Fibre dabble day

Hi

At our recent Guild ( Guild of weavers, spinners and dyers) meeting we had a Dabble Day and were joined by members of the Ashfield and Hallam Guilds. Mini workshops were set up around the room for people to try out new techniques and crafts.  My camera battery decided to fade away but not until I had grabbed one or two shots of the work produced.

On offer as workshops were Tunisian Crochet

 woven baskets

 felted vessels

 tablet weaving sheep

 Japanese bag tying..Furoshiki.

 felted bangles

 Dorset buttons

and scrumbles in knitting and crochet but at that point my camera was playing up so huge appologies to that group.

why do they do it?

Why do they start Christmas so early??? I've always felt that the beginning of December is the earliest time to start with the Christmas lights, markets, nights out but is seems to creep in earlier each year or maybe I'm just a Christmas bah humbug. Maybe I should mention at this point that we do not 'do ' Christmas as such. just a present for very close family, no Christmas decorations, tree or meal. It suits us to have some time together and some time with our niece and nephew on Boxing Day when we can often be found watching motorcycles somewhere in a field or on the beach.

Before I seem a complete and utter Scrooge I will point out that I did go down to the Christmas Market on the evening the lights were switched on although I left a little before the actual event. These days we appear to have a craft/gift fair rather than the German fair that seems to be so popular with a few funfair rides in the market square.

At this point I will mention that there is a stall called Handmade Nottingham although I failed to get a photo of the stall, please have a look at the link as these lovely people make wonderful gifts :-)

I did notice that two days later a couple of the food concessions had reduced their prices along with the stall selling the pashmina shawls so I have my fingers crossed for  the Handmade Nottingham  guys as they compete with the stalls selling imported felted/knitted goods etc.

I hope to grab some photos of Handmade Nottingham over the next few days.

Framework knitting museum spinning

Yesterday was fun although I had a shaky start but a visit to the local coffee shop helped to put that right.

double whammy on the caffeine !!

So body sorted, I made my way down to the Framework Knitters Museum at Ruddington near Nottingham where Angela from the local guild and myself were due to be giving a spinning demonstration.

This was the sight that met me as a rounded the corner of the alley way, The sky was still a little overcast but the sun did make an apearance later in the day.

The large number of window are designed to give as much light as possible to the workshops to enable the workers to perform their work especially when working with fine threads.

You can see how tightly packed these huge machines are.

Also on show are squirrel cage swifts and a bobbin winder. Demonstrations of how the machines were used are available and this weekend the museum was open in conjunction with the Nottingham Lace Here Now event.

 The next photo shows quite clearly that knitting is in fact loops pulled though loops

The other building houses a collection of circular knitting machines for making knitting tubes wheich these days become scarves but would have become sock/ hosiery.

 

 

samples of machine knitted lace were also for sale

 
as for the spinners......
we made ourselves at home in the cottage with a selection of handspun yarns on show






you can see other posts about this museum here

Hiding in the basement

Some time ago I heard a rumour about something exciting ( to me) bricked up in the basement of a building in Nottingham, Now you have to remember that Nottingham had a reputation for lace and there used to be many lace factories in and around the city centre and I have an interest in hand made lace.
A week or so ago I was invited to visit the building and see the basement, I was also advised not to upset the resident ghost too much.

This is what I found.

                                                                                             hidden behind the door.

Woolly Wednesday

So here we are again with a round up of all things fiberey :-) Its been a bit of a busy month so normal blog posts have been a bit hit and miss but I have a few in mind and hopefully by the time you read this ( I'm writing slightly in advance as I have a free hour to play with) there will have been a little more activity.
So, what have I been up to over the last month? well do you remember this?

 well this the progress so far....need to wash some more now

just short of 350gm spun so far, nice easy spin, sort of aran weight

We had the opportunity to attend the Ashfield Guild Hospitality Day with other members of our Guild and the spinnotts team and I almost came away without buying anything but succumbed to 3 balls of blue crochet cotton from the bargain table to use on my inkle loom.

 Pete (aka Wikkidknitter) gave a helping hand and advice to two new spinners.

and Tabs gave us a quick demonstration of how to spin and make it look easy :-)

I sort of fell in love with a couple if wheels which I'm going to blog about separately with plenty of pictures.

Back on the wheel has been some of last years Bond, one full bobbin and hopefully enough left to fill another later this week. I'm supposed to be doing a demo next weekend ( last weekend was a 1940's weekend so I pitched up with my spinning wheel as hubby was playing with the uke orchestra) and have decided that rather than revert to spinning tops I would start to prep the Shetland fleece that has been stashed away for the last few months.

 some vegetation but most should shake out

 nice fleece, well sheared but oh my! look at these tips!!

this is going to be a challenge!

 thankfully looks better after a good wash

So this is now my ongoing challenge for the next month!!

So, what have you all been up to??

Ukeing around

My other half has been very busy, out and about with the Nottingham Ukulele Orchestra recently in spite of the bad weather.

Here they are playing on a very soggy Saturday, the view from their side of the tent was fine....

 not so the view from the audience side !!!

still, it kept the rain off!!!

Here they are at a recent 1940s weekend.

mmmm... I wonder who that is in the bowler hat ?

Flapping around

A different subject....Birds!!

I recently visited a craft fair in West Bridgford to give my support to the Nottingham Ukulele Orchestra who were due to appear there despite the pouring rain when my attention was distracted by these gorgeous creatures.

 



 






Well Done Kilton Raptor rescue centre for looking after these birds.

playing catch up

Hi, its been a while but I'm going to play catch up with the next few posts and there will be a FIBRE heavy post on Woolly Wednesday in a few days time. In the meantime here are some photos from a recent small craft fair that I attended with Wikkidknitter. I did think that I had a photo of each stall but must have got distracted halfway round so big apologises to the ones I've missed out and I will try to put links to your sites at the bottom of this post.

First out of the bag is my friend Libby and I really love her work :-) She blogs under the name LilyBelle likes sewing and her new blog is called The Sewing Box, and introduces her quirky style of embroidery.

Next we have Leanne of Buffer Zone Nails who did a marvellous job of organising the show, these are Leannes hand painted nail sets, just the thing for Christmas.

Unfortunately, not one of my best photos :-( however this is Wikkidknitter with his amazing beaded Jewellery. It's not ofter that I wish that I had both ears pierced for earrings but the drop earrings are gorgeous.

This is Claires stall, Pinky and Boo, pretty crochet flower broaches, sewing baskets pin cushions, aprons and many other delights.

More Jewellery was on Sale made by Emma and I'm pleased to say that she remembered to take photos of the other stalls which can be found here Emma Ruth Jones

So, apologies to Perfidious Jewellery,  
                            To Vintage and Beyond
                            Toyz N the Hood
So sorry that I don't have photos but why not check out their sites?