An ode to Petlyn wool combs

Dear Julie and Joe,

Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know how much fun I'm having with your English wool combs that I bought from you at the Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo this year. I also purchased some of Coral Stewarts' dyed fleece. More of a sentimental purchase, as I don't need any more fleece, but I do love her work and have a jacket and a jumper made from her dyed yarn, which I love.

Now I know that this was not the perfect start, whilst the fleece is dyed it was still very greasy, but I thought that knowing this was not the best start would allow me to experiment to find the best way to process it. Fleece is always tricky as you tend to get a muddying effect as there are no distinct blocks of colour. Well, this fleece, anyway.

I found the best way was to load a rough colour block at a time, then take it off with the free comb, load more, take off more, and keep going till I had this:

You can sort of see the layers that were created and when I 'dizzed' it off I got

It spun up beautifully, as you would expect using wool combs, I navaho plied the resulting single to try and keep some colours. It did turn out muddy in places and I did really lose the blue, but I love the yarn so much I didn't take a photo before I knit it up into a shrug to sell in my Etsy shop.

I really love the combs and have started work on my next project, and, as convener of Experimental Spinners at the guild, we're going to have a session playing with wool combs. A couple of us have wool combs and so does the guild. We're going to try colour blending and see what happens.

Thanks again for your marvellous products and your generosity in sharing your knowledge.

Cheers, Teresa

PS Hints on blending colours on wool combs would be appreciated!

Letter to the unknown customer

To whom it may concern,

Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I've finally listed all my current fingerless mittens on Etsy. I know this is a little old fashioned writing a letter, but it feels better to be actually writing to someone, albeit unknown, than just speaking into the ether and wondering who is listening.

So let me tell you about my mittens. There are three different types that I've listed:

These are the last of the handspun yarn crocheted into a simple shape. I need to make more of these, but there's alot of spinning to do. I do have some gorgeous coloured tops in my stash waiting for me.

Then there's my new range:

I've made them with the boys in mind, but they do look good on women too! Currently, they come in black, grey or natural colours. I like addiing something different on the band and down the back of the hand.

Then there's my standby fingerless mittens, the ones with the buttons. They started this whole fingerless mitten making run.

There's the black and cream ones I always have, though I do need a couple of grey gloves, I am from Melbourne!

Then there are the couple of colours I currently have.












And, finally,

the chunky ones! Two are handspun and the other is from a stash dive with amazing buttons.

I have made an aweful lot of these fingerless mittens with buttons, over 150 if my records are to be believed, and the spreadsheet never lies, though I can hardly believe it! What makes it even more unbelievable is that each one is different. Sometimes it's just the yarn and I knit the square in stocking stitch with the thumb and the borders in moss stitch. That's my standard pattern, but alot are diving into the stitch books and playing with different stitches.

Anyway, I hope you like them and if you want to become a known customer head over to the fingerless mitten section of my Etsy shop.

Hope to hear from you,

Cheers, Teresa


I

Samoyed and new toys!

Eventually you have to get on with things. I've finally managed to catch up with the lovely Samoyed owner W and discussed progress on the spinning and weaving of a blanket from her lovely Samoyed fur. Many things had to align for us to finally have an excited and exciting discussion. We're both passionate about this project, I for the challenge it will be and for W, the promise of a wonderful reminder of a friend.

Here is the bags of fur that I now have to spin!

It also means that I do feel the pressure and was highly delighted when I showed her the small spun samples and the little bit of weaving that I had done. The weaving was done on a weave-it loom, which is only a square with nails and gives a fairly rough approximation of the final product. Fortunately, her immediate response was positive!

In testing out the spinning I used my small wool combs and loved the result so much that I determined to buy the much bigger English combs when I went to the Australian Sheep and Wool show in Bendigo in July. I've been playing with these monsters ever since, and just love the speed of preparation and the resulting ease of spinning. It is these that I will use to prepare the Samoyed for spinning.

Now I'm off to spin up some the wonderful wool top from Andyle to make into lovely natural coloured neckwarmers. I've just realised that without really thinking, I've been doing the right thing. In the middle of winter, when I can't really get any dyeing done as there's nowhere to dry and the boys don't really appreciate having their bathroom taken over by slow drying skeins, I spin natural wool tops that I get at the sheep show. It makes so much sense. Now, I have to make a special big effort over the summer to do alot of dyeing!

