Inspiration musings.. and outcome

Sometimes I find that I have the beginnings of a design... that flutter elusively through my mind.  I find myself moving on and doing lots of other things with that one little flutterby still dancing in my subconscious.  Until something happens; I go somewhere or see something that strikes like lightening and I KNOW what I am going to do next. 

For quite sometime (probably about a year!) I have been thinking about cave paintings, petroglyphs & ancient stone carvings...  there is something so real, and familiar, and tangible about them.   How to bring them into my felt though....?  Which images...?  I wanted them to mean something to me, to be personally significant - as the cave-painting & petroglyph depictions were to their artists.

Firstly I was thinking of handprints.. Actually I have been thinking of doing a piece of family art with all of our handprints on for several years now (so I guess the flutterby was there longer than I realised :)  a touchable memory - more physical and 'real' than a photo.   This project is still tumbling back and forth in my mind - it will get out soon though I think :)

New and prized additions to my book shelf

I was absolutely delighted when I received my newest felt book Nomadic Felts - Artistic Traditions in World Cultures by Stephanie Bunn.  WOW what a book!  It really is a visual feast; the photography is excellent, the felts shown incredible.  The book looks at nomadic cultures and their feltmaking pasts and present, with really interesting photos and insights to nomadic feltmaking.  It has a section on pattern meaning and belief (which I havent fully read yet!)  I am about a third of the way through the book  at the moment and I'm sure I will be posting about it again when I have read through.  As soon as I unwrapped it, before starting to read I flicked through pretty much drooling over the photos.  When I got to the 'Meaning and Belief' section I was jumping with joy..



There is a photo of a petroglyph in Kyrgystan of sheep!  It is dated second millenium BC/early AD  - my heart leapt, this was it!  Being a felter -  sheep are fundamentally important to me (and as you know I simply adore the funny beasties :)  I like the simplicity of the image.. and thought it would translate well into felt.  And so..  I made some nice big tote bags, with a useful pocket felted inside

This is the 1st I made.  Icelandic wool, with merino for the sheep & a nice slubby woolen yarn squiggled on and felted in.

This is my bag and I want to keep it nice and long, as I can fit lots in there.. but I shall need to strengthen the handle area.  It is strong but it folds a little when the contents are (?too) weighty. 

2nd bag.. I put more sheep on this one and made it a little longer so I could cut the top section off, and use that to double up the handle area - its really sturdy now

3 sheep on the other side.

Hope they show up ok..I used highly saturated colours and they are a bit tricky (to say the least) to photograph.

I am working on an orange and gold bag now..  I felted it yesterday, its dry now and ready for me to cut and sew the handles when I get an hour or so.

The other book in the photograph is the Orchard Book of Shakespears Stories.. a childrens book that I spotted in Waterstones a couple of months ago.  The illustrations are beautiful!  Rachael has been studying Shakespear (A Midsummer Nights Dream) and I thought this would be a nice introduction to more of his work - its easier going for a 12 year old to read, and hopefully discover Shakespears magic.  I was absolutely stunned to find this book on Amazon 'nearly new' for 24p plus a low postage cost!  I had almost brought it at the RRP... so I snapped this one up.  When it arrived it was in pristine condition, you can even smell the new ink!  Dont you just love getting a bargain :) 

OK, time to go get some work done.  Have a wonderful weekend xx

Ending the holidays...

On Saturday I felted another rug! This one is about half the size of the one I did a few weeks ago - it still took a whole day, but was a lot easier on my back.

You can see the different character of the fleece... this one had a longer staple length, so the rug pile it longer. I like the way it wafts in a breeze & flops around to lie in different directions... The first rug was a definate learning curve; this time I put the cotton net fabric layer in between the 2nd and 3rd fibre layers, so its completely encorporated into the felt and veeery sturdy. I used Icelandic batts again from Alafoss (which I highly recomend by the way).

Good job I wasnt aching too much because 2 days later I climbed a mountain! Literally! We have been weather watching for some time trying to pick a good say to go climb Mount Snowdon in North Wales, Monday looked good so we were up and on our way at the crack of dawn. Gary had climbed the mountain (and the other 2 highest peakes in the UK) many times throughout his childhood... but the kids and me? No...it was our first time. The weather was absolutely fantastic.. couldnt possibly of been better. We were in T-shirts all the time,and just needed a fleece on the summit. Now we were expecting it to be cold, so went with layers on & carrying coats, wooly hats, gloves etc... sensible, but we could of done without all that and took more water if we had known how hot it would be! I took some photos (no suprises there)...

