Gotland part 1

Last Friday I intended to make my end of year 1 intermediate course final project , a handbag . But my fibre had not arrived so my thoughts turned to some beautiful Gotland fibre I got at Woolfest. It was bought  from Eden Gotland sheep. It was earmarked for a bag , but more of a shopper type bag , robust and hard wearing, than a handbag. So I decided to make this instead and use it as another bag handles practice exercise.

I like Gotland sheep and fibre, the sheep are nice looking and the fibre is long a lustrous and comes in shades of grey with a lovely sheepy smell. As it felts you get a beautiful mottled effect.
My bag is quite big , the resist is 70 cm by 60 cm , and the extra prefelt for the handles was cut horizontally from the top of the resist
Here you can see it being pined in place , also visible are the lighter fibres on the outside of the bag.

I laid a felted core I had made in the middle of the handle .

Then roughly sewed it together. It quite amazing how this rough sewing becomes completly invisible when felted. Hardly any scar.!

The bag is now drying waiting for its final stitching.

More next time , after a short break for a wedding !

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Wild at Woolfest?

One year on , I returned to woolfest. No longer a newbie.

I was far less wild the the previous year, not wild at all in fact. I did not buy a fleece , as I still have loads left of last years, and I did not have to make numerous trips through the rain to store my purchases. Even more bizarrely I did not even buy any knitting wool, just some needles. What has happened to me?

I did buy some Gotland fibre , as I tried a sample last year and liked it so I need more for the dark dismal tree picture I have in my head. I hope there is enough.

I bought some yarns and fibres to dye.

After a great demonstartion by classic carders of a way of making fibres mixes I was treated for my birthday to a finishing brush for my machine.

 

It's resting on a small wooden felting block I want to try out.

Not much colour at all in these purchases. But I did splash out and got some dyed silks ---maybe for a water related item.

I really enjoyed the whole atmosphere and many many stalls.

Here is the Artybird stand with my Shyrdak on display , alongside some other wonderful items.

Here is Kate enthusiastically demonstrating in front of Paula's wedding rug.

So not a wild day just a wooly day!

 

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Miniatures

My current task is to make some minature felts. They can be anything , flat or three dimensional. There are so many options to choose between I have found it really difficult to focus and decide what to make.

I have had a go at some miniature pictures that could be used for cards. First I thought of the biggest picture I could imagine related to my theme. Satelitte images of rivers. They are actually really wonderful colours.

This is part of the Ganges.

 

Converting these images to miniature felts is quite a challenge as the examples below show. I think without the images above no one would know what they are supposed to be. Even with them it's stretching the imagination. But does that matter? I am not sure.

Back to earth I am experimenting with a technique learnt at Feltfull , making jewelry. Here are a some bracelets.

Then I have gone a bit more three dimensional. I experimented with making a small felted sculptures, but I need to explore the technique a lot more before I am happy with it, so I am making bowls. Here again I am experimenting a bit trying out layering colours and cutting holes to give different effects. I have also tried to make two bowls the same - which has worked out reasonably.

I hope by the end of this weekend I will have 12 miniature felts , made up of jewelry and bowls and then I will have finished my miniature assignment . This is my target anyway and then I can go wild with some new ideas at Woolfest next weekend.

 

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Rug Design

I have to make a rug , a small rug . After some thought I decided I would use an abandoned collage as the inspiration, I wanted something new , but also something traditional .

I took the design and photoshopped it !. First I made a mirror image then I altered its colours. The colours had to be something that would stand out of the whitish mule background. This is so great to do in photoshop!. Then I spaced it out and gave it a simple border.

Oh yes and I removed one element of the collage with the magic rubber , it's still just visible.

Then my skills at photoshop , or maybe my patience ran out . I wanted a kind of traditional edge , which I decided that I could more easily draw by hand than puzzle over drawing in photoshop.

So here is the hybrid, scrappy looking design.

and here are all the lovely fibres waiting for me, sitting on my scaled up design.

The white fibre is my very special hand scoured and carded mule from woolfest last year. The colours , amethyst, hot pink , conifer and elderberry are merinos from World of Wool. Some already made into prefelts . Ready to felt but......

My instructions say wait for a sunny warm day to make the rug . Here we are in the coldest March in 50 years in the Netherlands so now I will just have to a wait until the weather warms up.

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A fibre mountain

How has it happened.

How have I come back from holiday with a fibre mountain. I struggle to find room for the fibre I have already and now I have an extra three large bins bags of washed fleece.

Well one is my own purchase at Woolfest, my Mule. I am very proud of it all.

Then I have two bags courtesy of a friend of my eldest daughter. At least they arrived cleaned , so I did not have to run the gauntlet of hygienic dangers in the kitchen . But what are they - now, no- one can remember.

Here they all are, taking the place of the rehomed futon.

My Mule is at the right , quite a lot smaller than the two others and it was enough work.

The fibres feel good to my inexperienced hands and they are British , so that narrows it down a bit. I think I should just get on and felt them and don't worry about their pedigree. I just need to do one felted sample from each . But before that I need to do some carding - well quite a lot of carding if I am to make anything bigger than a sample . So samples will have to do for now.

