Autumn Sale

Saturday (March 21st, 10am-3pm) is the next 9"x5" QMM market and I'm going to have a GIANT sale. 20% off everything.





There are several reasons for this and I'm actually quite excited. This is all part of the ongoing research into the how to run my business successfully.



Here are the reasons I have for having a sale.



1. To move enough items that replacing them will freshen up my range of products. There are some things that are seen and admired at most markets, someone will want them!

2. To see if the price difference makes an impact on sales. I don't want to reduce prices as they represent a fair price, but a sale can test the waters.

3. To see if just having a sale makes any difference to sales. I'm not sure how I'll tell the difference between 2 and 3, but we'll see.

So, if you're around Ivanhoe on Saturday, come and visit us. Maybe you'll pick up a bargain.

Heide Museum of Modern Art

One of the great things about going to Heide is that you can just wander around the gardens admiring the sculpture, the gardens and the natural bush along the river.

There were some new sculptures to wonder at, puzzle about and admire. And old friends to remember and photograph again.

As usual it was nature that stole the day. From the very small to the trees with treasures for us.

The trees have their own eyes!

CD Spindles

Last Saturday at Experimental Spinning, we played around a bit more with drop spindling. One of the ideas was to make our own.

Spin-off magazine and a quick search on the net revealed an array of different 'home-made' drop spindles. CD spindles had already been mentioned and these proved both popular and successful.

Once we found that the grommets mentioned were wiring grommets (thanks to ztwist for her intrepid research) and were easily available at my local hardware (Danahers, Mitre 10) it was a quick and easy job to construct the CD.

Here are the ingredients: 1 or 2 CDs, depending on the weight you might like, a 1/2 inch wiring grommet, a 10mm, 12in long piece of dowel and a cup hook.

They were very quickly put together:

1. Grommet inserted into CD

2. Dowel inserted into CD

3. Cup hook could be screwed in by hand, as the dowel wood was soft.

This could be prettied up with all sorts of colour or whittling or anything that takes your fancy...I haven't even sanded mine yet!

The great surprise is that it spins very well. It's an ideal vehicle for teaching and I'll be getting my beginning spinning students to make one in their last class and we'll practice.

Thanks to moorecat for the 'Park and Draft' method of teaching spinning, as it was quite successful. This allows you to spin in two separate actions:

1. Hold on to a close spot on your fibre, give a spin and build up the twist.

2. Park the drop spindle between your knees and then draft out the fibre.

3. Wind on and repeat.

Eventually, it is very easy to combine the two actions and become continuous.

References: Spin-off, Spring 1999

Eyes to crochet

One of the themes for my entry for the sculpture award is eyes. So I need to make eyes to attach to my totem poles. I plan to sit on the train making these. I am lucky that by the time I get on a train there is plenty of space, but I am hoping to freak some people out, crocheting eyes.

These are my attempts last night to get a size that fits. The last with the big pupil seems to be the most realistic, so that's where I'm going to start. Should be fun.

As an aside, I am wondering what the etiquette is for replying to people who make comments on my blog. I love getting them and am constantly surprised at people making the effort to make a comment. As you can tell, I've never had a comment I didn't appreciate.

I have been making comments on the blog itself, but I feel the need to continue the conversation with the particular person, but am unsure. You can tell that I rarely leave comments and don't expect to be replied to. If you would like to leave a comment about this, please feel free and I'll reply accordingly.

Shapes

What a luxury! Spending a dedicated couple of hours exploring shapes.

We were asked to sketch shapes that appeal to us with a view to cutting them out, eventually in cardboard, then in wood, to create a sculpture.

Initially, the idea was to just explore flat shape. I followed my current path of totems and eyes. These are the test cut out shapes I have come up with so far.

It's interesting seeing what everyone else was doing, all the differents sorts of shapes. Things that looked like something but weren't, curves, straight lines. Alot of fun and laughter.

The other interesting aspect of having someone looking at your work is that they see things that you may have missed. A ' everything seems symmetrical' comment from the teacher made me look at everything again and I came up with:

This has alot more potential, but I need to do more research.

Fortunately, we have a couple of weeks to look. I'm going to find some more totem poles.

Sculpture everywhere

Today is the first day of classes and the first class, this afternoon, is SCULPTURE. An introductory day, according to the very detailed course handbook, this class is 'Presentation of the history of sculpture and it's relationship with contemporary artists working with sculpture. Introduction to set project: cardboard sculptural form. OHS issue in a sculpture studio will be discussed.'

