woolcraft log 27-6-08

Who was here today?
Anna, Anneruth, Eileen, Laryna, Naomi, Sarah, Verene. Later in the afternoon also Hazel come along again.

Today we welcomed Eileen from Paisley, who got started with wool fibre handling and carding.

Naomi had a new idea for the strap for the book cover: crocheted! And it worked! Elastic and firm with double woolen mill yarn:

Sarah came with one or two dozen blue knitted squares and Naomi showed her how to cast off.

Anna came with her two joined-up pegloom weavings as planned: shrunk and slightly felted in the wash, as planned. She was so pleased with it she wants to buy it - once Laryna has shown her how to put tassels on - which was another finishing off project for today.

Whilst Naomi did the strap crocheting Verene explored and demonstrated how to make the felt balls Naomi wanted to make since she joined up with us in the PI event.
Laryna progressed further on the rug, which now got pulled round the frame again, and looks like aiming for over a meter soon.

Anneruth brought 3 new Blackface yearling fleeces, freshly clipped at the Pentland farm on Midsummers day. She had gotten 6 fleeces - 3 for Heather in Edinburgh and 3 for herself and Galgael. Last Monday Heather and her had been sorting and 'skirting' them in the sunshine, that means to remove the very dirty bits:

There was no time today to bag the fleeces properly, as a lot of time was taken up by other business, including planning the trip to the Woolfest tomorrow. We very pleased that Eileen wanted to join Verene and Anneruth in this once a year 'outing'. Others would have oiked to come but for various reasons had to sigh and say: 'Next year'..

Hazel came by later in the afternoon, and started to look at crocheting or knitting a hat out of the single chunky Jacob thread, to be ready in time for the River fest.

(remember to check here for more photos)

woolcraft log 22-6-08

Today we were:
Flora, Naomi, Laryna, Mary, Anneruth and Verene

Remember the Hebridean felt-piece as base for the Barmaddy comments book cover?
It is now been needlefelted upon:

and we were brainstorming as to how it best can be fastened upon the book and still stay the rough and ready look that has been requested. Mary showed us a beautiful way of making a spiralling cord (using various warping threads) on a piece of cardboard:

or it would look prettier than simply elastics?

Flora finished off the double knotting of the little sunrise wallhanging (and now Anneruth needs to find a nice stick for the hanging), and then joined Laryna and Naomi with the neverending teasing and carding of white washed wool for the rug weaving.

Verene and Anneruth went into the wood workshop to make some 'cross sticks' for warping of one of the little school weaving frames, and then Laryna and Anneruth set up the loom with a 2m woollen warp (50 threads width to ca 20cm).

This little weaving project should provide opportunites for folks to weave little purses with different wools (such as the ones we got given from the woollen mills as well as our handspun), which could also be wet-felted later and/or needlefelted upon.

(remember: more pics in the June Album)

visiting a craftfair in Corbenic

This Saturday Anneruth visited a very nice and very inspiring craftfair in the Corbenic Camphill Community (near Dunkeld).

The video and the pictures should speak for themselves : just click on the links...

- and tell the story of the story telling tent, the felted gnome stall, the weaving and craft workshops, and much more.

These delightful gnomes are the work of a Ductch artist, inspired by the book and art works of Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet

This is one of the felted wallhangings made in the Crafts workshop where everything is being made from silk painting, over felting to different styles of weaving.

The best thing was the storytelling yurt, with the felt panels depicting both scenes of the local area and from stories, and the storyteller with her songs and harp (see picture on top of this post here)

As said: have a look at the photo album http://picasaweb.google.com/woolcraft.atgalgael/CraftFairAtCorbenic
and let the pictures speak for themselves.

woolcraft log 13-6-08

Who was there?
Anna, Laryna, Janna from Czechoslovakia/Glasgow (friend of Laryna), Naomi from Cardonald (who got 'hooked' when at the May Reschuffle she made first moves on the big frame loom and with felting loose rainbow spheres for a mobile), Flora, Mary, Ruth, Verene

A big crowd today huddled up in the small bothy, some a little bit later than others, to explore and get on with various new and ongoing projects:

Anna stitching together her two woven pieces and then take it home with her for the next stage: the washing and shrink-felting, to even it out etc.

