More for 2024

Weaving Cloth 

Hello, Welcome back to our blog. We are all fired up and ready to get stuck into lots of projects for 2024. 

I hope you will find items of interest and inspiration here on our blog as well as over on the

 Woollen Tree You Tube channel.

We have enjoyed the Christmas/New Year break. It has been lovely to ease up a little after such a busy 2023. Time with family and friends, time to re energize. I have spent January playing and experimenting in the studio, doing a bit of sewing and busy weaving cloth for myself and the home.

Pete has been busy building better storage in his own workshop as well as in my studio.

Sample Weave

Techniques on a Rigid Heddle Loom

We are back to it now and all set for more in 2024

Weaving, spinning, knitting, wood turning, dyeing and running workshops and open days.

Our garden is showing signs of Spring and we can't wait to get started on the growing year.

Our dear Hillside Cottage has had a fresh coat of exterior paint and looks beautiful and happy.

Heritage White.

So we do hope you will join us for 2024. We will be stocking the online shops over the coming weeks and opening up dates for workshops again.

Our  blog for 2024 will feature our country lifestyle, growing the garden and designing our home, along with sharing our love and joy of working in our chosen crafts in wood and wool.

We love our cottage life here, it isn't always rosy, things can be challenging as with everyone's lives.

Our workload is full of plumbing, fixing things up. The cottage needs attention and we are slowly doing up the place. 

We have a good garden and we are working to be as self sufficient in fruit/veg as possible. 

It is very special here, we have magnificent views, wonderful hills and woodlands surround us, a land steeped in history and dark skies at night filled with stars.

Hillside is home and it is magical. 

  

 

Twenty Twenty Three

 

Good Health Cheers

Well here we are already! The year is drawing to a close. Once again the year seems to have whizzed by.

All the good intentions of keeping up to date with this blog, so much I could have written, perhaps I will do better next year ;)

We hope our Woollen Tree YouTube along with other online sites have been of interest. Thank you for your continued support. 

We endeavour to bring you a little insight into our lives at Hillside Cottage, deep in the North Herefordshire countryside and love to show you our makes in our studios.  

2023 saw us

Building and fixing;  

Hillside Cottage has been having lots of renovations.

New heating system, external repairing and painting.

A brand new Creative Cabin studio in the garden.

Growing;

Garden harvest, bumper crops of fruit/veg

all pickled or made into chutney, jams and frozen.

Crafting for;

 Weaving workshops

Art Open Studios

Craft shows

Being inspired to continue; 

Weaving, wood turning

Spinning and dyeing

Handwoven cloth

Woollen Tree has found a good place to grow, its roots are deep in this beautiful place now. We are constantly inspired by the wonderful countryside around us.

I revel in all of Nature's amazing colours and try to produce handwoven cloth that reflects this. I have been growing plants and using them for natural dyeing in our garden.

Pete is enjoying sourcing local wood for his wood turnery. I will definitely be filming a bit more in his workshop so as you can see how the beautiful pieces are made.

Lots of plans for 2024 but for now, we have closed the Etsy and Folksy shops for the Christmas holidays and look forward to some family time. We will open again in January 2024

We wish you a very Happy Christmas time and a healthy and Peaceful the New Year.

 

A Day at Wonderwool Wales

 Now we live less than one hour's drive away from this venue it was great to visit Wonderwool Wales.

So much to see and buy! 

 I really enjoyed seeing the weaving that the students from the Carmarthen School of Art had been working on.

Jacob sheep and lambs were so friendly and seemed to be loving their day out too!

I came home with my little stash of goodies. Three extra large skeins of variegated dyed wools, a very big bag of coloured tops for blending and spinning. A soft lilac organic cotton spool to add to my weaving stock colours and a collection of paper patterns as I intend to start making my handwoven cloth into garments. 

That should keep me busy for a little while.

 

New Home, New Studios for Woollen Tree

GARDEN STUDIO

Well the reason there was no blogpost for September is -

We have moved house!

After many happy years on the Isle of Wight, we have found a delightful cottage in Herefordshire to make our new home. so much to do, so many plans.

We are so thrilled and excited.

We have a much bigger garden, so I will be able to grow more veg as well as plant a weaver's dye garden.

We both will be setting up our Woollen Tree studios. 

Mine for weaving. spinning and dyeing, Peter for his wood turning. 

  

GARDEN STUDIO

I shall have the garden studio to start and plan to build another studio alongside so as I can run my workshops all year around.

THE BARN STUDIO

Peter will be setting up in here. We shall post updates on our fitting out and setting up our creative spaces.

Pleased to have gorgeous views of hills and woodland all around and a flock of sheep in the field next to us!

The village has made us so welcome, we just know we have found our forever home.

There are lots we want to do with the cottage too, to make it eco friendly such as solar panels etc.

I think we will have plenty to share with you in our blog as we start this new adventure.

