Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Needle Felting Flowers

Our meeting on the 22nd of November featured Esther Grav leading us in needle felting flowers.
We had a great time getting out any frustrations by punching and punching and punching the needles through the fibre.
Not one needle was punched through a finger !
We missed Nancy and Karen who were kept away by the foggy night.



Joy, Esther, Shirley and Jane



Jane and Vickie concentrating.




Janice and Kim




Here we are holding up our creations.




Our fabulous felted flowers.




Friday, November 19, 2010

Guild Outing was Lots of Fun !

On the 13th of November, a number of us set out from Cobourg for an adventure.
Joy, Janice, Jane, Kim and Mara piled into Kim's car and headed for Nancy's farm - Spinning Wheel Alpacas. We were joined there by Karen.
On arrival, Nancy gave us a tour of the farm and introduced us to her animals. We met not only the alpacas, but also her rescue chickens, a rescue pig and her dogs. We were all impressed by by the farm and Nancy's energy.
After the farm tour, we gathered in Nancy's store, drank hot cider and shopped.




Nancy, Kim, Joy, Karen, Janice and Jane in front of the store.


Exhausted by the shopping, we headed for White Feather Farms Country Store and a bit of lunch. The picture is a bit blurry - Kim must have been more exhausted than the rest of us.


After a great lunch, we wandered through this amazing store that sells everything from soup to nuts to clothes to linens to..................................? Again we shopped.
Then it was on to Myrtle Station and Ferguson's Wool Shop. Another amazing place. Tiny, but crammed full of every type of yarn you could think of. Guess what? - we shopped again.

After such a tiring day (shopping can be exhausting!), we headed home by way of the backroads. We did have to stop and re-energize with ice cream cones in Enniskilen in order to make it home.
All of us had a great time sharing this experience.


Wednesday, October 27, 2010

October Meeting

At our October meeting, we were so pleased to welcome back two former guild members - Vickie and Jane. The larger our "family" the more we can share and learn and experience.

Cindy showed us the batts she had carded from alpaca roving and colourful wool. After we all oohed and aahed, she promised to lead us in colour carding and blending at a meeting in the spring.
Karen shared the experience of spinning hair from her newly acquired cows. No oohs and aahs, but quite a few giggles.
Vickie had brought a sample of the yarn she had spun from her own dog's hair, blended with wool.


Yvonne, Vickie and Shirley - serious discussions
Cindy and Kim - serious spinning happening.



After a bit of business discussion and update on future programmes by Mara, we went on to discuss our fleece study project.

Baggies of fleece waiting to be studied.

Mara had made up a worksheet, where details of the preparation and spinning of the samples could be recorded. We reviewed the various scouring, preparation, spinning and finishing techniques that could be used as we studied the many sheep breeds that we had in the baggies.
The meeting ended with members enthusiastically taking baggies of fleece home to "try them out".

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

First meeting of the 2010 - 2011 season

We had our first meeting of the season last night and were pleased to welcome two new members to our flock - Joy and Margaret.

First was the business part - a very productive session where we "elected" a programme committee and discussed the interests, needs and wants for the programmes for the coming year.
We also discussed guild challenges for the season. These include the creation of a "breeds book" containing samples of many different breeds of sheep fleeces to be used as a reference in the guild library. We also hope to have a guild display for the OHS Conference, happening in Woodstock, Ontario in May of 2011. The theme for the display is "Flower Power".

Then came the fun part - mini challenges at our wheels.

We first tried to spin wearing latex gloves. That wasn't much of a challenge - except for Yvonne who caught the tips of her gloves in the fibre and spun them into her yarn. Hoots of laughter from everyone else.

Yvonne trying to keep the latex out of the yarn
Nancy and Margaret concentrating.
We then tried spinning blindfolded. This proved to be more of a challenge and everyone gave up before the allotted 5 minutes were up.

Joy and Shirley

Cindy

Nancy (the alpaca lady) gave us all a laugh by stating that this was the only way she enjoyed spinning wool - not seeing what she was spinning.





Monday, September 20, 2010

More on the Port Hope Fair

The display of corn fibre and articles made from both handspun and commercial corn (ingeo)yarn.


Well, our display and demonstration at the Fair this weekend was a success! Many people came to see it and learned about all of the plant fibres that are out there now.



Mara, spinning flax. It was a bit surprising that many of our visitors did not associate flax with linen.

Next year's Port Hope Fair theme will be a celebration of the 180th anniversary of the Fair. We have to start thinking about our display for that. 180 skeins? 180 different fibres?







Sunday, September 19, 2010

Port Hope Fair 2010

Wendy and Yvonne after our set-up at the Fair. The quilts in the background are not ours.



" Odd" fibres on display.


There's been a long gap in our postings, but we are still here and active.


We are participating again in the Port Hope Fair. This year our display and demonstration is together with the Northumberland Hooks and Needles guild.


Since the Fair theme this year is "Corn is King", members of both guilds decided to spin and knit/crochet articles made of only vegetable fibres, including corn. Also on display are such oddities as as a scarf made of banana fibre, a candle decoration knit from nettle yarn and pineapple fibre.