Friday already...where did the week go?

WOW I cant believe that its Friday! My week is all mixed up cos I worked BH Sunday & Monday... pretty long hours, so those days just consisted of getting up - working - dragging meself home and just crashing out... Tuesday was a blur - seriously; I was totally spaced out, Wednesday work again, Thursday kids were off school & now wham its Friday!

I have had a really fun morning today though :o) I have felted my Icelandic wool for the first time! And I LOVE it - it felts very well. The batts make the laying out quicker, just peel a sheet off and lay it down. My only difficulty was that I kept forgeting which direction the fibres on the last layer had run in (you cant see it as easily as when you lay tops) so I had to keep stopping and checking which way the current layer needed to go lol. I have felted a nice little hat :o) using my hat block for the first time too. Its drying out at the moment so no pics yet.

I did make a couple of teacosies last week that I havent posted pics of yet...

For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to felt 2 together...dont think I`ll do that again, it was pretty huge and unweildy. I felted them over an oval shaped resist that when cut across the middle would give me 2 teacosies. Unfortunately I used the yellow & orange merino that doesnt like felting! I think its something to do with the dyeing process...maybe it was over done? Its been ages since I used it and had totally forgotten that it was stubborn; it seemed to take forever - I actually ended up with a rub rash on both of myt forearms from all of the rolling! Ive edged them with witch-stitch (herringbone).

Im struggling to get the photos that I wanted to put up from the medieval event... The only one I can show you at the moment is a group shot of all the staff, we are standing in front of the gatehouse.

yes thats me, in costume on the left looking very UNglamerous :o)

Its a lovely building! The first building was around 1270 and its sort of evolved over the years...very interesting. A couple of hundred years ago they faced it with brick to make it look `more modern` and everyone forgot what was under the bricks. It had ended up as tenements until the 1950s and lots of the people who came to visit had lived there, or even been born there. It fell into disrepair and was actually going to be demolished; but when they started knocking walls down they rediscovered the timber framed house & fortunately stopped demolition. Over recent years its been a pub & resteraunt, unfortunately it ended up in a bit of a mess again. Its just come into the Museum Services care though & over the next few years its going to be restored back to its former glory - cant wait!

We had over 4000 people at the event over the 2 days, most of them on Monday. It was a really nice event to work at and Im glad I did both days, I think we all had a great time even though we were nackered. The highlight of MY day on Monday was when I took a 5 minute break (only had 10 minutes all day) and got to hold a European Eagle Owl! AWESOME! I have LOVED these birds for years and to actually be able to hold one ... its hard to describe how I felt. The owl that I held was 21 years old & weighed just under 8lb and had been hand reared, she had the most magnificent huge amber eyes Ive ever seen. One of the girls I was working with took a photo & Im really hoping that she sends it to me...if she does I will definately post it :o)

Anyway, enough waffle from me - have a great weekend, will post pics of my Icelandic hat soon

x