HEY I'VE GOT AN ETSY SHOP!

This is one of the reasons for my lack of blogging - I've been working on getting an Etsy shop off the ground - - well it's open and it has 9 items for sale. 

My shop is called The Crafty Heffalump so please go and have a look - I'd be grateful for feedback too :-)

RUSH WEAVING WORKSHOP

A couple of weeks ago our guild held a Rush Weaving workshop - taught by Olivia Elton Barrett at Widford Village Hall.

It was a great day - fun, interesting and well taught. We had the opportunity to make a variety of things - three of us made hats (myself included, as I've wanted to make a rush hat for quite a few years), one person made a rather fabulous herringbone pattern mat and the rest made baskets of various shapes.

When we arrived Olivia was setting out her tools and finished objects on different tables, and I had a moment of weakness at this point, as she had so many lovely things displayed - I wavered because of the cutest little bag - essentially an oblong, tall 

basket with fabric handles woven through it - I really wanted one - still do in fact, and it turns out that Olivia holds open house meetings where it is possible to develop rush weaving skills further......

I did manage to stick to my guns though - I reminded myself of how long I'd wanted a rush hat and that I'd spent the previous afternoon making my hat mould!

My first rush weaving:

I was so inspired that when I got home I immediately made my own version of the bag with the only useful material I had to hand - felt. It's a bit floppy, and when I tried to wet felt it the floppiness was exacerbated slightly, but I still have hope for it, I just need some bag stiffening and some lining fabric!

KALEIDOSCOPES AT KRAZY DAD

This is a really cool toy that, whilst being creative doesn't have a lot to do with fibre.

There's a great website that allows you to do this:

KOOL AID DYEING

In December of last year I joined the Random Acts of Kindness group on Ravelry. I posted my wish list and sent out various bits and pieces to other people - all arrived safely to their various destinations over a period of time (well it was approaching Christmas). I was amazed at the response to my wish list - I received one of my requests within a matter of hours by email - I then started to receive little packages through the post - of Kool Aid Woohoo - I also was given some by a friend in our newly started knitting group - so I ended up with a large and fabulous selection of different colours to play with.

My first play day resulted in this selection

When I went over to Hilary's I took some blue, green and yellow and did this

Here it all is ready to go to the next phase - which is the admire and fondle phase

The first spinning I did was with some Blue Faced Leicester that I'd dyed with left over liquid - one batch grape and one batch mixed reds and pinks - I spun them separately and then plied them together - and was then terribly disappointed as I didn't feel they worked particularly well together. I then spent some time humming and hahing and came up with a plan to make a scarf in broomstick crochet - and, actually, it really works with the yarn, bringing out the best of it.

I have also spun some of the red/yellow/pink mix and that is on it's way to being (hopefully) a hat, scarf and gloves set.

I'm daydreaming at present about spinning the turquoisey mix into a lace weight yarn and knitting a nice shawl - but by the time I get to it my plans may change!

Having added my mosaic picture to one of the Ravelry forums I received a good offer for some more Kool Aid - 18 packs hee hee - off to play now :-)

NATURALLY DYED SAMPLE PIECE

I wrote this ages ago and hadn't got around to posting - I'm trying to get a business started and all sorts of other things have got in the way of blogging - I shall try to be more regular now - so much has been going on I've got loads to pass on.

As I mentioned in my previous post a group of us get together every year and go down to West Dean (near Chichester) where we demonstrate natural dyeing at the Wholly Herbs open

 weekend. Each year we come away with a plethera of little woolly samples all dyed in those lovely shades that only come from natural dyeing.

The way we do it is to pre-mordant and wind all the skeins - 5 skeins to a batch - mordanted with alum, chrome, copper, tin and one left plain to be after bathed with iron. Each batch is put into a dye bath and we consequently get 5 colours from each one.

After the show the skeins are wound into balls, then the balls are passed to me to turn into a mini afghan - which is then shown at next years show.

This years finished afghan

Previous years

MY SWAP PACKAGE CAME - HOORAH

Yesterday was a good day - the best for a while, in fact - there was an early start as we were getting the house ready for a new arrival (this is nothing to do with textiles or craft) - by 11.15 she'd arrived and was safely ensconced ......

Meet Bumble - she's the 1 year old bunny from a friend at work who could sadly no longer keep her.

We decided to go out for a late (and lazy) breakfast, and just as we were leaving postie arrived and signed that he had something for us - there was a box for me that had travelled all the way from New Zealand - it was my colour swap package I went all round Tescos saying 'I've got a parcel' with a silly grin on my face!

When I got home I could hardly wait to get it open and this is what I found

I'm chuffed to bits with it - can woolly things wear out if you pet them too much?

The fibre and the yarn will, no doubt appear in later posts :-D - I don't yet know what I want to do with them, so I shall just admire them until inspiration strikes. There were also some girly stitch markers, and sweet smelling, hand made soaps and sweeties and all sorts of other goodies. Christmas all over again!

Later in the day we had a friend over to stay and took him to our fave Italian restaurant (his birthday pressy). So all in all a jolly good day.

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS

I wonder what all your new years resolutions will be...


I often don't make them but this year I have a few as follows:

• Open an Etsy shop (and maybe one on Folksy too)
• Do a 'how low can you go?' and spin a really fine yarn
• learn to spin thick again
• learn to spin to DK, aran etc
• make some super fun art yarns

Well that's it - nothing too daunting or groundbreaking - but I'd be chuffed if I can shift off my wobbly bits and do the above ;-D

If you have resolutions - crafty or otherwise, do tell........