January

Yes, and now more the 'new' loom. An uprioght tapestry loom, gifted to us from the Coachhouse Trust (thank you!). It is in need of some TLC, but Laryna and Ian are at the case, and there is its space for the moment, in the cold (brrr) workshop, and then it is set to go Sarah-Jane's flat for the time being, until we have more space at Galgael.

Oh, and did you notice: Ian has got yet another new hat made by a woolcraftyatgalgael one! Well, you see - Naomi had great success and joy here with knitting wiht handspun wool: she loves it! And so does he needlessly to say! (what one earth has he done with all the other hats?)

Whilst we are in the showing off mood: a camera finally got hold of the beauty Jackie felted last year: her shoulder bag! It is already much loved and in good use. It can be used in two different ways. See our photoalbum for more details.

Then we have Hazel being mega productive with the sewing machine she had been given for Christmas: making little pouches and big teddybears! Well done Hazel!

Other products in process? Of course the baby blanket! Here you can see it now off the loom, being stitched together (2x90x28 cm pieces). It has not been fulled yet, but you can see the little off-cut having been heavily felted for to make a little bag out of it: it has mega shrunk!

And then we have another miracle of the month: Here you can see Alison very sucessfully learning how to spin (she has been dreaming about that for ages!)....

And here is what she wrote later on that week, reporting back from the woolcraft at Galgael input (sorry no camera on site: your imagination is engaged now)

The re-shuffle took place on the 31st January. It was an event for the community and for all to get together to discuss community issues. This was an opportunity for the woolcraft group to get involved and to promote our group so that more local woman and men can get involved, particualry on the new slot on thursday evening and to check if there was any interest. Naomi, Hazel and myself where involved. Naomi worked with the kids making gods eyes, Hazel sold some of her own beautiful merchandise and I taught some spinning. I thought this was a good opportunity to speak to local people, considering that at present we are discussing of where the woolcraft group is going. It was really just as an addition to help in our plans and see if there is an interest from local people in learning woolcraft skills and what would be the most suitable time in the future if we where going to establish a group to local people. It was a quiet day but I was able to get some names and email addresses to correspond with in the future. The results where that people where interested but only a few would make it on a Friday morning.

Well done Girls!

Midwinter times

Singing Carols at the Galgael solstice celebration by candlelight, and dancing with old and new friends...

for more pictures click here....

Midwinter times are quiet and cosy times, esp when we met at Verene's whilst Galgael was shut over the New Years' time. By candle light with punch and food, four of us carded, spun, knitted and made a warp. And the warp was for the baby blanket for Anna's baby, to be woven by Anneruth

Anna is here carding the alpaca wool herself, which is from Breeze in Ford (you can admire her here) .

Once Galgael opened again Ali and Sarah-Jane had an actual first in winding wool, namely the alpaca (spun and washed by Anneruth) from a skein into balls. Gosh, don't you remember doing that with your Gran?!

And Verene also had a first: namely plying and skeining her very first skein of wool at last!

You can still see her playing it above (in the back of picture, behind the loom not warped up for the blanket), and you see it here in full glory.

Melissa came to sit with us to do some knitting, and inspired Ali to rediscover her knitting skills. She also sported Anneruth's felted hat which suited her splendidly!

You can see it all and more for yourself if you go to our midwinter folder here.

Such as Sarah-Jane starting with needle felting her puppets hands, and the tapestry loom at the Coachhosue trust... well but that is for the next blog: January/February, really ...

Welcome to our woolcrafty at Galgael blog

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Here you can find and trace what has been going on in our modest and exciting adventures in 2008. Up to the beginning of October you can see a weekly log of them, and from then on you will find highlights as and when they happen and get published.

For a general intro to us and to our backgrund, please read our previous introduction entry, which has now been put into the archives, and is here:
http://woolcraftatgalgael.blogspot.com/2008/06/general-introduction-to-woolcraft-group.html

As live action is the motto - you will enjoy the wee video snippets live on
http://uk.youtube.com/user/woolcraftatgalgael and also a little over on http://uk.youtube.com/user/urbanclansman

Sarah-Jane now sings AND spins!

And as one picture tells many a story - see an abundance on

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/woolcraft.atgalgael

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/urban.clansman

This are some of our group and friends in front of a big piece of woolcraft 2008 action:

the Felt Portal, from the Plantation project in August/September

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In the course of this year there have been more than 30 folks (mainly but not only women) who have been learning and teachings a wider variety of woolcraft skills. The Galgael comunity has been enriched by the 'fluffy' group, and we have been enriched by the burly banter that is Galgael. Friendships grew, and life changes too. We are all volunteers when 'at home' (at Galgael), but increasingly in demand (and not able to fufill the demands due to lack of time) to do outreach, to teach and to facilitate in the wider community, in schools and events, in wellbeing projects and drop-ins.

