Christmas is coming

It doesn't feel like Christmas until the Christmas tree is up. Nobody has been asking about the tree, so, I guess it's up to me. For the last couple of years we haven't had a permanent tree and have bought real Christmas trees. This year, however, I wanted something that reflected the year, the things I did and the things I'm interested in.

So, I extracted a branch from some Wattle that had been trimmed in our garden. Well, nature trimmed it for us, we just cut it up further! Trimmed it up further and gave it a coat of silver paint.


So, it's a handmade sculpture from found materials and the spray paint was only $7 and is probably the only environmentally unfriendly part of my Christmas tree.

It has decorated up beautifully....no electric lights...and I'm very pleased with it. I am getting my 18 year old to contribute something to the tree as his first adult Christmas, a momento of the year. Can't wait.

Chocolate

It seems to have been a very chocolatey (?) year. What with spinning chocolate yarns earlier in the year, and ending the year with Chocolate at Experimental Spinning on Saturday.

For the last couple of years, we've been finishing off in December with a celebratory fibre sandwich. This is a wonderful way to do something as a group, to bust a little stash and generally share.

This year the theme was Chocolate, of course! We started with a layer of chocolate, consisting of chocolate fleece, tops and some caramel fleece. Then a layer of strawberry jam...it was turning into a chocolate cake. This was made up of silk waste, wool top, cut up fabric, all red, then a little bit of cream, another layer of chocolate and caramel. We finished it off with sprinkles, cut up cotton threads.

This was split up into the number of people who participated and we each spun our portion of the cake.

At the same time we managed to indulge in some real chocolate sponge with home grown raspberries.

And this is my bobbin full of chocolate. Spun directly as it came from the cake. Sometimes I've carded a sandwich before spinning, but this time I just wanted it straight. It's waiting for me to spin a very fine chocolate fleece single which I will use as the second ply.

Upcycling

Don't you just love that word....upcycling....no, not what you do with a bike and a mountain, but something just a bit better than recycling. That's what I'm hoping to do in my quest to find a non-winter item for my shop and stall. So, in order to further the quest.....



I have bought myself a brand spanking new overlocker!



I've been doing some dressmaking at a local shop and they suggested that I have a look at this very marked down machine from Janome. A great deal is going at the moment on this and also an electronic machine. (Yes, I was sorely tempted, but.....) I went along and came home with the new machine.



Immediately, dearest, came out with a pair of pants that needed fixing......on the normal straight sewing machine. I did give him a quick lesson on the difference and I did fix his pants.



Because of Christmas they're not running their introductory class. Next year I'll learn all the intricacies of overlocking. So right now I'm just keeping it simple.

On the art of selling textiles

Selling textiles is a very seasonal pursuit. (And let's not talk about selling woollies in Australia....think hot climate, short cold winter...) In the warmer months, it's enough to try and get people to talk to you. On a hot day, they just walk past. This is one of the reasons that I've taken October and November off from the market. December is Christmas, even this has it's problems, as you have to give a present that will not be useful till the winter, but I am ever optimistic.

That's one of the reasons that I have an Etsy shop, to try and break into the Northern Winter. This is not having the desired results, at the moment. The GFC, high value of the Australian dollar, postage costs and this is starting to look like a long term assignment. Four sales, of which two have been cancelled is starting to make me less optimistic than I was last year.

Anyway,

One of the good things is that I've had two months to think of what I might to that could sell during our Australian summer.

I always think that it should be something I'm interested in. And I think earings! I didn't get my ears pierced till my 40th birthday, but my love of earings goes back to my college days. Every party was an excuse to buy an even bigger, more outrageous and cheap (I was a student!) clip-on earing.

Finally, I think I've got a good idea and here are the first complete set:

They're a little rough around the edges, but these are mine! They're handspun silk, handknit and finished with the buttons.

Hopefully, I'm on to something!

'Forest'

I did get back to the DVA 1st year exhibition on Friday and managed to take a couple of pictures. Unfortunately, one of my drawings didn't take to the camera, so I can show you only one.

