A Celebration Of Wool

UPDATE, THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.

Just to let you know of my next Event at Quarr Abbey.
I'm very excited to be taking part in this new event and it will be so nice to be exhibiting at Quarr in early Spring time for a change.
If you are on the Island we hope to see you there.

Meanwhile we will be busy in our home studio making new items to sell through our online shops

Coat Jacket - Hand Woven On My Saori Loom

Making the cloth

Here you can see the warp and weft of the cloth on the loom as I weave the colours and textures together.

Woven cloth rolled on the beam.

Newly woven cloth cut straight from the loom and laid out. Can  you see the small slits in the fabric at intervals through the right hand side of the cloth. These are where I wove the collar shapings as I created the weaving. It means that there is less cutting to do when I sew the jacket together so giving me a neater finish. 

Cutting and Washing the Cloth

I always have to take a deep breathe here. Double check, measure twice, cut once.

Then all the pieces are washed to Full the Fabric and hung out to dry on a lovely sunny day.

SEWING A GARMENT

 A little bit of sewing and the Jacket all comes together!
I hand knitted the drop sleeves, the collar and front trim.

THIS JACKET WAS HAND WOVEN AND INCLUDES HANDPAINTED AND NATURALLY DYED YARN WITH SOME HANDSPUN SLUBS IN THE CLOTH.

IT HAS HAND KNITTED SLEEVES AND FRONT TRIM.

WOVEN IN THE SAORI WAY, BEAUTIFULLY SLOW CLOTH.

Year End, Year Begin

Here we are at the end of the year.
 Thank you to all for dipping into our blog, we hope you enjoy the posts and to all our customers for your support and purchases whether at our exhibitions or online shops.

Wishing everyone a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful 2019,

Mid Summer Splash of Colour

 Well it's Mid Summer's Day today- the longest day of the year and it is promising to be such a lovely bright, sunny day too! I have lots to do, time to get outdoors to work and enjoy the weather. Taking my inspiration from the beach and our garden where everywhere is vibrant, colourful and full of energy.
 

 I have a Shetland fleece to work on. I shall get it carded and then hand spin some, as well as grab my dye colours to make some unique yarn.

 The rambling roses on our old cherry tree stump have mixed themselves up in a pleasing jumble of pale pinks and magenta, add in the shades of fresh green and a summer blue sky- a feast for the eyes! giving me a template colourway for weaving some cloth.
   

 Deep purple with red is bold and looks great in a hand knitted accessory. Remembering green  (as in Nature) balances the combination.

 Soft greens and whites makes for a soothing colour palette, great for knitted and woven homeware.

 Natural tones with highlights of neutral shades are perfect to use when wanting to pay attention to detail and textural structuring.

Using photos is a great way to quickly note, collect and capture an idea for a project.

Organization And Tips

 In my workroom I have my yarns, wools and materials stored on shelves that go around the top of the room rather like beach hut shelving. I love to be able to see all the colours and find it much easier to select items for a project whether it be weaving or hand knitting with this system. It also frees up floor space for my looms and spinning wheel, allowing room to work.

However things do get untidy especially when I'm working on several projects! so it is good to get organized and have a good sort out. I now have all my cones in one area rather than stored by colour. I have my handspun and hand dyed yarn ready to use for my next project in wicker and hessian baskets. I always have dried lavender sprigs from my garden and homemade lavender sachets to keep my wools naturally stored and fresh.

 My commercial yarns surround the room with a net of colourful and textural oddments for Saori weaving ready to grab and mix.

 This is a view of the heddles on my Saori Weaving Loom Ready to start to warp up once more.

A couple of tips I would like to share with you;
 Tip One
 twist the little wire ties that you get with sandwich bags in place at every 10th heddle. I find it makes it so easy to count the number of heddles needed for a weaving this way, it works so much better than pieces of yarn or cotton for markers as they don't get tangled and you can hold the "wire twist" and slide the heddle along the shaft with ease.

 Tip Two
I use large headed pins when sewing my hand woven and hand knitted items. They are easy to see in the cloth and are larger than normal sewing pins.

 I write how many pins I have before I start sewing on the underneath side of the pin cushion.

That way I know exactly how many pins I have used and when sewing some of my textural cloth it makes sure I haven't accidentally sewn in a pin or two!

Inspiring Colours

 There is plenty of colour inspiration at the Kaffe Fassett Exhibition currently running at

https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/mottisfont/features/christmas-at-mottisfont

It was lovely to visit and absorb all these wonderful colours on a winter's day.