Lots there for me to think about. I also need to keep a Visual Art Journal, and if I'm going to take full advantage of the course, then I need to be putting something (drawing) everyday. I'm trying.....

Sculpture is obviously an important part of my work, it crops up all the time. This weekend I've been working on my entry for the Old England Outdoor Sculpture award, which I've entered four times, the first time I managed to win. This time I'm hoping to make a much better entry and have severely dented this by not having a clue what I was going to do and only having three weeks in which to do it.

I continue to work on totem poles, a metaphor that seems to resonate. This is the first large scale totem pole and will prototype the process. I machine knit a flat piece of fabric with 'eye holes' in it. Sew into a tube and using Paverpol, make it suitable, ie stiff and waterproof, for an outdoor sculpture.

The holes will be covered with 'eyes' that I'm hoping to crochet. I don't know how many I want to make so will start with 8 and maybe some fallen and broken totems.

I have no idea how they are going to stand up. That will be part of the prototyping process, and I'm hoping to be able to do some sanding to give some a more weathered look.

How to embarass yourself on a train

Firstly, take a Tunisian crochet hook. Yep, the scarf I sold on Saturday was the only Tunisian crochet I have.

Secondly, decide that you have to have a project on the train going to orientation for the Diploma of Visual Arts at the CAE in town. Yes, I decided to commit to four years part-time of drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking and attendant theory work. I'm still more nervous, excitement hasn't sunk through yet.

Thirdly, start said work sitting up in bed working out what you want to do......in bad light....my eyes aren't what they used to be.

There I am set to go. I catch the train, which isn't particularly crowded and pull out my Tunisian crochet and start work. Halfway, I count the stitches.................wrong.......I'll just add another, it won't show...........there's the hole......it does show.

You know frogging on a train is just plain embarrassing and then you have the race to redo the whole lot because you don't want to wind it up. Don't look up and see if anyone was watching.

The trip home was more productive.

Starting the market on Saturdays

Well, here's my box full of yarns, labelled and ready to go. I've finally done it properly and all my fingerless mittens, wristwarmers and cuffs have also been properly recorded and labelled.

The 9x5 market has changed it's day to the 3rd Saturday of the month and tomorrow (21st) is the first market for 2009 on a Saturday.

I've revamped the look of my stall and hope that helps people look at my work in a new way. (I'll try and remember to take pictures)

I am however, not feeling particularly optimistic. My last few markets have not been particularly successful and trying to sell wool in Summer seems to be a sort of hopeless task. Five months on Etsy with only two sales seems to only add to the negative outlook.

This blog is supposed to be about inspiration, not about frustration and doubt, but that is part of the process. I'm just not sure which process I'm in.

I hope lots of people come.

Structural knitting

'Structural knitting' is what we've called one of the articles that we're (Experimental spinners and friends) entering for the Australian Sheep and Wool show group competition. The theme is 'Spin a yarn' and we're sending around our five articles for each person to work on, accompanied by a book.

For this piece we've obviously been inspired by Sandra Backlund, well, I have and if I'm convening this, I'm going to have one of her pieces in. Megalomania here I come!

I started the structural knitting off, and will pass it on to the next person today. I can't wait to see where it goes and to add more, further down the track. We have till the end of June to finish these and we don't know where they'll end up. What fun!

Woolybutt entry

I finished my entry for the Woolybutt Summer competition. I'm quite pleased as the challenge was a tricky one for me.

Having only 2 balls to play with, the article had to be small. It also had to be useful, as they're being given away. I thought I'd do a little top for a girl. Another challenge, as I don't really do cute!

I started knitting from the top with moss stitch, then some holes to thread an i-cord tie through. I'm hoping that this makes it adjustable. I knit this flat, but decided to sew down the front leaving a gap, when the bottom moss stitch commenced.

Icord ties were add knitting them on the edge as I went. I made two hearts (thanks Tammie) and added them to the front. The smaller one wasn't so neat, so I overlapped them. Ooops, no that was a design decision!

Anyway, Lorraine now has my entry. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole display. Should be great as there is some lovely work. Well done, everyone.

Small surprises

When your own troubles and triumphs seem trivial compared to others' maybe it's in the small and insignificant where we can find simple pleasure.

While looking for buttons, I came across these two. I don't know where they came from but are quite a surprise and puzzle.

This, I'm pretty sure has a very thin layer of opal sandwiched between, what seems to be, plastic! I didn't know that they made buttons with opal, and I wish I knew where it had come from.