'Forest' is the title of my little knitted sculpture. I finished it off with 'cupric nitrate'. I think that's right, my chemistry isn't too good. Suffice to say that you heat up the copper, paint on the cupric nitrate, quite a few times, without burning the copper!, and you get that lovely green copper look.

Happy as Larry and a good number of nice comments made.

This drawing was done in two parts. Firstly, the soft toys, then the following week we had to add something 'odd'. I thought scissors and my hat add that strange tension. Sort of worked.

My second drawing was a skeleton holding some soft toys. Sounds like a trend, but my drawing teacher has a very young daughter, from whom he brings in props and shows her photos of the resulting drawings.

Exhibitions galore

Wednesday night was the opening of the DVA first year exhibition at Pigment Gallery. This is a showcase of all the first year students, and each has at least one work in the exhibition.

I am lucky enough to have my little copper wire knitted sculpture titled 'Forest' sitting very nicely on a plinth. Also two of my drawings.

So if you're in the city this weekend, come and have a look.

Details: Pigment Gallery, Level 2, Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St. City

Weds/Fri: 12-6 Sat: 12-4

I was very lucky to have a look at the Banyule City Council, Works on Paper Art Award yesterday. This is an excellent exhibition with an incredible variety of work and a number of artists that I know. In particular: Marco Luccio, Debra Luccio and Mandy Gunn. I also liked the work by Katie Hill. This consisted of individually etched leaves, with charcoal covered backs pinned on a wall, the label for each is a word from the papers around concerning the February bushfires. Both beautiful and poignent.

Oh, and Mandy wove the Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Speaking of Mandy, by good friend Leanne is having an exhibition at the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick and by coincidence, Mandy is exhibiting with her. I'm looking forward to this exhibition and hope to catch it soon. Both artists are well worth a look, here are the details:

The Gallery has two exhibitions from 20 November – 20 December 2009, with the official opening on Thursday 19 November.

Mandy Gunn: re-source
In keeping with the pattern of Mandy Gunn’s work over the past fourteen years, re-source focuses on art works constructed from found materials, principally paper. The materials are sourced from the left overs of everyday consumerism, the sort of products which usually find their way into bins, often wrapping or packaging, tickets, envelopes and printed materials.

Leanne Cole: I want, therefore I need
I want, therefore I need examines the culture of consumerism within our society and the excessive need to continually fill our homes with consumerist items. A series of perspex houses containing ceramic objects cast from household refuse, will explore our rampant consumerism and its effect on our living spaces.

Lots to be inspired by

Cashmere

Doesn't it conjure up pure luxury....cashmere......

I was very generously given a very large amount of cashmere (dehaired, long guard hairs taken out, time saver....) by a member of the HWSG. It was way to much to keep to oneself without feeling extremely selfish...sigh.....So I decided that we could have a session at Experimental Spinning playing with this beautiful fibre.

That was on Saturday and we had lots of fun. Because it is both a very expensive and very short fibre, it is often combined with other fibres. We used silk, silky wool, fine merino and even pink! Beautiful rolags were created and I can't wait to see all the resulting yarns.

I went home and decided to split my 20gms into four and spin a yarn with four different treatments.

1. Mixed with Silky wool (optim), a treated wool that I thought would work well, but it didn't really card well with the cashmere and separated a bit from the cashmere when spinning.

2. Mixed with 18micron merino. This was immediately nicer than the Silky wool and whilst there is a slight different in the pictures, both carding and spinning were much improved.

3. Mixed with Tussah silk. As you can see from the rolags it is beautiful. I wasn't sure that this would work. Even though it came in top form it was still quite long, but I suspect that the critical factor in both the carding and spinning is the thickness, or in this case, fineness of the mixing fibre. For best results they probably do need to be close in micron count.

4. I just spun the cashmere as it came.

I did wonder if I'd put in too much twist for the this skein. Too much twist and I'll lose the softness of the cashmere. I also wanted to keep the different treatments together, so I decided to Navaho ply my single, creating a relatively thick yarn.

This could be a problem as these fabulous fibres are very warm. The resulting scarf will be knitted in a very open lace. I'll show you when it's done.

Oops, forgot.....some things I'd like to try: silk noil and cashmere, what about silk waste with cashmere, fluffy around a core......what else?