Meanwhile we continue to unpack boxes and settle into our new home. We have opened up our online shops after a short break and will be loading more stock for the new winter festive season ahead.

 

Project: Winged Bowl in Ash

A while ago I was given several pieces of newly cut Ash, I have been leaving them to dry out a bit while I considered what to make.

This particular piece of wood had developed a large longitudinal crack, conveniently pretty much along the centre, so it only took a few hits with a splitter to cleave it in half, with one half having a branch spur about midway:

Figs 1 & 2: The blank piece of Ash after the ends had been cut to length on the band saw

I wanted to incorporate this branch spur into the piece I would make, so I decided on this being used for the base of a bowl and to incorporate a winged feature.

 

Fig 3: Rough sketch of what I initially planned

So, after marking out where I wanted the centre of the bowl to be, I drilled a hole to suit my screw chuck. Once I screwed the piece of wood on to the chuck, I brought up the tailstock for additional support. 

fig 1,2

                                                       

                                             fig 3

Fig 4: Mounted on the Lathe

With the lathe running at a slow speed (for safety and to reduce vibration due to the out of balance) I started to shape the underside of the bowl and the wings, and to start making a tenon to suit my 50mm jaws

Figs 5, 6, 7 & 8: Refining the underside

When turning the wings a great deal of care is needed. The gouge is “cutting” in mid air most of the time, so knowing where the tip of your gouge is is really important if you want to stay safe. It is also important to check the position of your tool rest and keep your hands on the “Safe side” (fortunately you get a feel for all of this as you progress, but returning to the piece after a coffee break it takes a moment for this “feel” of where the edges are to return).

A few cracks started to appear in one of the wings, but CA glue was applied to prevent this causing a problem.

Once the underside was finished, it was sanded down to 320 grit; this had to be done with the lathe turned off due to the inherent dangers. A coat of sanding sealer was applied, then the piece was removed from the screw chuck.

 

                                                       fig 4

                                                         

fig 5,6,7,8

Fig 9: Underside Finished

The piece was reversed, then remounted on the lathe using the tenon on the foot, ready for the upper side to be turned. Again, the tailstock was used to provide additional support for the initial cuts.

 

Fig 10: Mounted using the Tenon

The upper surface of the wings were worked on first, as these will become less stable as material is removed towards the centre, then the bowl area was refined

Figs 11, 12, 13 & 14: Refining the upper surface

Initially my plan was to have the bowl rim sweep up from the winged section, as seen in Figs 13 &  14; this meant in order to keep the inner bowl curve in proportion, it didn’t extend down that far down towards the foot, meaning that the piece was very heavy.

So the plan was revised, and the raised bowl rim was removed, allowing for the wider/ deeper bowl to be turned.

  

Figs 15, 16 & 17: Revised upper profile and bowl

With the upper surface refined and completed the piece was sanded to 320 grit, and sealed. Then it was removed from the lathe. A scrap piece of wood was mounted in the chuck, which along with the tailstock was used to secure the bowl to enable the tenon to be turned away from the foot.

You’ll notice the bark has been left on the piece, and to help strengthen this and to brighten it up it was coated in CA glue.

To complete the piece, it was polished with carnauba wax.

Given that the Ash is still quite “green” ie it still contains some moisture, it is hope as it continues to dry, the thinner wing sections over time may warp, and this we hope will result in an interesting shape. 

Below is the finished Winged Bowl, it measures 345mm long and the internal bowl is 110mm diameter:

 

 

Figs 18, 19, 20 & 21 : Finished Winged Bowl

 

Spinning Wheel Repair

It is great that Skipper is a Wood Turner.

I have been running some "Learn to Spin" workshops and this Ashford Spinning Wheel belongs to one of my clients, she bought it along to learn on but it required some repairs, so a little visit to  "WrightTurned" workshop was needed.

As you can see in the photo, where the treadle connects to the main leg of the wheel the wood had  become chewed up allowing the treadle pin to keep falling out, it was held in place with some cord.

First the hole was drilled out to make a clean purchase for a new piece of wood. The new wooden plug was hand turned on the lathe.

Shaped to give a perfect snug fit and hold firm. Then cut to size and rubbed down.

This is called a visible repair. It has strengthened the working part, is functional and looks in keeping with this lovely old wheel. 

The wheel was then given a service, buffed, oiled, fitted with a new double band and was all set to keep spinning for many years to come. As you can see it spins a treat!

Upcoming Events

Our annual Christmas Crafts at Quarr Abbey Event will be

 on Thursday 22nd to Tuesday 27th November. Open daily 10.30am to 4.00pm.

Hope to see you there!

AND

This year for those of you not on the Isle of Wight we are also offering some special prices on selected items in our Etsy shop in "Cyber week on Etsy" from 20th to 26th November.

Just click on our link to our Woollen Tree shop.