This year I have been immersing myself in colour whether it be "naturally dyeing yarns" from my own garden plants or using prepared dye pots, it has been really good fun and the more I learn about the process the more I want to increase that knowledge.

And so back to my own Exhibition "Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey" It was another lovely week, the weather was sunny, crisp and very cold which was great for my sales! Hats, Hand Warmers and Scarves were my top sellers this year with some customers requesting " no need to wrap them I'll wear them now" which was very pleasing.  

Now we are in December already and the year has flown by. I think of all the places we have visited this year, the beautiful gardens and rivers and landscapes on the mainland in Devon, Herefordshire and Wales. Historical Castles, Houses, cities and towns all with little details that inspire- giving food for thought and of course our very own little Isle Of Wight's Downs and Beaches especially on a clear sunny day with the sea and sky so blue and the land so green. I have taken so many photos this year and gathered oodles of  inspirational ideas.

 I try to choose yarns and textures in my hand knitting and hand weaving to give a natural ease and simplicity to my work- following Nature's lead.

 Below photo shows some Hand Painted Rolags in the steamer.
These will be Handspun into soft gentle colourways.

 Here are some rolled up Hand Woven Light Weight Fashion Scarves

 The photo above I will use to plan a new design.
The photo below is of a length of cloth woven on my Saori Loom.

Looking forward to 2018

It will be the start of my 8th year writing my blog and I feel it is time for a bit of an update and re-design. I will be trying out a new layout and want to bring you more Casting on and Casting off Adventures on Wool and Water.

I hope you will pop back soon.

Wishing you all a Very Happy and Peaceful Christmas and New Year.

Small Projects and Preparation Work

 To start with, I want to show you three little pouches, two handwoven Saori style and one hand knitted. Small projects in colour and design in a mix of wools, silks and handspun detailing.
An enjoyable task while larger activities are on the go.
 

I have been washing fleece and spinning plenty of skeins in preparation for some Natural Dyeing.

I lit my new Fire Pit.  

So as I could Mordant all the wools ready for my Dyeing of the colours.

It was so much fun being out in the garden slowly working through all the collection of fleece and skeins I had produced over the weeks.

I used Alum for the mordant.

Another small project I'm working on is Hand Painting Silk Hankies. I have chosen colours inspired from the garden. The silk will be handspun on its own as I want it to be delicate and light, so as I can add it to my Saori weaving. 

Meanwhile, in the garden I have gathered my woad seeds from last year's crop (to store for next season) and look how well this year's woad plants are doing!

So preparation work is done, now ready to start Dyeing some yarn.

A festival of colour to come!

Won The Double!

 May Time is when our WSD Guild have their annual competition. I entered two categories this year.

I'm so pleased and chuffed as I retained the "Marleen Upton Cup" for my Weaving!
and came joint 1st in The Novice Cup for my Art Yarn
 

My Saori Handwoven Asymmetric Light Weight Tunic

(Weaving Cup)

 My Art Yarn was hand spun using the hand painted fleece and tops I blogged about in April.
( The Novice Cup- new skill learnt)

Shetland fleece with Merino tops,

Hand washed, Hand carded,

Hand painted with Landscape dyes,

Hand spun coiled with a base 4ply yarn,

Producing a novelty thick and thin yarn with Slubs.

I loved making my own art yarn from scratch and I'm really looking forward to using it in my weaving and knitting designs. 

Hand Painted - Fleece and Yarn

 On a sunny spring day it was good to get out into the garden and produce some colourful
Hand painting fleece and yarn.

 I used Landscape Dyes Sample Kits- Desert and Mountain.

First I put my skeins and fleece in some warm soapy water to soak, while I prepared small pots of dye to paint with.

 Adding hot water to the dye is all that is needed as each pot is "a simple one pot dye system"

 The fun bit is just being creative!
I used the dyes to paint my yarn, letting the colours bleed into each other, over colouring and mixing to give me subtle toned shades.

 I love the gentle soft tones of these dyes when they are used in this way.

 To set the colour the hand spun skeins and carded fleece are cooked in the steamer for 40 minutes.

 Then allowed to cool for a short time before being rinsed in clean water and left in the sunshine to dry.

I'm so pleased with the colours. I shall spin the fleece into Art Yarn and the skeins I'll add to my stash  to await either a knitting or weaving project.