Fun at the Guild

At yesterdays meeting of Notts and District Guild of Handspinners, Weavers and Dyers we had a workshop by Linda Rudkin on flower pounding.
Flower pounding involves hitting flowers with a hammer ( ok not quite that simple ) and I would recommend that you look at the gallery on Lindas site to see how effective this is. Admittedly, it didn't really grab me, maybe a bit too realistic but everyone had great fun and there were even ear plugs available :-)



not my fingers, art work in progress



Sally bought in some Textiles collected on her recent trip to Ghana



and busyed herself learning how to set up a loom to weave a scarf.





looks fascinating but this is one hobby I definitely do not have enough room for!!!

one for the boys

Yesterday we went to Newark Air Museum as part of Radio Nottingham's Big Day out. The Big day out is a day when various museums open free of charge.

As usual, I took my camera and looked for inspiration :-)















more photos can bee seen here.

Meanwhile, back to trying to correct the knitting!!

really nothing TEXTILEY

to show, the last couple of weeks have been taken up with work and house work and a few trips out.

So this short post is just to keep in touch whilst I put together a few photos from to days trip out.

Also, I must apologise to all the lovely people who have left comments and not heard from me, I am a little behind with things in general but hopefully this will sort its self out shortly.

Anyway, I have managed to finish spinning the merino and pop it in the dye tray,



Started to knit but it looks like I will have to undo some of this as I have now spotted a very obvious mistake.



And I have received a lovely parcel from an elderly embroiderer who is not able to stitch any more.



I hope you all had a great weekend :-)

forgot my camera

Typically I forgot my camera on Thursday when I popped out for lunch with Julie of Mixed Media and Susan Lenz of Art in Stitches so please visit Julies blog here for an account of how they they enjoyed there visit to Nottingham.
It was so good to escape the office routine and be immersed in textile talk and we hope to meet up again sometime.

destash failure and other boring bits.

Ok, you remember the BIG destash effort of a few weeks ago? I managed to throw out quite a bit and donate fabric etc and was feeling quite good about it until last Wednesday when I took a bag of magazines in for the stitched up group and promptly filled the bag with two big books :)

Still, I will enjoy looking at them hehe


I've spun and knitted two samples ready for the next spin session and the white merino is almost finished.



which do you think works for lace
this 2 ply



or this 3 ply



both spindle spun. I thought I would try and keep the colours separate but definitely think the 2 ply looks better .

On the home front, we now have two new very basic printers , one each to save any argument and make it easier on the ink supply, as we have excess cartridges for both of the old printers. So if anyone is still running and Epson 760 I have some spare ink if you want it.

Also we have now had to remove the door handle from the front room after the handle/catch mechanism jammed trapping Ian and Biker Ted on the wrong side.... I was on the kitchen side with the tea and the kettle :-)

Ideas of Inspiration, Spring Green

well, I seemed to go off on a tangent with this one,, Spring green......green springs :-)

this is what I ended up with

I now have purple fingernails

random wool tops purchased from e-bay, dyed ready to play with