We know there is a big need to expand this small part of Galgael, that is beginning to outgrow the small bothy with all its wools and tools, and busy hands and the gift of the gab :-)

We are looking forward to see where 2009 will take us. So far it seems into consolidation of skills.

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we have much to celebrate: stories of finished personal projects

watch this space: featuring some of our finished pieces or projects we are proud of...

everyone from the wool craft group is invited to show and say a bit of the piece she did this year and feels most proud of and why...

we have much to celebrate...

Here is one sample:

Pictures are great but feeling (touching) and seeing is best... It is very soft!

I am proud of this wee shawl because at last I had the time and the space to weave again almost properly (fully properly would be if it was a 'proper' loom with foot pedals!). It took ages, still, the whole procees, but every step is a great wee memory now: getting the warp threads cheaply from the Kilmahog Mill near Stirling, plying the , making the warp 5 threads per inch on my garden table with the wee chimnea keeping me warm on the cool summer night, warping it with a friend and some song whilst we were doing it; weaving it any free minute I got (which were not many!) and then making a last minute bash out of weaving it to the end. At the very end of the warp I experiemented with spinning some blend carded icelandic + blackface wool, to see how the set would work out and what it could yield. Then, after cutting it off, measuring it and tying the warpends, I fulled it, and was so pleased with the result: a hard stiff and widely woven piece of material became a soft fairly close woven hugable shawl! It can now just be left as a shawl, or I can weave another same piece and make a waist coat type wearable out of it. The little experiment piece is a table runner in its own right, but it is also showing me what to use in terms of thickness of thread for future projects.

There is potential in that little rigid heddle loom, thanks to my Galgael woodwork friends who fixed the heddle stick ends, and who made me warping pecks.

I know I have not given you all the info yet (length, weight, shrinkage, etc) - but you may ask. Please do! Need to dash now and hoover before it gets early dark here!

c u soon

Anneruth

being heartfelt by Liz

At last -today was the day where the long awaited outing to the Heartfelt Studio of Liz Brown in Ayrshire too place. The places had been booked out for weeks, but some last minute changes in the lives of our two new friends Mary (the one who paints pictures with wool since the Portal projects) and Alison (the one with the red hair) meant 2 spare places which quickly got filled with Naomi's little Emma and with Jude, a Galgael friend with already quite some felting experience.

After some getting lost in rural Ayrshire, our 3 cars and 11 folks arrived safely in the Studio in Ochiltree for a most amazing day of 'being heartfelt by Liz'. There is simply no other way of putting it. We were all totally blown over by Liz's great Irish heart, her superb craftsman and teaching skills and scope (how else could do 11 different projects in a studio that usually holds a max of 8 students!), and the absolute unending manifoldness of felt products for sale and on display, one more magical than the other! A true inspiration to each one of us. Best to be seen on our "Galgael folks being hearfelt by Liz" photoalbum

There are also 2 videos capturing some lovely moments of Liz teaching us how to felt ropes and beads - And if you get a chance, visit her website, and sign up for a course or buy some of her beautiful heartfelted goods.

You want to know to was part of the party and what they did?

Anna (from Helensburgh) and Alison (the dark haired, our Portal felter #1), who had missed the beginning of the Portal felting classes caught up with picture felting first, and then learned how to felt flowers for brooches and embellishment.

David (the 10 year old son of Jackie), who has, as it turned out, the perfect felter hands albeit never done it before, started with a picture, too, and then made a seamless vessel., as well as a rope and beads!

Jackie and Laryna made a big bag each.

And Naomi (lucky devil!) got to make a nunofelt scarf on the big table, and her little Emma learned lots more felting as she already knew with making beads and ropes, and als helping the grown ups to full their projects when they got weary. Something also David did - to help the adults with the fulling!

Debbie made a beautiful merino hat, Himalayan style, and Anneruth also laid her hands on making a hat, a rimmed one, but from her own wool, a carded blend of white Wensleydale and the white bits of her fawn Alpaca fleece.

Jude courageously dug her hands into a pair of boots with earth fairy flaps, and Sarah-Jane - well... she got started on her big project: felt-puppets for a story telling project which she is planinng for next year and beyond! She at last had a go a seamless felt (the hand puppet glove) and nunofelting (the puppet dress). She will still have to needlefelt the head at home.