But in fact I need to get back to my final course work , so this lovely mountain of fibre will just have to wait for a few weeks.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Second we had

 

Ant ideas

 

it's a rl pity if hey have to be anoynmous

 

 

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My North England Mule

When I went to Woolfest at the end of June , I bought a fleece. I had decided I would buy one before I got there . I was quite determined to buy one. My sister thought I had now gone completley mad.

The idea came from Kate of Arty Bird, take some raw fleece said the assignment. What , where am I supposed to get that from, so she sent me some and ever since then I thought well maybe I should make soem of my own.

So here I am at Woolfest determined to buy, truthfully I was bit overwhelmed by the choice. How to choose? In the end I bought a smallish fleece from a north england mule. A cross between a blue face Leicester ram and a swale dale ewe. Bred I believe to mix the hardiness of the upland mother , with the more prolific genes of its lowland father. My decision process was simple. I recognized the originating sheep , I like blue faced Leicester fibre, the fleece wasn't too expensive at GBP 7:00, and it looked fleece shape as far as I could tell.

 

It came from a sheep who lives at High Stanger near Cockermouth.

Here is a picture of a mule , taken at at Hawkshead show. It is a far nicer looking sheep , in my opinion than a straight Blue faced Leicester. For those of you who are interested.

It's taken me a while to start to clean it, in fact it's taken me until I returned to the North of England as there was no way I could take it on a plane in its raw state.

Here I am lying it out and trying to decided what to do with it

Having thrown away the really horrible bits , I washed it big by bit. It had to be bit by bit as a did not have a big enough pan for more than a small amount at a time. I think it taken me 6 pan loads! and has resulted in me filling the house with a sheepy smell, and in me getting lots of lectures on hygiene in the kitchen.

Drying, I would like to say in the sunshine, but as its pouring with rain I can't so it's in the house.

 

And here is a small amount after hand carding.

I am really pleased to have managed to produce something out of my crazy buy at woolfest. I love the way its turned from greyish to lovely creamy white and I am interested to see how much of the orginal 2.3 kg is now usefull fibre .

 

I am now thinking about what I am going to do with it. I will dye some and felt some . Pretty predictable really,

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Trying to make a Bowl

Well what I have really been trying to do is felt a bowl , but I have been having a few problems.

I thought a bowl depicting a misty Dutch polder winter scene , would ideally match the colours of my Gotland fibre bought from Woolfest. I made some dark prefelt , cut out some trees and a couple of birds.

Here they are ready for felting in. The last time they were ever seen.

I have used a resist many times but this was going to be my first experience of using a ball and bouncing to felt the fibres. I was a little minimalistic with the amount of fibre I used. Far to minimalistic.

After the felting started I realize that I had been just too mean with my precious fibres and not only had I felted a holey bowl , but my trees and birds had completely vanished. The weight dry was only 37 g just not enough fibre.

What a disaster.

Thinking about it I decided , more fibre and only use the darkest for the trees and the lightest of the sky , plus lots of white silk fibres behind the trees and forget the birds!

The final result.

Better

but

the trees are still virtually invisible and although there are no holes there are some very thin patches. Now I have manged to used 65g of fibre. Still not enough I reckon I need between 80-100g . I am really not sure why I have lost the trees in the mist. Perhaps it's the bouncing.

Unfortunately I now have not got enough fibre to try again. Mayb it's time to ask Artybird for some advice.

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Wonderful Wet Woolfest

Yesterday I went to woolfest for the first time. I am sorry that it has taken me 10 years to get there as it is such a wonderful collection of all things wooly.

Held at a cattle market in Cockermouth , it was a perfect venue , even with the constantly pelting rain hammering down all day on the tin roof. Inside , one ring was used for animals and the history of British sheep breads , whilst the other held this collection of small rather more colorful sheep.

 

In the stalls it was possible to buy every variety fibre known to me at least , I came away with lleyn, Gotland , Jacobs , manx longton plus a small fleece of blue faced Leicester crossed with swale dale. What fun I am going to have with all these!! There were silks and threads , pattern , beads , button , crochet hooks and needles, everything you could imagine and more besides to buy or just to look at and dream.

My sister learnt to do broomstick crochet , and bought one extremley large knitting needle to act as the broomstick. I await with interest seeing a finished garment from this technique.

I thought the hand dyed yarns from Edencottage yarns were lovely and treated myself to a skein , called lupin, to make a shawl.


Best of all was a visit the Artybird stall. I was proud to be part of the creation of such wonderful display with my small piece of felted pinkness.

 

 

Meeting Kate and seeing her warmth an enthusiasm at first hand was great and overall I was inspired.

 

I drank tea with my two sisters in laws , who are old hands at Wollfest and professional wool event visitors with stashes to match and at the end of the day met an old knitting friend from Yorkshire and enjoyed reminiscing about the good old days of our knitting club.

All in all a good day and one I hope to repeat next year.