The Royal GeelongShow is over for another year and while there are still plenty of projects on
foot, there are no pressing deadlines at the moment, so it’s a good time to stop,
tidy the studio, take stock(of the stash and the ideas) and think about what
might be next.
I finished 2
of the 4 entries I had planned for the Geelong Show, so feeling a recurring
theme here. One was my first attempt at
weaving with handspun. I had a braid of
wool, silk and angora bunny from Charley, spun finely and plied with some very
fine silk. The contrast was an 85/15
Merino/silk blend, again plied with the fine silk.
The other
entry was a narrow silk scarf in huck lace.
I had a nice hank of mulberry silk, planned the warp and weft using the
measurements on the label but at the last moment, just before I wound the warp
decided I should do a rough measure – length of hank x number of ends. Imagine my surprise when instead of the 1200
metres I thought I had, there were only about 550 metres. It was back to the calculator, fortunately as
the yarn was thicker I didn’t need so many ends to the inch and I ended up with
some left over as I had made the warp a little on the short side. Fortunately with the Toika loom there is only
about 12 inches of waste at the end, or 12 inches minus the fringe.
The judges liked this one too and it was
awarded to Marjorie Donnan award for the best article using any natural
fibre. So a successful event all round
and nice to see the Geelong Guild celebrating their past members
I’ve been
making slow progress on my Weavolution Halloweave tapestry but got the colours selected at
the weekend in daylight and I’m now 2 rows into the coloured part, but not showing up very well in this picture
I’m in the
process of putting a warp for a cotton scarf on to the Toika loom. The warp has been maturing in the stash since
at least 1999 and cross has been mislaid along the way. Next after restoring the cross, will be a run
of tea towels for the next market, the last for the year and for Christmas
presents.
I’ve also
finished the backpack from leftover fabric, and got it into the mail today,
that’s a good feeling. I was surprised how much work there was getting all the straps, tags and pockets made but once that was done it went together very quickly.
Here’s a
picture of the clematis flowering profusely on the back deck
Helen