a half day off

After 3 hard days and a bad cold included  I have some more time to relax until late afternoon, when we have to take the exhibition down. I still cannot upload any photos to the blog, hmmm, no idea what is wrong.
We had lots of people going through yesterday and lots of good comments. Now we need the buyers ;)

Just some shots

Art in the Garden

I spend all morning at Origin helping with setting up the exhibition and of course my own things. I am pleased how it turned out, I think they fly nicely in the brise.

old photo

Just found an old photo when I was spinning at a market in Germany

and our first stall at the christmasmarket in Neunkirchen

lazy

I have been lazy recently writing here, but busy with all sorts of other things. Finally I finished yesterday the things to put in our 5th Art in the Garden on the weekend. The floating paua was more difficult than I thought. To felt around the shells was a bit tricky and finally I used some PVA to be sure that it doesn't fall off.

I will take better photos once it is hanging in the Garden. While I was working on this I got so frustrated by the behaving of the wool, that I suddenly realized, the wool would be so much better for a cobweb scarf and  I made a quick decision and did one and I am quite happy about the result. It will definitely get a small paua shell as a clasp or so and I will call it mermaid's wrap

In a spontanious moment I made another hanging for the exhibition, which I call just rainbow. Here it is drying in the shower

This afternoon we (all members of the coop) will meet for a little working bee. I am still waiting for my granddaughter right now. She decided to have a nice long sleep at home and daddy had time, so she will come later today. I will take her with  me to Origin. She can have fun with all the aunties and grannies there ;)

'Felters of the North' Day

We had some fun today trying out some techniques with novelty yarn and fabric pieces to make a scarf

stitches on felt

Here are my first examples of stitches on felt

This is a felted necklace I made some month ago. It is placed on my 'paua' wool

dye and felting day

First I dyed some carded gotland wool in 'paua' colours - shades of turquoise/teal/blue/green

I spilled some of the dye and so I used a silk scarf to wipe it

I bought last year some alpaca fleece quite cheap, they were already some years old and not treated at all. While looking through all my treasures I looked in this bag

and thought I might try it out today. I spun a bit just from the fleece

and then I decided to card some

The carding machine belongs to my daughter and I don't have much experience with it, but I was happy with the result

and so I made a quick decision, to felt a scarf

It felted really great and quickly and is now drying under the carport. I think I will add some pearls and do some embroidery once it is dry.

Yesterday was a day with my granddaughter Storm

felt united

Finally managed to take photos ... :)

Springtime

Now we are back in Kerikeri for 2 weeks, and I worked in the shop already 3 times. I like the new layout, it is so light and spacy.

We have a wonderful textile exhibition of Agnes Hauptli at the moment, she is such an amazing weaver!

Beside of all this inspiration, I still feel quite exhausted and a bit blocked, so I decided to do an online felting workshop with lots of challanges to get me going again.
And I am still reading India Flints book, already thinking about which kinds of plants I have in the garden which may be used for dyeing. I did a lot of plant dyeing in the 80s in Germany, mainly with all sorts of leaves. Now I will explore what my garden offers. We have so many impatiens, they grow like weed here and need ongoing removing. And then all the Nz natives! I guess inkweed is worth a try like the name says.  Unfortunately I don't have gumtrees, but here in Kerikeri are still some around, and I can collect fallen branches with leaves. Its sad to see a lot of the old shelter belts beeing removed including the orchards behind them to make space for new subdivision.