Facebook Connections

St. James Textile Museum, where you'll find me most days in the summertime, now has a page on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/stjamestextilemuseum

Pop by and like us, and keep up to date on whats happenning this summer, all our special events, especially our ever-growing and popular Heritage Fair, which takes place the same weekend as our village of Dorchester's annual Sandpiper Festival.

This year's Heritage Fair takes place on July 26

 

Photos from previous Heritage Fairs:

 Examples of how wool looks in various stages of processing

Heritage Bread Baking in the Hearth Oven

 

Chairseat Caning Demonstration

 

Traditional Netmaking

 

Pottery

 

Basket Weaving

 

Horseshoeing

 

 

 

 

Uh-oh, something broke on my wheel! aka "Houston, we have a problem.."

Thursday evening i was spinning up some lovely brown Jacob fleece, when all of a sudden *snap! there goes the connection between the treadle and the footman on my usual workhorse wheel, my Louet S90

So I ended up having to finish plying this very fine laceweight yarn on the Louet S15, which...toook....foreverrrrrr with its 1:5 ratio between the drive wheel and the bobbin wheel

This afternoon i found the time to do a repair job with some chunky hemp jewellery cord, and she's now good to go.

 The poor s90 has been through a lot, i don't dare fold her anymore, and i must tell you, i keep a socket wrench attached to her at all times, cause i never know when the mother-of-all is going to suddenly droop like a wilted violet ;-) She came to me second-hand, like most of my things, and was very well loved before by a lady who lived down the road from me and kept Shetland sheep :)

This would be the shawl the yarn is going into; i'm now on row 80 out of 170 rows, plus a 15 row edging, all handspun Jacob of varying shades

Ginormous Knitting!

Been playing around with this today - 8 strands of various weight yarns on 20mm needles
It was a little awkward at first, especially for someone who knits Continental instead of English, but I got the hang of it, despite having two different brands of needles.
 Got a surprise just now, having received a bunch of needles from a friend who doesn't want them anymore, and yahoo -- another 20mm needle of the pointy variety which is much better for knitting in this size.. hmmm i wonder if i can get Addi Turbos in 25 mm circular? That would be one quick sweater!

Crazy busy summer it was!!

Spent the summer working full-time hours at the St. James Textile Museum in Dorchester, New Brunswick where I have been a volunteer for the past 8 years.

The museum is located in a de-commissioned church, built in 1884.
We are open from mid-June to mid-September, Tuesday to Sunday, 10-5
As a working museum, not only do we give guided tours of the collection, but we also spin and weave every day!

 

 

 

Here we are setting up a warp for rag rugs on a 300 year old 4 shaft loom

In addition to working full time hours at the museum, I also played the lead role of "Lotty Wilton" in a local theatrical production of "Enchanted April" 

Now you know WHY I hadn't made a post here all summer long! So without further delay, let me post you the link to the Nova Scotia Fiber Festival's blog http://nsfibre.blogspot.ca/ where I will be demonstrating some simple weaving on Wednesday morning at their headquarters, and also a vendor at the Zonta Fiber Arts Bazaar on Friday.

Here's one of my latest creations: silk/linen/alpaca/lambswool spiral-spun thick and thin -- positively indulging my inner goth ;-)

Etsy shop listings

Recently took a bunch of photos of my work, and have decided to try listing on Etsy again. I don't know about you, but I find Etsy another "needle in the haystack" method of marketing, and really don't know what works to increase sales. I've tried listing every day at the same time, promoting the listings on Facebook at various times of day and of course, the address of the shop is on all my hang tags...who knows what the secret is...But I digress...(who me? oh look, a crow!) so here's what you'll find listed in the shop now, with more to come:

On the Needles

The Freja mittens:

Here you see the charted pattern, and the fleece I spun for these mittens. It will be spun up for the second ball of natural. I used Landscape Dyes "Wild Raspberry" plus a bit of this, a bit of that to dye the other skein of natural. The knitting is progressing quite happily.

Sorry about the laundry basket in the photo. Mz Roo is sleeping in it, and I couldn't possibly move her, could I ;-)   (The best light on a grey wet day is directly under my chandelier.)

Now, Its a Kitty Hammock!

Chatting one day with someone we talked about how pets like to be in the middle of whatever we're doing ;-) I should have seen this coming..

Progress in the rug, as of today - now I'm thinking about how I'm going to do the starfish, and the beginning of the waves, the mermaid's tail, and working more medium brown sandy shades in the border background

This rug will have lots of texture as I am using upcycled wool strips and different types of handspun wool and novelty millspun yarns. Went looking for a medium blue wool skirt or pants to work into the water today but came home empty handed. :( Have to go for a doctor's appointment in Moncton this week, so perhaps I'll try the Frenchy's there then - maybe even peep into Fabricville's cheapie section and see if I can come up with  some sparkly blue shiny mystery fabric ;-)