Holiday Greetings and 2017 in Review

Well I had the best of intentions to send holiday greetings to all my friends, followers and email recipients but we spent several days in Auckland and though I'd loaded pictures before leaving home the reception was so slow I gave up.  Hope you all had a great celebration.

The last 4 days before departing home were spent birthing creating "Flower".  This is an old Simplicity pattern that I had when my daughter was little so not new.  I'm still amazed that I had all the bits bar stuffing to make her, even the hat wire for the wings and the bells for the shoes.  The only change I made was to attach the wings by domes so she can hang them up when she goes to bed.

And so to the year 2017 in review.  January started with some spinning, unusual for me.  I plied this with a 60/2 bottle green mercerised cotton but it still hasn't told me what it wants to be.

February was mostly spent on a commission for a wall hanging "Wave".

All up I wove 32 blankets this year.  First up Kereru.

In March I got back on the dobby loom and wove this gorgeous cotton wrap titled "Spoon Drift" which is the description of the bubbles left when a wave breaks.

"Kakabeak" came off the same warp

and then "Kowhai" which I'm proud to say won the Complex Weavers' Award at Creative Fibre Festival.  This time I used changes in the tie up to change the amount of weft showing on one face of the wrap blending from navy to yellow in a 4 colour double weave.

Also this month I put my dress maker hat on and sewed "Dragon's Breath" from fabric handwoven the previous year.  This was shown in the Fashion Parade at the same Festival.  Later in the year (September) the same outfit was entered in the Bay of Plenty Area Exhibition and I'm very proud to have received Best in Show award.

Throughout the year my Nitschke 8 shaft loom is constantly producing blankets, this time Moerangi - Sleepy Skies.

In May we had a wonderful time on holiday to Melbourne, Australia and areas around.

June was time to work on a series of scarves for Pauanesia reflecting New Zealand native birds.  In this pile from the top Kokako, Tui, Kakapo, Kiwi.  Also did Kotuku. Black Robin, Pukeko.

In July, while taking a break from blankets, I had a play with deflected double weave.  Would like to have time to go back to play with this structure more.

Also used some stash velour and wove a tabby scarf, first time successfully using this fibre.

In August I had a play with shibori scarves

and Paua blankets.

As I mentioned above September was exhibition time and I thought this 4 colour double weave runner a worthy candidate and was delighted to receive the Barbara Wilson Trophy for best woven article.

I called this piece Ravenna as I had just threaded the loom and Peter called me to his computer and said what do you think shall we visit - it was mosaic tiles in a building in Ravenna and reminded me so much of what was on the loom.  (Many hours of planning but trip booked for later this year.)

Also finished this commission for daughter in law and grand daughter just as the weather warmed up.

October was blanket month, this one Kaimai

and Kotare.

November I tied more warps on to the Ravenna one and worked on runners and placemats.

We finish the year with Pohutukawa blankets

and luxurious possum, merino, silk and cashmere loop scarves.

And so the year ended with what seemed like three Christmas events and my son's 40th birthday (how did that sneak up on me) in the middle of them and now my two delightful grand children are staying for 5 nights.  I'm typing this while I listen to them going to sleep.  This will be the second night and I'm exhausted already.  Doesn't happen often so I better get my own shuteye so I can keep up tomorrow.

Wishing everyone wonderful adventures in 2018.

Merino spinning

When I'm on duty at the Cargo Shed I have to have something to do so am taking the opportunity to break into some of my sliver stash.  This is

merino sliver from Treetops of  Perth, Western Australia.  

I split the sliver lengthwise then loosened the fibres by pulling lengthwise.  They were too sticky to start with to use a diz. Spinning was a joy.  I was hoping I could get matching areas of colour.  It isn't too bad, just small areas of bean poling.

The yarn is not the best spinning by a long shot but oh so squishy and soft.  (Click to enlarge.)

I got home from the Shed in time to see a cruise ship passing Tuhua.  I couldn't help yelling out to the passengers - water choppy is it, breeze a bit chilly is it, feeling the chill are you, should have bought a shawl when you had the chance.  (I know, I'm mad.)

Wild Berry Wrap

One of my entries in the Creative Fibre National Exhibition.  Its handspun corriedale sliver from the Little Wool Company, one ply is variegated and the other a plain claret colour.  The pattern is Thao Shawl by Melinda VerMeer downloaded free from www.happyknits.com   I used 4 mm needles and just love the garter stitch combined with lace.  This is the first time I've used wires to block knitting and I'm sold, though I think its probably not a good idea to continue using the wires from my knitting machine combs.  Next challenge is to make up my own pattern.

Random projects

Handspun from Little Wool Company (Anna Gratton) corriedale sliver.  One sliver multi shades and the other plain bordeaux.

Greek key, my first attempt at double weave pick up, which I really enjoyed.  But shock horror, can you see where the dye ran into the white.  Is there any way to remove the run of dye?  The rust thread is a guide to rap it straight around a canvas block.  I will have another go at this as I like the clean lines.

The blotchy variegated fabric using space dyed warps, one dark and the other an echo of it.  Woven echo weave, 28 epi, 560 threads, wove almost 5 metres giving me approximately 4.5 metres of cloth.  I'll have to do some fancy cutting out to obscure the band that stands out as being different (shame it wasn't on the outside edge).  The cotton tags are my half metre marks as I weave which I find less muddly than using string or a tape measure which I always seem to get tangled in and pull on.  I cut the tags before I start weaving and as they're used I know how many metres are woven and how many to go.  The tags also give me an idea of take up and shrinkage after fulling, in this case shrinkage was 4 cm per 50 cm, and a pause to stretch my back.