This second one I'm less sure about. Having found one in my stash, I then went looking to see if there were any more. It's harder to tell, there doesn't seem to be any layers in the construction, but it's just uneven enough to raise some doubt.

I'm not even sure where to go to find out more.....maybe Buttonmania. (www.buttonmania.com.au)

Victorian fires

Seems impossible to write about anything else. I woke this morning to a death toll of 150, it is up to 173 as I write. For those waiting for news of loved ones, friends and neighbours our hearts and thoughts go out to them. For the rest of us, we go about waiting for news to trickle through, hoping nobody we know has been caught up in these horrific fires. We all know people who live in Gippsland, Bendigo and, (for me in the northern suburbs of Melbourne), Kinglake and everywhere else.....and the fires are still going, threatening new towns, more people to worry about.

Donations to the Red Cross: www.redcross.org.au

The Art of Gardening Sustainably

What have I been doing in all this heat? Nothing you might say, but you would be wrong....I have been weaving some pieces for the above exhibition. The exhibition is to support Sustainable Gardening Australia, and is being put on at my local gardening centre, which, instead of the usual coffee shop, has a gallery, run by Meredith Plain who is a ceramicist. One of her amazing birdbaths (with frogs) is in my garden and I would have one of her dragons, but that is a long story.

I've chosen the theme of recycling, so all the knitting needles are orphans from the opshop, which is where most of the buttons have come from, recycled plastics, and the neverending spool of nylon wire. Who knows what I'm going to do when that runs out.

I've given you a little sneak preview of the six works. I'll post the full lot when I have pictures of them hanging, but if you want to see them live....



The Art of Gardening Sustainably

An Exhibition to spread the word about sustainable gardening and raise funds for SGA (Sustainable Gardening Australia)

7th February to 8th March 2009

Exhibition opening: 6 to 8pm, Thursday 5th February
To be opened by Mary Trigger, Chief Executive Officer, SGA.

Bolin Bolin Gallery at Bulleen Art & Garden
6 Manningham Rd W., Bulleen. 98505155.
www.baag.com.au

SGA (Sustainable Gardening Australia) is a not-for-profit, non-government organisation whose mission is to promote the benefits of sustainable horticulture. (For more information about this ground breaking organisation and gardening sustainably go to http://www.sgaonline.org.au/).
Funds will be raised by donating Bulleen Art & Garden’s normal commission to SGA; small artist contribution donated to SGA (which would cover exhibition & opening costs which will be met by BAG); and sundry other donations.

The Gallery

The exhibition will be held in the Bolin Bolin Gallery at Bulleen Art & Garden, 6 Manningham Rd West, Bulleen. (For more information about Bulleen Art & Garden, go to http://www.baag.com.au/ or www.baag.com.au/gallery/)

Sponge cake hat

Some relief from the weather. It's a bit cooler and is only getting up to 37deg C today.........

I did realise, yesterday, that I hadn't shown you the sponge cake hat. Well....

Remember this.

I turned it into this.

Then I did this, as well.

I decided I wanted to knit a sponge cake hat.

I have a very old pattern, early 50's, late 40's, which I've used before which uses stocking st and reverse stocking stitch to create layers, and has a very flat top. So I thought I would use that to create this hat.

I love it. It's just what I wanted and is suitably fun and suitably practical. It's now for sale on Etsy, as is the very large skein of the slubby stuff.

Esme Johnson Prize

I've finally sent off my fingerless mittens to Yarn magazine. It's way to hot to be thinking about mittens. (For all you who don't know, we're on the.....I think it's the fourth day of 40deg C with minimal relief (down to 35deg C on Saturday) (38deg C is 100deg F)) I haven't posted on Etsy for a couple of days, so it's a great effort to get these off.

I was very happy with the final result. They are beautiful and just what I wanted for this project.

They definitely needed blocking. The pictures really show you what a difference blocking can make.

One of the things I also did, for my own curiousity, was to time how long it took me to knit the second mitten. Having the pattern established, I thought it might be interesting.

It took around 5hours and 40minutes. (I used my mobile phone stopwatch to time me, so it's a bit too accurate!). This means that to knit these would take around 10 to 11 hours. Not taking into account the time it takes to block, then sew on buttons, this is a long time. I have done a rough costing, but I'll leave it to your imagination. How much do you earn an hour, or would like to earn an hour?

I know I've said it before, but the moral: if someone gives you something handmade, treasure it, it's a priceless gift of love.

