week ending 29th August

Big group this week at the Plantation Production felt making workshop, which was mainly about designing and sizing the "Portal into Wholeness and Wellbeing" wall hanging. Ali came to continue laying and felting the inner arch of the portal at Galgael, as well as getting her hands into clay and ceramics with Luis.
Sarah-Jane was also getting rolled in by making stone-felt for the felt portal with some clever effects such a wool neps! Plus:, she is getting Eugune rolled in too! ;-)

Wednesday saw also our participation at the Bridges Programmes Stakeholder meeting in the Pearce Institute. Bridgesprogrammes is a local organisation which help refugees into work in Scotland. It was very nice meeting them all, albeit some of the affiliated community groups we were hoping to meet for possible future working together had not been able to come. Still we hope that future working together is possible between Bridges and Galgael.
Sarah-Jane performed her spinning song she learned from Norman, and we met Sgioba Luaidh properly at last! You can watch Frances giving an introduction to the waulking tradition on
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kb_EVaRWXE
and as snippet of the cheerful energetic singers on http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz8HO8gfBhY. Some of the young African men thought the song and rhythm was perfect for to do break dancing to it! Well there would be meat for a future project? !

More pictures can be found here:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/woolcraft.atgalgael/BridgesProgrammesStakeholderEvent#


The next day, back at Galgeal, the German girls were enjoying themselves with the woolcraft, and would like to felted hats!
So, Anneruth was sourcing a firm foam roll to serve as a base for shaping a hat via needlefelting, which Luis the potter sawed into an oval shape. He also prepared to create hat moulds via plaster pouring for the perfectly measured German heads.

Today on Friday, Laryna and others met for the usual group, with Jackie deciding she will embark on felting one or more pairs of mittens made from Hebridean wool, and got started with stage one: teasing the Hebridean wool. Katie from Berlin also got down to teasing wool for the hats, and thus partaking in the full wool craft process = from fleece to fabric.

Phew - this was a very busy week!