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

Ideas of Inspiration Letter B

B for Blanket Stitch Box.



take wool fibres left over from spinning, hand spun thread and an embellisher, result...3 inch square box seamed with buttonhole stitch. May need to find a button for the lid.

sniff, sniff

Hi, I've been full of cold this week and have had to cancel both my usual evenings out and my trip to Cornwall this weekend as camping in the pouring rain would probably make things worse. I've consoled myself with a little night time knitting instead and finished my first lace shawlette.



The pattern is 198 yards of Heaven by Christy Verity.

I now have to buy a new printer before I knit anything else...expensive hobby!!

Have a great weekend everybody :-)

NB Regretfully I have had to put comment moderation back on due to a holiday company commenting on the last few posts.

who ordered this?

I've offered to do a bobbin lace demo this afternoon, looks like the weather is trying to stop me!!!

an interesting day

ok, sort of boring title just a little short on snappy captions at this time of night! Strange start to the day as after a night of -C temperatures and a heavy frost, an ice cream van parked up outside our house. Methinks that they were being optimistic!!!

I grabbed Ians runaround bus ticket this afternoon and headed off to town to take some library books back and pop into Knitty Gritty to catch up with the gossip from Lizzi and check out the wool in the shop.

Lizzi is currently encouraging people to knit hearts to be sold as brooches with all proceeds to raise money for the people of Haiti, a simple pattern is available and the brooches are being sold on her stall. Hopefully I will make a few to add to the collection :-)

Lizzi also mentioned that Debbie Bryan had a knitting workshop on this afternoon so I headed over to take a look round her shop. Debbie has been encouraging fellow craft workers to use Lace as in inspiration for their work and her shop offers many examples for sale along side other crafts and framed lace designs ( pen and ink designs drawn for use on lace making machines rather than bobbin lace) Very appropriately, Debbie's Studio is in the Lace Market area on Nottingham

I have been plying two recently spindle spun threads,



practising my knitting again



and playing with my laminator, this is throwsters silk waste trapped in the laminated plastic... going to play with this idea a bit more.



oohh, I also found this for £2.29 in a local charity shop!



Have a great weekend :-)

Ravelympics

Please excuse me if this blog seems to be all spinney but the ravelympics are upon us and my personal challenge to see what I can spin on a drop spindle whilst the Olympics are on.
First mystery bag to spin contains a half used silk paper making kit and a bit of merino.

Progress so far



I have a number of small bags of mixed fibres many of which I bought whilst doing C&G and never got really used up so this is really a bit of a stash buster challenge for me

Nottingham Light Night

As the sun set last night, strange creatures came out to play :-)

We wandered round illuminated pyramids,



Ooohed at the big wheel,



Escaped the clutches of a mad robot,



Ran from the scary dragon,



Were followed by a wraith,



Saw fire light up the sky,



Found Musicians trapped in a caravan,



Were chased by a mad nun,



And a scary monster,



Were serenaded by Wholesome Fish,



Listened to quiet music in a candlelit church,



These were some of the sounds and sights of Nottingham Light Night 2010



more photos here.

Seems a while......

since I put a post up although I think it is only a couple of weeks. Life has been busy with a Nottingham Bobbin Lace society meeting on Saturday followed by a Weavers, Spinners and Dyers meeting on the next Saturday complete with jacket potatoes :-)



The weather has been cold, frosty at times but no snow although I think that will come back again soon. When the weather gets like this I always seem to get a desire to do something repetitive like knitting or lacemaking so I have been practising making holes on this scarf ( shop bought yarn).



I've been making fluff with the drum carder, digging out some fibres for a ravelry challenge and spinning some merino that I dyed a while ago.



I've also spun up some oddments that were collecting in one of my storage jars.




Yesterday I dropped off some fabric at the workshop and stopped to admire the work produce the the young embroiderers during the applique workshop. With ages ranging from 7 to 15 these are some talented youngsters so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work threading needles and helping with the the bondaweb.







I hope you have a good weekend :-)