Anneruth brought in her little rigid heddle loom with the finally finished silk warp, to cut off the last 2 pieces: a handspun-silk scarf and a little handspun piece to be a wallhanging (alpaca with madder, birh and onion dyed wool effects).

And Verene brought in her first piece (the big one) of her knit-felt bag in progress. Then, after some jewelry balls felting, Verene proved to herself that she can spin after all! :-)

Rock around the croft

Tonight, as always on the first Saturday in June, was the famous auld Govan Fair.
Read about its history here,
and bear in mind hence the great responsibility now resting on our, the weavers, shoulders! Or should we rather say the many threads we hold in our fingers?

This year Galgael won the first prize yet again with their "Rock around the Croft" float. A must to watch on youtube now!


Watch out for the rocking horse mascarading as a Blackface sheep (with Hebridean wool as his head!) - see it close up here with Laryna and watch out for it being rocked with Martin as his rider in the float when you watch above youtube broadcast of the "Rock around the Croft" float :-)

And also watch out for Marie rock'n'rolling spinning on the spinning wheel we got given last year from the Hebridean Sheep Society at the Woolfest!

Whilst everyone of the Galgael family got ready for the float

Hazel (who by the way knitted these Elvis Presley bonnets you see on Ian's and someone else's head on the float), plied the fine thread she spun last year and will knit some sheep from it...

woolcraft log 6-6-08

Who came today?
Anna, Laryna, Olivia, Ruth, Samantha, Sarah, Sarah-Jane,

Sarah-Jane seems to have had the final breakthrough and can now spin the most beautiful thread as well as sing (that was most beautifully anyway!! )
Watch it live right here:

Olivia (her friend and fellow art student) who had come along too today got stuck into wet-felting the basis for the book cover for the Barmaddy Comments Book. We started from scratch, teasing and carding the Hebridean wool,

then layering it on a piece of prefelt, pre-fulling and the fully roll-fulling it in the workshop later.
You can see here pops having a good time with yet another beautiful girl of the woolcrafters' Friday morning at Galgael.

For the bookcover the next step is to make an apt needle felted decoration. Sadly Olviia will be on vacancy in the US when the piece she felted is dry. But she vowed to have a go at a needlefelt piece when she gets back in autumn.

Shaun's partner Samantha joined us today and - as a real Govanite women should - took to weaving! And not only was she satisfied to learn the plain principle of weaving on the rug-practise strip on the big frame, but she also wanted to experiement with in-laid patterns, and here is the first of her two hearts: the blue one.

And taking about blue: here is Sarah knitting blue after at last finding a shop with wool (can you imagine: superstore Lewis let her down!)

Meanwhile Anna finished weaving her second patch for the seating cushion. Now, apart from sewing it together, the challenge is how to use it as a seating cushion without getting the white Blackface-wool kemp onto one's clothes ! Sarah made a couple of good suggestions... more about them when we try them out....

more pics of today in our newly started June Album

visiting Argyll

In the context of Galgael's developments at Loch Awe, Anneruth visited Argyll this weekend. It was glorious weather and so good to get out of the city. Coincidentally, in the nearby Kilmartin heritage centre, Jae Ferguson, a local spinner and woolcrafter, held a 2 day spinning workshop. Anneruth was allowed to peek in in the last hour and admire the skills 8 or so local women had gained over the weekend, thanks to the very good tuition received. It was a great athmosphere there amongst the women in Kilmartin house, with all the wool and all the spinning wheels! The wool came from Jae's sheep, Jacob / Shetland crossbreeds, which leads to a longer stapled wool than pure Shetland and is thus easier for beginners. It was good to see that everyone spun straight from the unwashed raw fleece! Jae gave Anneruth a wee bag full of that wool - which is now being spun here in Penicuik into some fine dark moorit knitting wool. The rest will be used for felting.

It seems that the women there met through a felting workshop by Liz Brown in Kilmartin, and that they are now meeting regularily to further explore felting.

It was very inspiring to make contact with the crafters and also later to pass through Ford where one of the women keeps her Alpacas, which just this weekend won first prizes.



That is just it, isn't it... to laze in the sun embedded in green and watched by the ancient hills....
Like here in ancient times, like in the Himalayas in ancient times where these gentle creatures come from, and taking like a duck to the water in Alba..