Last day of my Winter Residency

And the sun comes out! It's all finished, we've cleaned up and prettied ourselves up and ready to share our work during the Open Studio happening this weekend.

It's been an interesting month and I feel quite pleased that I nearly managed to do all the work I set out to do. I didn't quite do enough drawing, but I did complete two BIG works, now called Cavern and Tower. Crocheting video tape is not easy and I was worried about my hands getting tired or sore, but all is well.

The only two things I would make sure that I do if/when I do another residency is:

1. as much as possible, check out the surrounding area. I wanted to interact with my little bit of Abbotsford, but really needed to do a few good walks to see if I could find good places to sketch, any businesses where I might find materials and anything else of interest.

2. take the weather into account. I know it's Winter, but didn't really plan for the reality that I wasn't going to sit in the sunshine and sketch.

Minor issues really, so it's been FUN!

Hope to see you at the Open Studio.

On the nature of inspiration

Artists are often asked about their source of inspiration, often, the response is to make a detailed, wordy and esoteric artists' statement or else something along the lines of  'the world around me' (a response I tend to favour!) Neither go to the heart of what can explain the source of an artists' inspiration.

I often think it's a collecting thing. We collect ideas, words, pictures, swatches, anything and everything. There's nothing so dangerous as an artist with scissors! But it's also drawing, writing, generally recording something that you like. As we collect they link. They link our personality, our current interest, the idea that's been sitting at the back of our mind.

We go look at other artists': friends we admire, great artists that appear at our galleries...don't forget Monet at the NGV....but it's not to copy them, it's to take on more information. Colour, technique, subject and what we dislike, all come together.....eventually.

As I'm coming to the end of my month of being an artist in residence at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery I've been thinking about the artists that might be called influences, except I don't quite think of them as influences, more as supports. Often the renowned artists give us permission to do the outrageous, because they are more so. They allow us to use materials or work in a way that is odd, because they do. So, to that I give you:

Fiona Hall, she's currently showing at the Heidi Museum of Art and is well worth seeing. She often works with textiles in a very political way. I've known about her and seen pictures of her work, but this is the first time I've seen it in the flesh! It is quite overwhelming and I must admit to not feeling very comfortable with the exhibition. This may be what she wants as there are some very strong messages. It's good to be challenged.

You can see why I like her work!

Another artist who always crops up is Andy Goldsworthy, Melbourne currently has two on Herring Island, where, during the summer you can catch a ferry onto this man made island in the middle of the Yarra in the heart of the city. There's also a gallery there!

His work is often ephemeral, allowing the work to disintegrate or change due to the forces of nature.

I've obviously picked out works that directly relate to my own current interest in the building of nests. I don't want to copy, just that other artists think nests are important too!

Taking Shape

The second week was an example of concentrated effort, no thanks to the weather. It's been rainy and cold and I haven't managed to do much/any drawing of my local neighbourhood. I'm glad I set myself a target of having the first work in its final form by the end of the second week. There are still bits to add on, but I feel I've achieved something. It is also the halfway mark and the emphasis will change as we head towards the open studio weekend.

There is alot to be resolved in something this big. It still seems to need more and also how to get it to hang right. It does sort of look like a big black blob! Would you want to live there?!

I'm being sustained (food and coffee) by the guys at the Bomb Cafe in Johnston street. It's nice to get out have a bit of a walk and grab a warming lunch.

Emerging shapes

Working on a large scale and the attending problems was one of the aims of my artists' residency at the Yarra Sculpture gallery. As my shape gets bigger, I have had to rig it up just to make it easier to handle. It also gives an idea of how it is going.

This week has been a bit tiring as it has been all about getting to the end of the first shape. At its largest part, it took half an hour to do one row. Today, I should be going in and getting close to finishing the basic shape. The major issue that seems to be emerging is how to get it to keep the shape and how much is needed to be added on, but that's for the ongoing weeks.

I've started my second shape and am glad I had a bit of a go. Hopefully some good photos today!