National Circus Festival of Ireland 2013

National Circus Festival, Tralee, 2013 from Rory Kirby on Vimeo.

Last blog post catch up of 2013. The last gig I did last year was for the National Circus Festival of Ireland (previously known as the Tralee Circus Festival). My second year doing the decor for the Festival Club of the festival. As is my love, the theme was handmade or vintage, with a circus, stage, playing card theme...

Lino-printing Workshop with Ed Ryan

Straight after the weekend in Kenmare, I took part in a little lino-cutting workshops with artist, Ed Ryan at Meitheal Eithseala.  I love print, probably because I love book illustration, and most of early illustration was print in some form. I did a small bit of printing in college, from screen-printing to etching, and I enjoyed it immensely.

More St. Brigits Crosses...

I wanted to use up the reeds, so here's a few more crosses. I divided up the remaining reeds into grades of 4 from thick to thin, keeping the thinnest for tying the knots.

And then made a cross starting with the thin reeds, 3 of each grade. (I swear I'm not obsessive and a perfectionist!!)

There are other versions of St. Brigit's crosses, but they are not as common, and rarely seen. These were taken from the book Irish Folk Ways by E. Estyn Evans

This style of cross, called a God's Eye, is common among several cultures around the world. It is very easy to make out of yarn, and is a great project to do with kids, who might not be able to handle rushes.

Lá le Bríde - Crosóg Bhríde

(I'm editing this post, because I had a revelation! Because I didn't bother cleaning up the mess until the day after, I discovered how to tie the knots....read on....)

It's that time of the year again. There's a great demo on how to make a St. Brigid's Cross, and a some blurb on Brigid Of Faughart and the Celtic Festival of Imbolc the original celebration to mark the coming of spring on http://newgrange.com/imbolc.htm

There is something that always bugged me though, knotting the arms. I just can't bring myself to use an elastic band. And I find making the knots fiddly and annoying if you havent got a great range of supple, knotable, reeds. So, after 24 hours of a messy kitchen table, I discovered the secret... This is probably a very silly revelation to an experienced cross maker, or anyone that has worked with reeds before, but for me, years of annoyance has finally been solved....The trick is to use day old cut reeds!

Here is the difference between a cross made with fresh reeds and day old reeds.

Fresh reeds

Day old Reeds

I prefer the cross made with fresh reeds, I find the day old one a bit flat. So, the choice is yours, you can use fresh or day old. BUT for the knots use day old reeds, the thin tips. Dont use if theres any brown bits, they are too brittle. So, here is how I tied the knots:

If you dont have day old reeds and you want to make your cross, tie up like this, and then the following day, tie your knot.

Then, the night of Lá le Brid, burn your cross from last year, and hang your new one up in the kitchen. And dont forget to leave your red rag out! (More info about the tradition on The Woolly Way here)


New and Old St. Brigids Crosses

and because you know I like patterns, and mess, I had to take a pic of the floor.

Cork Textiles Network Workshop

Detail of Hand and Machine Embroidered Sample

Just a brief about the Cork Textiles Network Conference Colour and Form in Textiles.

There was talks from 3 very different textile artists, Connections with Colour with Ruth Issett, Process and Form with Angela O'Kelly, and Flights of Discovery with Nicola Henley.

WWKIP, pears, exhibitions and books

I went to the World Wide Knit in Public event, which was on in The Crafty Alley shop in Killarney on Saturday. It was lovely to get a few hours off, time to have a nice relaxing latte before going to meet some fellow..knitters. Well, I didn't bring my knitting, but my crochet of course! And I successfully made half a pear, while chatting continuously to ladies I have never met in real life before. Two I had met in our Munster group Shebeens, the only illegal pretend drinking den in Ravelry! It was a lovely afternoon, and hopefully we'll meet up again. The Crafty Alley is going to start a weekly knitting circle, and the two fellow Ravallers want to organise a monthly meet-up, which would suit me much better.I'm trying to learn how to use a sewing machine properly, and the pears are my first real project, where I'm making up the pattern. It took 3 goes at the pear before I could get the pattern right. Whereas one go at crochet, and it was done. God, I love crochet! I have some really ugly large cushions, with torn covers, and I've wanted to make something fun out of them for a while now. I'm going to make some large fruit-shaped cushions, and I want some sewn and some crocheted, as I dont have time to crochet them all. I tested my sewn pears on my toddler. As I made each one, I gave it to him and asked him"what's that?". If he gets the answer right, its right, so third time lucky! So we had a ball, then a ball, then a pear!! (He loves them, he won't go to sleep at night without his balls...crazy kid... I know he's going to hate anything to do with fabric and fibre when he grows up...)

