Handweavers, spinners and dyers guild of tasmania birthday

Life member gather to cut the cake for the Guilds birthday.

Maureen with one of her lovely indigo dyed scarves, and a basket full of her wonderful dyed handspun.

Our vice president Di whipping up a bit of weaving.

following the art trail

there has been a three day art trail here in the channel. So I have spent two days heading up small country roads in search of art studios. It was a great chance to explore roads I would never have driven up before and an even better chance to see artists at work in their studios. I love to listen to artists talk about their work and what inspires them, and to droole over their wonderful studios. One of the stops was for the quilting exhibitions which just happened to be across the road from this wonderful shop.

Nearby we visited a wonderful gentleman, Joe Ottevanger. He is printmaker, using lino cuts. What an inspiration to talk to and listen to his wealth of knowledge.

Then on Saturday we headed out as a family and started off at Simon Pankhurst's studio.. He has a truely amazing blacksmiths forge. My boys though this was really exciting and #2 child was already coming up with ideas and sharing them with Simon. Simon was a delight to listen to and so generously shared his ideas and thoughts with us. Some of his work is below. He had wonderful seats, benches, bookshelves and even a spectacular wood basket. What a treat for the senses, and the ears when he fired up the metal. And I have to mention the beautiful gardens.

Never Not Knitting Theme Song

tour de fleece days 1 to 4

As the bike race started in France, so did the tour de fleece. The spinners version of peddling like crazy for the same number of days as th professionals do. This yaers challenge for me was to make my way through some of my merino cross (milo) who has a lovely black/brown fleece and blend it with some Yak down I have bought. The Yak down is so light and soft but incredibly short so not the easiest fiber to spin.I tried carding them together on the drum carder, but that did not work as the Yak just got stuck on the licker. Then I tried hand carding, then I tried making tight punis , as if I was spinning cotton. This seems to be the most successful so far but I am still struggling to get the two fubers to blend evenly. But I am up for the challenge so I will let you know how I get on.

spinning newspaper

It all started with spinning some newspaper. I found this very relaxing and loved the way the colours started to come out in the spinning. I started with a nice looking single but decided to ply these as I wanted to knit the end product. And I was very happy with the entire process. This piece was inspired by my love of words and how they comfort me. How I would like to just wrap myself up in them.

spinning paper 2

I have been spinning more types of paper lately. I had a go at toilet paper. This was easier to spin that it was to knit. It tended to want to break easily if I was not very gentle while spinning.

spinning with paper

Lately I have been exploring spinning with paper. I started off with some newspaper then I tried some washi (japanese paper), then some fish and chip paper and finally some toilet paper. I had a lot of fun playing around with new materials to spin. These are photos of the washi (japanese paper) I spun up and then plyed with kimono thread. I was inspired by the idea of Japans culture of softness (washi) intertwined with its strong cultural heitage(kimono thread) all of this woven into the shifting and unpredictable natural landscape that makes up this country.