Successful market day

At last a really good day at the market. But would you believe, I sold lots of scarves. I've come to the conclusion that to sell the art work, people need to get to know me. I've sold two pieces, one at the market and another to the owner of Woolybutt, both people I know well. So I've just got to perservere. And I sold some yarn!

So for the next month I'll be knitting scarves!

Vogue knitting

Sitting all afternoon in a very quiet gallery surrounded by sculpture, I managed to finish off my wall hangings and do some more of my knitting for myself. Maybe the jumper will be ready for next winter, only the sleeves to go......and fix the mistake in the front panels..... Anyway, I was looking at the old Vogue magazine I was working from and I thought that I should share with you the current issue and one of my favourite pieces.

The asymmetry is great, the fringing is very interesting, though it is added after the knitting is done. The one on the opposite page only has one sleeve and the rest is thrown over the shoulder and pinned to hold.

This would look good over a skirt and perhaps something more interesting with the sleeves. Such a lot to play with.

Knitting pasta!

It's an interesting process taking an unrelated idea - pasta - and turning it into a textile work, but everything has shape, form, colour and texture. It's also fun talking about knitting fettucine, tomato sauce and planning to add in pesto sauce and spiral pasta for the third textile picture.

Being small and simple, I hope they have an impact. I'm almost sad we didn't have a December 3D5S meeting so I can create some more over the Summer. However, I will have to do a 10cm x 10cm challenge for the first meeting of 3D5S next year.

Today I'll be sitting the CSA exhibition 'Bonanza'. Very quiet and I might even take my knitting.

A blast from the past!

I thought I'd just do a slight detour today. In the packing up of our house for floor polishing and painting activities, I came across, yet again, a piece of embroidery which is very important in my development as a textile artist. It is the first time that I designed something all by myself! I must have been in my twenties, yes, I am a late bloomer, and, along with the first jumper, I designed, were the first time that I realised that I could do design.

From there, I joined the Handweavers and Spinners Guild, learnt to spin and found a Certificate in Studio Textiles at the Melbourne College of Textiles, in which I enrolled. This all took place in just a few years. It still took me another 14 years to finish the Certificate which turned into a Diploma of Art at RMIT, but it was the start of the journey.

I still like it and I'm going to finally get this framed and hung in my newly painted and bare walled house.

Fibre Sandwich yarn

I finished my fibre sandwich yarn, started on Saturday. I plyed it with the English Leicester single I had on my bobbin, overtwisting so that I could ply back with another yarn, which turned out to be some white cotton, as I couldn't be bothered spinning some 'S' yarn.

I've still got some more on the bobbin which I think I'll ply with a fine black yarn, handspun this time, and make the black 'knot' over the coloured. I hope this works.

Now I've got to work on getting ready for the certificate presentation for the Spinning Course, and get ready for the market on Sunday. Too much to do!

Fibre Sandwich

Yesterday was a lovely day with the opening of the HWSG Spinning Certificate exhibition. It was great to see the students enjoy the morning and see their work displayed, hopefully well (I helped set it up on Thursday) and celebrate with their family and friends.

The afternoon was spent making a fibre sandwich - salad! We laid out a layer of 'bread' fibre, then a really crazy layer of 'filling', then another layer of 'bread'. This was then divided amongst us and we started spinning it up. I've actually now finished - a first for me at Experimental Spinning. I intend to ply it with my left over English Leicester, but I think I'll spiral it and even then add a binder yarn to really bulk it out.



















Today is about trying to finish this and also finishing the painting of my stall installation, black coathangers and all.

Spaghetti

Our internet connection has slowed to a crawl for the duration of the month, so I've been too annoyed to blog, not only is it slow, but seem to have a habit of timing out. I've had to resort to going to the library to do any serious mail collecting and searching!

Anyway, I've been working on a stand for my scarves and that's progressing well. Need some black paint to finish it off. More tubes have been collected from hubby's brother-in-law, I found some small coat hangers and I'm painting everything black! I'm approaching the stand as if it were a sculpture, with black tubes everywhere. I felt uncomfortable with not having all my scarves out, so I'm trying to create a rack. I'm hoping that will give me enough on the stall to always make a sale!

The first textile picture in the 'Pasta' series is now well on its way, I've only to add a strip of colour and it's well on its way. I want to add a red, green and ??? strips,which should be very striking.

I've started spinning some English Leicester to do the background for the next one and thought I'd find another fleece for the third. Nice to be spinning.

I've also bought the new issue of Vogue Knitting, which has some really interesting ideas in it. I'll expore that further when I have a better internet connection. This has just taken me half an hour to do!