Australia Day Weekend

The Australia Day weekend is always a good excuse to catch up with friends and to think about this country of ours. It's always a bit difficult and again controversy has arisen at the suggestion that this is not the most appropriate date to celebrate Australia day.

January 26 commemorates the day the British flag was raised at Sydney Cove proclaiming a new settlement and the beginning of European civilization in Australia. It is easy to see that some of the original inhabitants may not see this as necessarily positive. I agree with Mick Dodson, Australian of the Year, that we need a conversation on this issue...we can do better.

I would like to propose another way of thinking about dates. Not new, but perhaps more in keeping with who we really are and would like to think of ourselves.

31st July - the date when Western Australian held a referendum and agreed to join the federation with the five other colonies, the last state to do so. Western Australians might not agree that this is a good date.

21st May - the date when the British House of Commons passed the Bill that sanctioned the union of Australia and its' independance. (I think this is the date, would need more checking) I like this date because of the supreme act of successful democracy that this displays. Six separate colonial governments and the British House of Commons both voted, on one hand to join together and become a nation and on the other, voted to allow this to occur.

Few other countries have achieved independance without bloodshed. It is something to be extremely proud of, that this could be done. With all the competing interests, democracy won.

1st January - the actual date of Federation. A good date, but already the New Year has taken that date, and pershaps could be viewed as a merely ceremonial date.

Anyway, discussion should be had and maybe we can do better......

Sunday was spent on an Australia Day weekend tradition - the Handweavers and Spinners Guild Spin-in at Yarra Bend in Melbourne, one of our lovely inner city parks. We are indeed a lucky city. This is only the second time I have attended, and, again, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

How good is it to sit, with friends, under the trees, on a beautifully sunny day spinning.

If you look carefully, the empty chair is mine and my new wheel had its first outing. Perhaps not in the best condition yet, but supportive comments were passed and happily received. A gentle first outing.

Still did manage to get this spun.

Enough of politics, off to SnB.

Summer challenges

I've finally started both of the challenges for the summer.

The first and the hardest to start is the two balls of cotton for the Woolybutt challenge (http://www.woolybutt.com.au/) It took me ages to figure out what I wanted to do. As we're giving away the resulting articles, it did have to be something useful.

I've had i-cords running around my head....finally.....I'll knit a little top, starting from the top (underarm) with eyelets for an i-cord tie. I started from the top as it's a long time since I've knitted for small people and I don't know how far the yarn will go. I've also knit it flat, as this is a design in progress and I thought of buttons down the front. With a change of mind, I'm going to sew it up and embellish it with hearts!.....yes hearts....

I'll then finish off with i-cord straps that can be tied to fit the eventual owner and perhaps make room for growth.

The next competition is the Esme Johnson Prize, run by Yarn magazine. Lynne Johnson has donated the prize in honour of her mother who loved the knitting stitch, feather and fan. I've participated in a couple of Lynne's classes several years ago at the Wangaratta Stitched Up Festival and she is a wonderful teacher.

I've also had this beautiful very fine yarn sitting around since attending a Margaret Stove workshop. I thought I'd combine the two into my current obsession and make a pair of feather and fan fingerless mittens. I think I have enough small buttons and though it is extremely fine and I'm finding I can really only knit this during the day, I am enjoying this and am pleased with the result.

I just have to finish both in time!

1001 paintings

Some time ago I was given '1001 paintings you must see before you die'.

It has sat on my shelf and I view it with some puzzlement, as I always have difficulty with the concept of HAVE to, it always begs the question...well, what if I don't?

However, great paintings can make you see the world differently, how to express feelings, colour, form, all sorts of ideas, invoke memories and just please the eye. So I decided to systematically 'look' at the pictures, even though they're not the real thing. I have seen some in my travels and I'm sure I'll see some more of them in the future. Right now, the book will serve as the beginning of a different sort of journey.

The book is organised by the different centuries, which is good for comparison and seeing the change in art over time, but I think I might just open up randomly and look at just one. A sort of I Ching of painting. So here is the first:

'Entrance to the grand canal, Venice' by Bernardo Belloto. c1741

This shows in incredible detail the magnificance of Venice from the extraordinary grandeur and, if you look closely, also the intimate details of daily life. This is a important, busy, beautiful place.

This was an interesting first choice and it brings back memories of my first trip overseas (some 25 years ago) where I made my one and only visit to Venice.

I did love staying there and wandering the streets and canals, riding the water ferries and getting lost! The colours in the painting are muted and soft with touches of light. I have a different memory, however, looking back at my photos reveals that little has changed.


