Holiday Homework part two

merino wool, silk, angelina carded together



then spun and plyed with machine embroidery thread



very small skein but I'm pleased with my first attempt at art yarn spun on a wheel.

( yarn is actually darker than this photo)

Holiday Homework

just in case you are wondering how I'm managing to post so much this week, I'm on holiday!!! yes I had 18 weeks off, 9 days back at work and now I have a week off. (fortunate for me given how mentally stressful I found work last week)

anyway, here's how my homework is coming on



Jacobs fleece, I bought it washed and sorted



preparing it to spin



not very even but trying hard

I want to know how to spin an even yarn then I really want to play with art yarn and see what I can spin into it!!

Doodle Day Doodle - Dragon

Doodle Day Blog

Yarn fun

As you know, I have been playing with a drop spindle recently and I treated myself to this book with some of my Christmas money.



Most of the yarns in here are spun on a wheel and are illustrated with very clear diagrams. SO my next challenge is to master this....



On Saturday, my local spinner, dyers, weavers guild lent me this wheel to practice on.

PS I'm on holiday this week so I have time to play again!!!!

Apology

Firstly I must apologise for not getting back to everyone who has commented on my last couple of posts, I will be trying my best this week to catch up.
Unfortunately my first full week at work doing a full job proved to be difficult than I thought, mentally more than physically so the computer and blogging took a back shelf. However things were helped by a session at stitched up on Wednesday night (thanks ladies)

On Friday, Claire from Pinky and Boo came to my rescue by texting me an offer to teach using the embellisher machine in her class at the textile workshop on Friday night. Needless to say I jumped at the offer and would even have arrived on time if I hadn't got caught up in a cycle demo in town!!
Ths class was great fun with one student finishing her wet felted bag with a large needle felted flower and another who added silk fibres to an existing wet felt piece to make what I think will be a small hanging rather than a purse. Everyone had a go and had some fun and we didn't break a single needle!!!


The postman bought this ATC all the way from Australia, he's so cute!!! Thanks Laura.
I hope my ATC makes the long journey safely.

working hard

...unfortunately that is working hard at work!! not much time for anything else ayt the moment. I hope to make up some little stitch kits for myself to take to work. The idea being that I can work on them during my lunch hour, maybe sitting in the sun somewhere. The biggest problem is that our staff room doesn't have windows and if I go for a walk I end up spending money on silly stuff.

My little birds still keep turning up in my doodles, must find a proper place for them :-)


Next weekend is looking really busy already with a meeting of the spinners, dyers, weavers guild on Saturday and a motorcycle show on Sunday.

Have a good week ( and weekend) everyone.

Out of the tumble drier.........

another bowl making session....



the silk bowl is far too thin, may cut it up instead,



the red one works well,



the three grey natural ones look fantastic when placed inside each other.



I may work out how to weight them down and stitch together to make a 3D structure rather than a bowl

I now know that I have to add a lot more fibre to get a good rigidity but great fun to experiment.

Still here....just

I think I survived my first week back at work, good job it was only 4 days! So out of touch with everything coupled with a new building and new staff. Consequently I have been simply collapsing in a heap each night instead of being at all creative. Except for Wednesday night when I managed to play catch up with a bit of bobbin lace and gossip at Stitched Up in Sherwood, Nottingham.

So today, whilst Ian is out doing biker type things with Biker Ted, I spent a little time playing. Firstly, I completed the lace so it now just needs tying off and mounting (just???)



I've made six quick doodle key fobs ( awaiting the metal bits)



and I've made my first felted bowl using wool tops, a balloon and a pair of tights. This is just a tryout to see how the method works so the holes are allowed. Next attempt will probably be with natural coloured fleece and maybe stitch to finish...watch this space.



I hear the sound of ice clinking in glass ( in my imagination) and my bottle of Schnapps calling so have a great weekend everyone.

Papplewick Pumping Station

Yesterday, with the weather being reasonable ie not raining all the time, we took the opportunity to visit Papplewick Pumping Station for their steam day ( and became paid up members at the same time)
Papplewick Pumping Station is a Victorian water pump powered by two James Watt beam engines that was used until recent times to pump the water for areas of Nottingham.
There were also a few miniature traction engines, a small fairground organ and a good turn out from what looked to be the local Austin club.I have put together a short film here which hopefully will give some idea of the scale of the engines.



Also, being of artistic mind ( yeah, well maybe) I took a lot of photos for ideas and inspiration.
here are a few of them and more can be seen here.

Red Marley Hill Climb

I've noticed an increase in the number of visitors looking for details of this event so the link is here Red Marley Hill Climb and last years post on the event is here

Doodle Postcard and ATC

I promised Laura an ATC swap last month and must confess that I have only just got round to it after being in such a mess with the workmen etc .

So Laura, please pick your card :-)



If anyone else would like to trade, I'm open to offers.








You never know what I may doodle next!!

out of retirement

my Janome has had to go to the machine doctors as the belt is slipping and a good service is also required so I have had to drag this one out of retirement. This was my first electric sewing machine purchased with a small salary bonus in the early eighties. Until then I had been using a hand operated singer that had belonged to my grandmother.
This machine saw me through shortening and patching jeans to learning free machine embroidery for C&G finally being replaced around 8 years ago. I had thought that it no longer worked and that was why I abandoned it ( I'm sure it didn't work) but with a few minor adjustments it's buzzing away.

nearly forgot.......

THE LIVING THREADS GROUP

PRESENT THEIR FOURTEENTH EXHIBITION

'' LOCAL HERITAGE''

INSPIRATIONS IN FABRIC AND THREAD

THE MAY HALL

TRENT COLLEGE LONG EATON

10th April - 18th April 2009

10.0am - 5.30pm

Texture knitting spinning experiment

very small sample, lightly carded blue face leicester plyed with jacobs, spun on spindle then knitted.

Doodle Day Doodle - Tree House

having a tidy up...... Warning, long Post

I had a good day out with my sister on Friday, all good intentions of buying new shoes for work disappeared as I found a pair of jeans instead. Lunch was at our favourite Chinese buffet restaurant where we gossipped and put the world to rights.

Life is a bit strange at the moment as we are both at home all day and It's taking a bit of getting used to! still, I return to work next week ( which should be interesting) as the physio is happy with my progress to date although I seem to have developed trigger finger! amongst other annoying side effects ( yes, me too, how did I get trigger finger??)

Ok, what have I been doing since? Well I've had my lace head on for the last few days, for me its a little like retreating to knit, you know the stitches and it's a repetitive process, soothing. I also found time to visit the local Embroiderers guild and catch up with the gossip.







I've also had to sort this out


To resemble this so I can get to shorten both mine and Ian's jeans


I received this in the post and was gifted some Jacobs fleece to play with as well.


Yesterday I met Julie in town and we had a day out, checking out the castle, the Lace Market ( Buildings not stalls) and one of our many pubs. Julie has blogged more photos, see here
We had a great time and hope to get together again soon.



Nearly forgot....concrete lace on the panels of the Contemporary Art Centre being built in Nottingham

practise,practise,practise

I've not been feeling overly creative for the last couple of days so I've been doing a little more of this....




slow progress, will probably just be a sample in the end.


Tomorrow is time to shop for work shoes ( due back 14 April) and meet my sister for a gossip. Have a good weekend.