I’ve been
busy working for the Geelong Show so most of the current work has to stay under
wraps for a while but here’s a selection of some of the smaller things
happening in my world.
I almost
had another oops – I was tidying up the ‘studio’ when I found this
shuttle.
The GeelongScarf Festival is over for another year.
This was the first year I entered and while I joked that I was hoping
for a small parcel and a large cheque rather than a large parcel and no cheque
when it finished, I was pleasantly surprised to find that 3 of the 4 scarves
had sold and the one that was returned was the one I liked best, made from a
re-purposed silk blouse. I’m not sure
whether it will go into the market collection or my scarf collection. Last year the theme wasn’t announced until
later in the year but this time the 2016 theme - Myths and Legends- was announced as the 2015
Festival closed so I guess that gives me almost 12 months
to be inspired and make something.
I made a
trip to my local IKEA store last week to check out their new collection. I found some inexpensive small glass bottles
with sealing lids to replace those I’ve been using for dyeing, same shape,
slightly bigger, also inexpensive but where the threads on the lids bear only a
passing resemblance to the threads on the necks of the bottles. I also found
some excellent LED strip lighting and had it attached to the castle of the loom
with a few sticky dots in no time. It
does need to be plugged in so I will have to be careful on that side of the
loom but there’s enough stuff stored there that it’s no longer a passageway.
Before:
And after:
It makes
quite a difference and the little red lady – she’s one of a pair of felted
dolls someone gave me. They make
excellent pincushions, one for each floor loom and on the smaller loom the feet
are at much the same height as the beater so she dances as I weave.
I’d been
thinking for a while that a notice board would be useful near the loom but all
the walls are taken up with shelving for yarn storage. Then I had a bright idea – I only need to
access the boxes every few weeks and there was no reason why a notice board
couldn’t hang over them for the rest of the time. I went to the local office supplies looking
for something the right size, half cork, half magnetic and when that didn’t
exist bought one the right size, half cork, half aluminium and a small magnetic
tile. It’s probably a bit lighter than
the one I had in mind and as I’ll need to take it down from time to time,
that’s not a bad thing.
Now when I
see something in a magazine or elsewhere that’s worth keeping, I’ve got
somewhere to put it, and ideas and colour schemes are piling up faster than I
can use them.
I’ve also
been working on some glasses cases,
I received
a nice parcel of yarn from California, there was also some 12/6 Seine cord and a Majacraft Turkish spindle which seem to have missed the photoshoot. The black cotton on the left came from the local yarn shop, not California, very good price and a bonus crochet hook
I’ve also
been minding some plants for Gayle, amazing what benign neglect, well I did tie
up the flower spike on the orchid because I couldn’t bear to see it on the
ground, can achieve.
Tomorrow I’ve
got an unexpected day off, hoping to make real progress with the sewing and
weaving
Helen