I thought this was Snowdon... but its Snowdons baby bro Crib Goch - looked lovely with the moon just to the side. Im suprised that I didnt actually take a photo looking up at Snowdon... think it was just too big & imposing, I didnt even think to take one.

We walked past beautiful crystal clear lakes - the dogs swam in them of course.

About 2/3 of the way up, looking back.

Nearly there...

These 2 are looking toward the coast approx 15 miles away from the base of the summit stones... it was sooo clear & very surreal. Especially looking down on birds flying!

Now contrary to the appearance from the photos, this will show you just how busy the mountain was. I took a photo of Gary & the kids on the summit at a QUIET time

1085 meters - we were suprised at how busy it was...

Id have to say it comes second only to chilbirth (for me) in terms of physical effort to get the job done, and how much it blooming well hurt. OMG!!! My legs & hips were SCREAMING! And I think like childbirth I`ll have to wait till Ive forgotten how much it hurt to want to do it again :o)

The rest of the week has been spent swimming & catching up with family... its been nice - and the sun is still shining! Lovely!

Kids go back to school next week, cant believe how quick the 6 week holidays alway go by! Christmas before we know it...

Be well

xx

The week so far...

has been pleasantly productive :o) in a gentle, plodding sort of way. I played with the silk saris on Monday...

This is the chiffon, with added banana silk (this is the chiffon I overdyed with gold)

Green peacock silk sari in cobalt merino, with loads of sari silk fibre & yarn

.

Im wearing this scarf today :o) its all long `n skinny and feels really elegant to wear (you know when you feel like you look nice in something?!)

Plus Ive felted and sewn together another cushion cover... so now I have a pair; sun & moon...

More Icelandic wool

And yesterday I dyed a load of silk ... which is still drying. I`ll post tomorow with photos of todays work, and hopefully yesterdays silk too.

x

This weeks felting fun

Had a pleasant, plodding sort of a week... in between work, gardening & housework (BOOOO) I have felted another hat & a cushion cover - both using my Icelandic batts.

Not sure which way round it should go yet :o)

It started out loosely based on medieval split brimmed hats... but evolved into something more tricorn-ish. However Matthew (my 13 year old) says its definately a Mongolian style hat! To be honest I seem to recal seeing a picture of Genghis Kahn wearing something similar :o) This has layers of one of the silk caps I dyed on the inside & out.

It was amazingly quick & easy to make prefelts for inlays using the batts! Ive noticed that you need to use a lot more soap with Icelandic than Ive used with either merino, gotland or Norwegian wools. Im using a fair old bit of hot water too.

long run... I think its from the 70s and must of cost an arm & a leg when it was new - its got everything imaginable. Its actually quite scarily complicated, I have managed to knit a few practice swatches & with the help of youtube think Im ok with casting on & off now. Tomorow Clare is coming over for a girly day, hopefully with both of us on the case we shall tame the beasty and knit something :o).... Im gonna get a big gooey cake to help calm frayed nerves if it doesnt work out that way.

Icelandic hat

Happy Saturday!

My new hat is dry now, so I thought I`d share a photo with you :o) Im kinda proud of it!

I used the cerise and pink Icelandic wool - 6 layers. I added a layer from the pink/purple/blue silk hankie that I dyed a couple of weeks ago too. I should really of taken photos as I was making it...but didnt think of it till I was half way through lol.

Kelly has asked comments if Id post where I brought my lovely Icelandic wool from...sorry Kelly I usually do do this, it had slipped my mind tbh. I brought the wool from Alafoss in Iceland, the lady I dealt with is named Jona; she is lovely & very helpfull. They dont take Paypal unfortunately so I had to phone the shop (in Iceland) to pay - luckily they speak very good English...cos I dont speak any Icelandic :o) I was very impressed with the postal service too, it was pricey (cost a bit more than the wool itself did) but it was trackable, and even over a Bank Holiday weekend it arrived 3 working days after posting, although that was probably very lucky at the moment with the volcano. The wool is in batts, and my batts are odd shapes and sizes... just unfold them & start peelin` layers off :o) great. Think Im going to order some black & white too...

Im also wearing the waistcoat I made a couple of months ago (the one that started out as a tunic... but ended up waaay too small :o). Not too bad considering I had no guidance for how to make it at the time... it was pretty much all guesswork... I have since brought Lizzie Houghtons Felting Fashion book - which is really good, Id highly recomend it if you want to felt clothes & hats.

Anyway, Im off to look for more hatblocks in different shapes n sizes :o)

Have fun folks x

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