Whew five days of fibre heaven. Five days when people didn't roll their eyes at the mention of twill or epi or 'look at this fabric'. Five days of fibre conversation, learning, exploring.
I've often been green, envious green, of fibre get togethers like Convergence, Complex Weavers, Stitches, Vogue Knitting but this would have been a close tie. We stayed at Raincliff Youth Camp and Conference Centre about 20 minutes inland from Geraldine. The food was superb, too much even, but too tastie to turn down. Now the waist bands are a bit tight!
This time, rather than getting speakers in, we had discussion groups among ourselves like "exploring weave structures" and "what threads are available on the NZ market". One evening Brian Molyneaux a NZ fashion designer originally from Britain, spoke to us on, what else, designing fashion. He brought a rack of garments which were wonderful to see from original sketched idea to completion. If he had one thing to offer it was - study fashion books. We spend so much time in the preparation of our product; spinning yarn, dyeing, weaving it then miss the gift of the last process and create "an old grey woollie". Well some do. Brian has selected at several Creative Fibre events so he would have seen the end result.
We spent one day in Geraldine visiting
Maggie Sewell's alpaca farm. These girls are so cute, pretending not to give a bother that twenty women are watching through the fence at them but aware of every movement. Then they starting spitting at each other, just a bit, then ...
and I can't remember if it was this one or not but one turned around back on, lifted its tail and passed wind. I'll swear it was deliberate. Don't you like the white whiskers on the black one. A bit of damage to the plastic here, alpaca/silk, hmmm can't resist. After lunch a visit to a lace museum was fascinating.
One day we had a session on using our camera and photographing fabric. Who would have known, you can take it out of AUTO. Just kidding, I knew but never did! Here we are Tony ...
into landscape and I changed the exposure though probably not enough. Taken through a dirty plane window the hills between Wellington and Manawatu. Anyway the shadows remind me of shibori. I didn't get to see the spectacular mountains of the central plateau, they must have been on the other side of the plane.
Having spent a lot of time at Seminar on book work attending my duties as secretary/treasurer (re-elected), I couldn't face more books when I got home so wove a blanket before settling in and getting things sorted. Nearly up to date so took a few hours off after going to town for the banking to visit a friend at Whiritoa beach and look what she'd been up to before I arrived.
I'll have to go back to see what she does with these glorious colours.
I can't let this day pass without saying its the first day of autumn, 30 degrees C and I had my fourth swim of the season and that's double the usual average.
I've often been green, envious green, of fibre get togethers like Convergence, Complex Weavers, Stitches, Vogue Knitting but this would have been a close tie. We stayed at Raincliff Youth Camp and Conference Centre about 20 minutes inland from Geraldine. The food was superb, too much even, but too tastie to turn down. Now the waist bands are a bit tight!
This time, rather than getting speakers in, we had discussion groups among ourselves like "exploring weave structures" and "what threads are available on the NZ market". One evening Brian Molyneaux a NZ fashion designer originally from Britain, spoke to us on, what else, designing fashion. He brought a rack of garments which were wonderful to see from original sketched idea to completion. If he had one thing to offer it was - study fashion books. We spend so much time in the preparation of our product; spinning yarn, dyeing, weaving it then miss the gift of the last process and create "an old grey woollie". Well some do. Brian has selected at several Creative Fibre events so he would have seen the end result.
We spent one day in Geraldine visiting
One day we had a session on using our camera and photographing fabric. Who would have known, you can take it out of AUTO. Just kidding, I knew but never did! Here we are Tony ...
Having spent a lot of time at Seminar on book work attending my duties as secretary/treasurer (re-elected), I couldn't face more books when I got home so wove a blanket before settling in and getting things sorted. Nearly up to date so took a few hours off after going to town for the banking to visit a friend at Whiritoa beach and look what she'd been up to before I arrived.
I can't let this day pass without saying its the first day of autumn, 30 degrees C and I had my fourth swim of the season and that's double the usual average.
Glad to read you had a nice meeting :-)
ReplyDeleteCheers
Alicja