidered bowl, even after using CMC to stiffen it I wasn’t that happy that it would keep its shape so opted to felt it.

And finally another piece from Fiona Duthie’s surface design class. I think this might be come a book cover…

As if all this wasn’t enough I have also scoured and dyed a Shetland fleece, all the beautiful colours are busy drying over my bathtub. More on those in another post.

I think I have earned myself a glass of wine 🙂 Hope you are having lots of fun in your felting adventures too 🙂

Linking up to nina-marie, off the wall Friday

Weyfest was Brilliant!

2 Replies

I spent last weekend at Weyfest, a small and very friendly music festival about 10 miles from where I live. I have been to a few music festivals over the years but Weyfest is definitely one of the most enjoyable, there’s always a broad spectrum of ages and everyone is always in such a good mood (and I don’t think it was due to any chemical assistance).

A lot of the bands such as 10cc, Squeeze (Cool for Cats), Chas and Dave, had their hay-days several decades ago and I’m sure that influences the demographic of the crowd, there were a lot of parents and grandparents with children in tow which was lovely to see.

I was there with the West Surrey Spinners Weavers and Dyers and we all had a fantastic time, I’m afraid I was enjoying myself so much that I forgot to take photos.

These guys were a troop of rather gothic looking morris dancers, I love their costumes! They seem to be a regular fixture at the festival as I have seen them before.

 photo by Peter Day

The hats I made were a real crowd pleaser, the bright colours and unusual animal themes solicited a lot of interest and 2 of them found new homes. It was a real joy to see their new owners sporting their purchases as I wandered around the festival.

This one was the first to find a new owner, a really lovely man who felt bad about haggling £2 off the price and came back the following morning and left the money with a fellow spinner – how lovely is that?! I still find it rather amusing that he chose to wear the hat back to front but seeing him wearing it, it does look equally good either way round and as he pointed out it does have a Tibetan vibe about it.

The “Firestarter” hat also sold, lots of people loved this hat and quite a few tried it on so I wasn’t too surprised that it sold. It was bought by a young lady who said her friend had been coveting it – how nice is that? I saw him wearing it a couple of hours later, it was a real head-turner, definitely a hat to get noticed in!

And finally a nuno shawl found a new home, again, it was bought as a gift by a young lady for her mum I believe.

A weekend spent spinning and chatting in the sun, listening to live music and 3 sales, who could ask for more? 🙂