The colours are surprisingly similar, as is the city. Alot of what I loved about Venice was also the small and intimate, the houses, tiny waterways and walkways.

Lovely memories.

PS. I haven't put in a picture of my wheel yet, but 'Yes' I do have a little Poly wheel, made by Phillip Poore of New Zealand.

There is a wonderful website documenting New Zealand wheels, past and present. What a wonderful resource: www.nzspinningwheels.info

Back home again.

The boys are safely esconced with friends having a very Tom Sawyerish holiday, you know fishing, swimming, just at the bottom of the paddock. So it's very quiet at home, which is just as well as I'm recovering from having driven 11 hours in two days to both accomplish the quiet and get to deliver my Summer School class.

The class went very well and the adjustments I made worked out well and the aim of the class - using the multicoloured tops successfully - was achieved....hooray. As always lovely people and all of them willing to give everything a try.

These are the samples I showed them of the different results you get when you used different

preparation and spinning methods.

I started with this beautiful top.

The first three methods were then spinning without thinking.

1. Worsted spinning, short lengths.

2. Worsted spinning, full, long, length.

3. Just because, I carded the top to really mix it up.

Then I got sensible and actively tried to get a good result

1. I stripped the top of each colour. Well not quite, this is a difficult top and the stripes of colour are quite thin. I did my best.

2. I used the fold over finger method of spinning. This is a semi-woollen method of spinning which allows you to go through the top stripe by stripe.

3. I used the same technique as before, just had a longer bit of top. This made it more difficult to manage and, didn't seem to make much difference.

Finally, I spun a wonderful slubby yarn and a reasonably thick single.

Chasing the rainbow - samples for a class

The class that I'm giving for the HWSG of Victoria is a class I called 'Chasing the Rainbow' which I ran for the lovely Bendigo Spinners and Weavers group.

I've taken out a little bit and concentrating on these three yarns.

The aim of the class is to find ways of using those multi-coloured tops which we are all seduced by but often end up with mud. Isn't that so true of life!

Unlike life, for dyed tops, I do have some answers. In doing so this becomes an excuse to learn a number of techniques which can be applied to anything.

The first is fold over finger spinning where you fold the top over your finger and spin from the centre. This is a semi-woollen method of spinning and what it does is allow you to spread the colours out so that each 'strand' of colour is drafted somewhat separately giving a good semblance of the original top.

As an alternative I get them to split tops and spin those.

The three yarns are:

1. Continuous bullion. This has been successfully used by many people including Lexi Boeger (www.pluckyfluff.com) who calls is Coils.

2. Core wrapping - carefully. A useful technique for dealing with difficult fibres but in this case allows you to wrap the split top and gives a different look as you wrap from the side. This is subject to an array of variations which I still need to explore.

3. Core wrapping - roughly, where I wrap and 'break-off' the tops. This makes it light and fluffy.

I enjoyed this class last time I ran it and we created some amazing yarns.

I have also been asked about drop spindles. Yes, I love drop spindles, but these are a leisurely pursuit where I tend to just spin singles. There's a challenge: to spin slubs! More to come on that!

A new distraction

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. Friends and family were plentiful as was the food and wine. We're now relaxing at the beach and enjoying the time out from the everyday.

We have had some technical difficulties, which included a virus....the first we've suffered that has affected us so dramatically. Let this be a warning to all to be careful of dodgy internet cafes. We've used some terrific ones, but they do need to be well set up....and usually when odd things happen we stop and think before clicking....this time we didn't.

Anyway we're almost back and I'll keep blogging when I can.

I have been busy though. Most noticeably I am falling in love! Let it be known that I have a new spinning wheel. It is a New Zealander, purchased from a friend. It's designed for bulky textured yarns and has the biggest bobbins I've ever used. We're still in early days. Some tender loving care has been administered, however, more seems to be needed and some personalisation seems to be in order.

This is my first skein, something simple just to get us used to working with each other.

Then I hit it with a big slubby yarn and lots of it....didn't even get close to filling the bobbin. This was to complete the fibre that I had already spun to match the fibre sponge cake yarn. The hat is still coming.

Finally, a really highly textured yarn, with lots of plying and things that could get caught. This is for the Summer school class that I'll be teaching in January. More about that later.

So, is the new wheel worth it. absolutely. My biggest worry was the lack of bobbins. Having two Ashford wheels meant that I had alot of interchangeable bobbins. However, the size of these is just great.

I will introduce the new wheel, but it is early days in our relationship and going public is always fraught with danger!