As I mentioned before, I had a few pictures accepted into the online International Freeform Crochet Guild exhibition, but this year they are doing one for real. All the ones in the online exhibition were invited to send their piece into a real exhibition. Its at the The San Luis Valley Folk Arts and Fiber Festival. And this baby is winging its way to the States as we speak, to be part of the exhibition. Its exciting to have a piece in an exhibition with the likes of Myra Woods and Prudence Mapestone, the Queens of Freeform!!


This is a sneak preview of the pattern that has just been accepted into the Crochet Liberation Front's Third Ever Book. It's a Silly Monster Peg/Pin Bag. Once the book has been published, I'll put up proper pics, but for now, you'll just have to wait!! Thanks again to my merry little band of helpers who tested out the pattern for me.

New Computer, Disasters and Braiding...

Thanks to the BF, and Aldi, I now have a New Computer. I'm just finding my way round, getting used to the feel of Vista. My old computer, which was a Lidl baby, served me well, I think 6 years, so I have faith in these mass made, sold in cheap retail outlets machines...Unfortunately, my blog looks different, and I cant figure out is it just me or is it the blog. Its been playing up on the fonts swopping from FONT to ARIAL willy nilly. Or maybe its me, no its probably me....

Anyway, that's the New Computer news, here's the Disaster... Some years ago, on a whim at the Knitting and Stitching Show, I bought a few of these...

I got a few small skeins of metallic thread. OK, I know it was the magpie tendencies taking over but I genuinely had plans to do some nice embroidery...or something like it...

After I got them home, I went about un-winding them into nice little balls of metallic thread, but then this happened...

The Gold thread you see is me being restrained and patient, trying to slowly unravel the thread. The Silver skein is the result of a frustrated, Damn you to hell attempt...We all have had those moments and mementos of that sheer knotted frustration. So, rather than throw these lovely tangled threads out, they remained hidden in the deepest hole that is my have to do/fix/make bag, until this week, I decided to have another go. 2 long nights, and crap TV later, I managed to produce this...

The thread kept breaking on my, so I just wound each length separately onto card, to be put back into the have-to-do/fix/make bag. The reason I got them out in the first place, is because I finally dug out another Knit and Stitch purchase of some years, my lucet. This is a plastic jobbie I got from Ziggy, Luceteer extraordinaire. (Anyone who has passed by the Braiding stand at the K&S will have had to have met Ziggy..). Last year while talking to him, I mentioned I had one of his lucets, and he reprimanded me for not having any braids on my person. So, out with the Lucet, its time to get busy braiding...I had planned on making braids out of the lovely metallic thread, but that idea was now out the window.

Historically, there is much debate about the Lucet. It has the feel and look of a medieval, even of a viking tool, but there is debate on whether it actually is or not. There is archaeological finds that look like a lucet, can be used as a lucet, but very little actually braids have been found. The Braid is very strong, so its hard to imagine it not being used in some way. I had plans to try get quite fast at it, and use it as a bartering tool with re-enactors...I'd love to get one carved from wood, or bone..and also to get one with longer prongs. So, to test the Lucet out, I tried a few different fibres.

From Left to right they are Thick linen, thin linen, wool, cotton. Now I know we didn't have much cotton in viking times, but I just did that for practise. I is much smoother, therefore, easier and faster than linen. But the linen has a lovely look about it, I suppose Au natural..

Ziggy sells his lucet with a great little pamphlet on how to use the tool, and it also had instructions on how to do frogging. This technique creates a ruffle effect, not unlike the decoration you would see on uniforms and the like. You can also add beads as I did in this bracelet

I really enjoyed using the lucet, and its a very simple, portable tool, something I always look out for. I've always had this grandiose notion, that if the world became a disaster area, all technology and machines gone, it is us, the ones who know how to make tools and farm, that will rule the earth.. I could be a queen....

hikaru dorodango

At the Electric Picnic, I managed to do two workshops in the Craft Village. One was needle-felting, and the other was the Japanese art of hikaru dorodango, or Dragon Balls.

Basically it is a ball of mud that slowly turns into a shiny ball resembling marble. The process is easy, slow yet extremely relaxing. Who would have thought rolling one ball of mud around and around could create something so beautiful!

With the chaos that ensued after the Picnic, I only found it the other day. Hidden among the fluffy Crocheted Coral. I was happily showing it off, and then thought, ooh, I can write about it in my blog. So I brought it upstairs, put it on the table, got the camera ready, and yes, you guessed it, my perfectly spherical shiny mud ball rolled off the table and cracked in two.


But thanks to modern technology, and photoshop, here's what my shiny mud ball would have looked like...



Its, apparently, now the latest craze in Japanese Kindengartens, but its an old tradition that was used to help children who were training to work in pottery or plaster, to get the feel of clay

Here's is an article about a Japanese Professor who brought back this technique to modern Japanese kindergarten.

Here's is a link to a website that explains it better than I do