The Postman Cometh....with yarn and fibre from The Yarn Room

I've pretty much blown my budget for EP09, on the fibres and wools I will have on display. I spent rather too much time online last week in search of the 15 fibres that are being promoted: Alpaca, Camel, Coir, Flax, Jute, Ramie, Sisal, Abaca, Angora, Cashmere, Cotton, Hemp, Mohair, Silk, Wool. I have finally sourced nearly all of them. Some I have to cheat on, such as getting a ball of jute twine instead of the raw material, because I just couldn't find any suppliers in its raw state. Over the next few weeks as The Postman Cometh! I will give you details of the fibres, and where I got them.

The first package to arrive is from The Yarn Room. I have to admit I am very biased towards this yarn shop. I recently admitted to a friend that I had a fear of yarn shops. A bit strange for one with such an addiction. I feel intimidated because I have 4 major factors going against me. I'm always on a budget, never know what I want, I crochet and I don't make clothes.

Stephanie, who runs The Yarn Room, is the type of yarnie all other yarnies like to meet, and the only yarn shop owner I've met that didn't scare me. I met her first at The Irish Green Gathering, in a rain soaked field, and I knew I'd like this woman. One of the things Stephanie does, which in my books, earns her a medal, is stock a quantity of Irish brands of yarn. So many needle, hook and spindle yielding tourists are amazed at the lack of Irish yarn and fibre that is actually produced in Ireland. Some of the fibre used in making the yarn may not be 100% Irish, it could be mixed with merino, or may not be Irish at all, eg the Craftspun Camel yarn, but it is 100% processed in Ireland. Which is, I think, the nature of things these days. At least the mills are still up and running. Since I will be promoting the The Woolly Way of Ireland blog at the EP festival, and it's purpose is to promote Irish textiles, I thought it would be great to have a selection of Irish Yarns on show a the stand. Another aspect is the whole carbon footprint ethos, Buy Local! So, straight onto The Yarn Room website, I ordered one of each of the brands she stocks. I would love to have ordered more, but a budget is so-called because its, well a budget!

So, The Postman Cometh! today with my first yarn and fibre package. One ball or skein from each of the following: Alpaca of Ireland, Cushendale, Kilcarra, and Craftspun. (I got a skein of Kerry Woollen Mills yarn from the mills itself). And Stephanie, the gem that she is, not only promptly delivered my measly order, she threw in a bag of goodies that I could also use on my stand!

Lovely soft brown Irish Alpaca fleece,a sample of mulberry silk, samples of a wool/silk mix, and a ball of De Witte Engel felting wool.

Thank you Stephanie!
www.the yarnroom.com

Taking Hoarding to new levels...and Electric Picnic stuff of course!

I knew I was a hoarder, but it's only until now I realised the level of hoarding I got up to. I have been doing a big tidy up of the stuff room, as my son calls it, the spare room/studio. I know you say, you are eternally cleaning that room, but this time I really mean it!

I have been preparing my workshops for the Electric Picnic, and the first workshop is....

Guerrilla Embroidery: Release Your Inner Hoarder:
You can use any materials you like from our Big Box of Bits. A hoard of beads, bits and bling the Vikings would be proud of…

I've been organising the box of bling, sorting out beads, fancy string, fabric remnants I could use, when I finally decided to tackle the Bag of Eternal Bits...It's a bag of knotted wool, fluff, fibre, sample hyperbolic pieces, etc... It was a mess. I decided to tackle the bag. It's been growing in size steadily over the years, and I don't know what made me do it now. The search for a usable piece of shiny string perhaps....It's real tidy up time, so I have spent the last 30 hours (literally, I couldn't sleep...) sorting it all out ..

There were usable small balls of yarn, some very small bits of yarn, and some totally unusable small bits of yarn, and bits of well, stuff, samples of crochet, knitting, felt, etc. So, I divided them into the 5 categories.

1. The usable wool went into a basket, to bring to the EP with me.
2. The very small bits of 100% wool yarn were crocheted together and became a crochet/felting experiment.
3. The totally unusable bits of yarn got bagged to become a unusable bits/felting experiment
4. All synthetics not covered by no.1 were binned.
5. All the sem-made bits got turned into mutant flowers for display on the stand.

The Crochet/Felting Experiment - I crocheted all the longer bits together than stuck it into a pillow case, in the machine for a 60 degree wash. It felted alright, but not to the degree I though it would.

Same thing but Knit!

The Felt/Felting experiment - I had scraps of felt left-over, long and uneven strips. I rolled these then tacked them together before going into the washing machine. they came out great! Although the spiral has been lost a bit, they are totally felted, solid. they would make great buttons...



Mutant Flowers

ELECTRIC PICNIC 09!!

Its official, I will be attending this year's Electric Picnic again, and I'll have a crazy range of workshops and demonstrations of a fibre nature going on!!

The theme I picked this year, is Eco/Re-cycled. There will be 4 workshops on offer, each workshop has some Eco/re-cycled theme. More details to follow...

Also, to celebrate 2009 being UN International Year of Natural Fibres, I will have info for your reading leisure on the confusing array of fairtrade and organic logos, fact sheets on natural fibres, with lots of samples for you to feel up. Its all touch and go at this years EP!!

As usual I have a goal to make something crazy for displaying on the stand. The Crocheted Coral Reef got a fantastic reception last year, so hopefully the stand this year, will work out just as well....I have to make it yet, so no guarantees...Its easy to come up with great ideas on paper, another to try make it!!