It was such a relief for the nunofelters to be able to make use of Liz's 'Seffa Pinky Bling Bling': the felt rolling machine! Aye, felting is hard work esp on the delicate fabrics which need endless rolling!
We all came away later as planned but also richer as expected in new skills, through doing and watching, new inspirations and new glorious felted things and deepened friendships.

Thank you so much, Liz, for heartfelting us all!

Sgioba Luaidh visiting Galgael

This Friday was a very special day, because at long last Sgioba Luaidh Inbhirchluaidh (The Inverclyde Waulking group) came to put on a show at Galgael. If you have follwoed this blog ehre you will have met them already several times - at the Woolfest in July, and then Frances and Innes at an informal visit. This time they came in full strength - 8 women and Archie. They donned theiur Highland crone costumes and then never got cold in the big cold workshop, waulking the cloth with full throated waulking songs, bringign alive the history of the Isles, singing of feuds and fights (and there was lots in the times when these working songs were sung in very hamlet and town!), and of course, of the joys and sorrows of love and parting.

One hour before lunch and one hour after - it sure was a feast of witnessing the hypnotic spell cast by these vigeourous songs, and now and then also the longing lilt of a spinning song.

The guys (Navigating Life Trainees and trainers) were spellbound, and touched to their bones by something they may have never heard before, but which touched them in their blood with the power of past generations.

Some even dared to have a go at the waulking themselves, and learned soon that the grab&throw handmovements of the cloth are not that easy!

It is best if you see all the pictures on this album:
http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/urban.clansman/SgiobaLuaidhVisitingGalgael#

and better still if you see and hear the 10 wee video clips on the urban.clansman youtube channel

Here is one tiny taster of a beautiful spinning song sung by Frances whilst Innes was spinning and our women were teasing wool:

So, remember to visit

http://uk.youtube.com/urbanclansman & http://uk.youtube.com/user/woolcraftatgalgael

for to see some of the show, and visit also http://www.geocities.com/luadh/, the group's website and learn about their story - and maybe invite them to your group, too. It is great fun and they have many registers they can pull, with their big repertoire and vibrant vigour, as well very modern IT support (very educative and imaginative slideshows!)

We know we want them back - knowing also they loved the madness that is Galgael - and we would like the harp next time (February?), too, and then also (in early summer?) try out the songs in the boats to the beat of the oars, as many of the songs have been sung by men to the rhythm of rowing.

So, lets open the song books of the past,

and thanks be those here who make them last..

the rest of the October month

Happy New Celtic Year!

It is post-Portal time now! Folks dare to draw their breath again in the bothy and trying to get over the fact that it is all over! What next?

Anneruth went on holiday at last, and as the winter approaches she will be coming through less now from the East of the country which leaves the questions: who will be taking pictures and updating the blog then? :-( ?

Lets try the 'once a month blog' then, shall we?

Whilst Laryna and others explored more knitting and spinning in the bothy, Anneruth was in Ford (not far from our Barmaddy, Loch Awe) and got herself a full Baby Alpaca fleece! Meet Breeze

who is now growing his second shearing, and click there to see more of his georgeous family at Isobel Callen's wee Alpaca Farm in the Highlands. The wool fibres are absolutely amazing, soft as down, and taking ages to spin because it is so fine. The plan is to use the secondary shearing parts of the fleece for felting, and the saddle part for spinning and weaving, and maybe knitting too. The fawn colour should lend itself to dyeing, too.

Galgael got given a beautiful fleece from the lady with Hebridean Spinnng wheel: a Shetland-Longwool cross. Sarah-Jane is over the moon as she sorts the fleece (one bag with the best bits for spinning, and one bag with the shorter bits for felting): that was just what she needed for her new projects. Which projects? You wait and see and let her tell you herself!

Verene meanwhile is at long last having a go at weaving, and she takes to it like a duck to water! She has learned the basics (of tension and all that) in an hour, and is now experimenting with colours for a ... hm? little bag?

And Sarah-Jane is discovering the art of sculptural needle-felting. Here is her first project: from a round ball to a fairy head.

The last day of October saw a wee Galgael community event: Allhallows eve celebration.

It was also of course that time of the year again where we remember Colin's passing, now already 3 years ago (see http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/colin.htm) and it is the end and the beginning of the Celtic Year.

We gathered to carve turnip lights and weave god's eyes, to bring the Orcuan home, to bake bread and share a meal and give thanks - with Gehan giving eagle feathers...

If you want to see pictures of all that go to http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/urban.clansman/AllhallowsEve2008#

For more of our woolcraftatgalgael pictures and the stories they tell, visit

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/woolcraft.atgalgael/OurOctoberPictures#



Happy New Celtic Year!