Thursday, 21 February 2013

The Mermaid Rug -- finally!

Been talking about doing this one for ages..donkey's ages.. well ok, maybe three years. Ever since I signed up as a vendor at the P.E.I. Seaglass Festival held at Wood Islands Lighthouse 3 years ago. It was around then I had discovered the unknown-to-me pleasure of rug hooking, and I decided I liked it.

Now like most things I get into, I get a craze on for them, where I have to look at everything connected to it, and work on such craft 'til the wee hours of the morning. Which is what I did when I hooked two hot mats on a lap frame. These hot mats were around 9" x 9" . Upon completion I decided I was going to take on the task of hooking a large area rug ;-) I was ready!

Talking to my longtime close friend, Acadian artist, Roch Bourque on the phone one afternoon, he says to me, guess what I got you at the auction? a rug-hooking frame -- cool, I says. Guess what I want to do? A really large rug. So I'm thinking this frame would be about the size of the usual "Cheticamp" type frames, the size you would hook a fair size door mat on...not that much bigger than a "tv dinner tray" as we called them in the 70's ;-) Well...  a few days later, Roch shows up with this huge, honking frame I am sure you could make a carpet for a small bedroom on! I think I was scared of it at first...

I continued to look at mermaids. lots of  images of mermaids ( I have plenty) -- I looked at lots of hand hooked mermaids, boats, clouds, seas, dolphins, whales to get an idea of how I should proceed.
I made Paint sketches on the computer, I did watercolour drawings, I did pencil crayon drawings.. This thing percolated for quite a while... until...2 days ago

Yes, that's duct tape keeping the edges from fraying. My 50 year old sewing machine was being a beast ;-) Mayhaps I should have threaded up one of my 100 year old treadle machines instead ;-) 

Yesterday, I hooked the sand dollar, and today I got started on the snail shell. I am thinking I may have to tone down that pink inside ....


Wednesday, 13 February 2013

New On The Wheel :)

Spinning some purple art yarn from a stash of batting and silk from before i hurt my back and also spinning some white in planning for knitting my precious girl these wonderful mittens: Freja Mittens

These were taken about a week ago when I found out spinning for more than 5 minutes didn't HURT anymore :) Here I am happily plying a center-pull single back onto itself for the Cape Spear Coverlet



If you go to Ravelry,  or Knit Wiki you can find the pattern 


Sunday, 23 December 2012

Happy Holidays!


In the old days, there was no spinning done at all during Christmas/Yule
All 12 days of it!

This is a re-post from my old blog, the story is cute, so I'll share it again :)


Keepin the ' Oul' Christmas'

Well then, there was the man and his wife who had a quarrel one-time about keepin' the Christmas. The wife said the oul' Christmas was the right day, and the man said it was the new Christmas; so to show that he was master of the house, the man dressed himself and went to church that day; telling Aggie to 'ave ' broish phidher' (pease porridge) ready for him when he got home.

Now she was determined to keep the oul' Christmas, and so she went and got her queeyl (spinning-wheel) out, (for there was work still to be done)-- now, accordin' to the tradition, that was the greatest indignity she could put on the day, for the queeyl is always put away at Christmas time..

Well, Lar' T'underin, all he found on the stove, when he came back from de service, was a bit o' herrin and some priddas.
He found the wife, sittin at her spinnin -- just showin, that if he was master, then SHE was Mistress ;-)

I look forward to Twelfth Night..... that's the day I can get back at my spinnin' ---

 That is s'posin' my back is up for it. Some of you may know I hurt myself in late September, and found out that I'm no longer invincible afterall, and i twisted and curved my spine in somewhat of a corkscrew twist to the right, hauling in wood on a cart which was over-estimatingly loaded ;-)

I limped my way through the Nova Scotia Fiber Festival, Art Across the Marsh and A Handmade Assembly in October, then through 2 Midnight Madness Events in Sackville before I finally caved and cried UNCLE and landed in the Sackville Hospital due to extreme pain.

So if you've been wondering WHY my production has been down, and there's not many listings on the Etsy site, let alone posts on this page, now you know .

Hope everyone's having a marvellous Yule/Solstice/Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza - whatever you celebrate, may you have peace, love, and happiness at 
this special time of the year.

See you in the New Year at Sackville Farmers Market!



Monday, 10 September 2012

Spinderella's on Blogger - Yay!

Hey everyone, welcome to the new Spinderella New Brunswick Blog. I'd been wanting to move my blog from Live Journal for quite a while and the procrastinating is finally over, LOL. To start this blog off, I thought best to inform all you lovely people of some upcoming dates on Spinderella's schedule:

SEPTEMBER

Agricultural Field Day, Doncaster Farm 173 Main Street, Sackville, New Brunswick - Sackville Fall Fair -- Saturday Sept. 22 -- 9 am - 5pm
One of my favourite days in Sackville!  -- List of Events

OCTOBER

Nova Scotia Fiber Arts Festival -- Amherst, Nova Scotia October 9 - 13th  -- Blog

Art Across The Marsh Studio Tour -- a celebration of art and artists on Tantramar Marshes area of Nova Scotia & New Brunswick -- October 20 & 21 -- Participating Artists

A Handmade Assembly - the Heart & Pocket Revue -- 
(((Not your grandma's craft fair, LOL)))) -
October 24 - 27 -- Struts Gallery, 7 Lorne Street, Sackville, New Brunswick

NOVEMBER

Midnite Madness - Sackville, NB

The Art Menagerie - Dorchester, NB

DECEMBER

Botsford Station Winter Bazaar - Moncton, NB

Midnite Madness - Sackville, NB