Unofficial Stitchlily Logo

www.electricpicnic.com

This is the scanned image of the (finally!) finished Clones Lace piece I started making at the Irish Crochet workshop. I call it my Clones Lace Doily Thingy, as well, its doily size. I couldn't seem to get a good picture of it, so scanning it in seemed to work ok, although the colour is a bit off.

No sooner had I put it up in my Ravelry projects page, (I haven't put up a decent project for ages) when I get a message from the Fearless Leader of the Crochet Liberation Front, to say I've been given the Set My Picot Free award in recognition of my efforts!!

OK, my mother always laughs when I mention the CLF, but to me it is made up of damn fine crocheters, and it is an honor to receive the award for my humble little piece. I mean, if you had seen the work that was being done at the workshop, from women that have been doing this their whole lives, who have been attending the workshop for several years, my piece was really on the 5yr old scale and I definitely don't deserve this award!....Seriously beautiful crochet work going on, and I wish I had taken more pictures, but I wasn't really in taking pictures mode, too busy chatting!!

Thank you Cananomade!!

A whirlwind 2 weeks of visiting, chatting, and as many fibre-orientated things I could possibly fit in!

How much fibre can you fit into two weeks? Well let me tell you....an awful lot! Firstly, the plan was a holiday, to catch up with family. My nephew came down with chicken-pox, so we skipped the Kinvara night and headed instead, into Galway city to stay with sister no 2. On the way, we stopped off in Doolin, to beautiful scenery and a play on the beach, and in Burrin, on the Kinvara road, to a hidden gem, the Wilde and Wooley Knitwear Studio. I had stopped off to have a look in the Burren Woollen Mills, (which houses the same tacky crap which you will find in the Burren House. A scary place where we did a toilet break, and ended up running away from several bus tours!!).

Follow the signs to Wilde and Wooley, behind the Woollen Mills and you will hear the swish, swish of an old knitting machine. Brings back memories of wrestling with an ancient one in my brief knitwear career..... Then you walk into a conservatory-like studio, with plants growing alongside a display of lovely jumpers, hats and other woollen goods. Take a peek inside the door, into such a homely studio that it melts your heart. A wall of shelves, filled with cones of lovely yarn!! The child being a bit on the restless, cranky side, I didn't get to chat much with the lady who runs the studio, or to check out her goods properly, but she did tell me, she was now a rarity. So many other knitwear studios have closed down, shes one of the few left. Such a shame considering our huge knitwear heritage.

Onto Galway City and yes it was the day that Michael Jackson died...It followed lots of videos on cable, and a big, cross-country telephone debate on what year Michael Jackson played in Cork...I did see this wonderful fencing along a new building development. Isn't it amazing how lovely some new things can be, if done well....

Onto Mayo, to chill for a day or two before letting the ma babysit and whizzing across country to Co. Monaghan to attend the Cassandra Hand Summer School of Lace. Crochet Lace has never been my thing, but in the attempt of trying to find out more about my textile heritage, and excuse to abandon the child for a whole 4 days, I went to this lace workshop. I had chatted to a few people going already through Ravelry, and to Maire, through emails, and I was a bit anxious about being a lace beginner. The plan was to have a few motifs done before going, but plans, mostly, go out the window. It didn't matter. Just the sheer joy of being around people who love crochet as much as I do was and is enough to fill me up with awe. You know that sense of awe, when you see something hand-made that is simply fabulous, that always stays with you, the wonder of how it was made, who made it, and my god the work that went into it. That's the awe I felt and still feel after a wonderful weekend. It was crammed with crochet, trips to lace museums, crochet, visits to weaving workshops, more crochet, a few pints, more crochet....sheer heaven!! The weather wasn't great, but well, we were indoors so who cared!! I don't know the North well at all, and it was fascinating to hear stories about the area, the North, the Troubles, the now open boarders. Here is a collage of photos, the drive across Leitrim, Carrickmacross Lace we saw at the Monaghan Museum, the Class of 09, and the weaving workshop we visited.

I had nothing definite I wanted to make, I simply wanted to learn the techniques, and how to do the clones Knot filling. So I made a few motifs, and started to put them together into a doily type thing. At the workshop I got the motifs done, then started the filling. Between returning to my mums house, and the past week, I got the piece finished, finally, today, and it is now in the sink, soaking as we type! This is a pic of the motifs just being tacked in place, and I am about to start the Clones Knot filling.

So, after the return back to Mayo to my folks house, I discovered that I hadn't missed Sheep and Wool Day at the Museum of Folklife as I though I had. Its only a half-hour drive to Castlebar so I decided to head over for an interesting hour of sheep and shearing!

Before and after shearing!

After shearing, the fleece was brought into a marquee where a lady from Connemara proceeded to spin it. I had hoped she would go into details about grading the fleece, but she didn't. And as usual, as soon as I start to show an interest in my surroundings the child acts up, and we head home shortly after...How do kids have such a knack of being angels when your gazing into space, but when you shift your focus to something they suddenly turn into little bundles of trouble! So, I didn't get to ask any questions, or chat to any of the knitting circle that was enthusiastically knitting in the corner....

After all this, a glutton for punishment, I went camping for the weekend in very, very wet conditions, in Tipperary. We had been planning this for ages, a weekend of friends, kids, and camping. The campsite was nice but with the weather, we didn't get to see or do much besides sit around chat, cook food, drink, chat, dry the kids, chat...but what more could you want! The campsite had a small pet farm attached, complete with a solitary alpaca and rather grumpy sheep....I knew there had to be some textile connection, even when camping!!