The Bikes and Barrows event at Scorton https://www.facebook.com/#!/bikesandbarrows?fref=ts
didn’t disappoint – most of the usual stallholders were there and we had new
neighbours, Vikki and her mum from Cupcake who we hope to meet again soon.
This week, as well as doing a bit of gardening (ugh!), I’ve
had a big burst of creativity. The weather
was so wintery on Wednesday, I suddenly decided that, instead of the usual
scarf, picture or book cover, I was going to be more adventurous and make a garment. I did consider a waistcoat but then decided
on a vest/tunic. I had some muslin
which I’d dyed ages ago so I nuno felted onto that in shades of pink and
purple. I also added some painted silk
strips, purple and white silk fibres and some pieces of pink yarn. I made it all in one piece so it was far too
big to fit on the table. In order to
lay the wool out I had to put in on the bed.
When it came to the actual felting, I had to do it a section at a time
and then roll it up – it was quite heavy when wet and a struggle to
manoeuvre. However, after a lot of
huffing and puffing, I got it done. The
results were really pleasing – it shrank quite a bit more than I expected so
it’s a bit closer fitting than I’d envisaged but it still looks great. I’m intending to join the side seams in such a
way that it will be reversible. Next
time, I will make the garment pieces separately and join them together – it
will be much easier, I think.
I’ve framed one of the remaining two textile pictures
successfully, the mount for the other one is not quite right and I’ll have to
re-do it. Grrrr!
I’ve also used some strips of curtain fabric, organza, lots of
machine embroidery, zapped with a heat gun
to produce a very opulent looking
book cover – it’s amazing how a fairly ordinary set of materials can be
transformed into somethingcompletely different. It’s a bit time consuming but very rewarding
– I think I’ll be doing some more experimenting with that technique.
On Friday, Liz and I bought a quantity of warping thread so
that we can continue with our weaving – we were going to warp the loom on Sunday
– hoping to be a little more successful than our first effort. We did have some tuition but that was 3
months ago now and the memory has faded a bit so it could take us some time! We’ve bought enough thread to make quite a few
scarves so I’m assuming that, by the time we’ve used it all, we’ll be old hands
at the warping bit? While we were out
and about it seemed a shame not to visit Black Sheep, near Warrington, for Liz
to replenish her stock of wool for the knitted bags. Of course, I couldn’t leave without buying
some gorgeous yarn to knit a different kind of scarf than I’ve made before –
I’ve already started it.
On Saturday we went to another new venue – the Hope Centre
in Old Roan, Aintree. What a lovely,
bright, open space – it was the first Craft Fair there and although there
weren’t an awful lot of customers, we are hoping that, as people get to know
about it, numbers will increase.
We did start on warping the loom on Sunday but, as always,
it takes far longer than we thought it would so it’s been done piecemeal and,
at last, today, I stole a couple of
hours finish threading it up. Almost
ready to get weaving!
No comments:
Post a Comment