Our crafting is labour-intensive. Is the time well-spent? Felicia was only able to spend ten hours on her Tour de Fleece spinning and ponders this question. Christina has also asked the same question about handwoven pet accessories.
Another theme that has emerged this month is natural dyeing; mordants, natural dyes and mud dyes.
So without further ado, read on for more news, views and reviews for spinners, knitters, crocheters, dyers and weavers. This is the free round-up for September 2024.
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Cover photo: Mississippi Mills Museum by gretta vosper on Unsplash.
Software product manager Charlotte Love took the black chair on 26 August's Mastermind. Her specialist subject was the history of Shetland hand-knitting.
See how she did and test your own knowledge.
Bonus round: Interweave have set up a quiz they call "Trivial Pursuit: The Knitting Edition".
www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0022fr3/mastermind-202425-episode-3
This is the story of a walking wheel that Josefin and a relative managed to buy for a price that was "an insult to the wheel".
They have done a little refurbishment to the wheel and spent some time using "Beata Sophia", as they christened her.
This is Libra, the seventh Questionable Blend in craftmehappy's series. Once again, she spun it across the end to get an idea of how it blends and then tried several preparation / drafting methods before swatching the yarn.
The eighth questionable blend was also published this month. It's one of the more blended mixes in this series. It's called Hickory Dickory and is here.
www.craftmehappy.com/2024/08/questionable-blend-number-7-libra.html
Sue has been washing fleeces, one mystery fleece and one "beauty".
travelfibreandthread.blogspot.com/2024/08/not-what-i-was-expecting.html
Leigh has four different recipes from three books and gives them here with a procedure for using and disposing of the chemicals.
leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com...natural-dyeing-alum-mordant-for-animal.html
These black-eyed susans should have produced an olive green. Spoiler: Leigh's results are unsatisfying but we can learn more from failures than successes, right?
This is a two-part story, if the link at the bottom of the first post appears to be broken, the second part is here.
Leigh has been exploring the dyeing possibilities using local resources. This month she has also tried pear leaves and hardy hibiscus.
leighsfiberjournal.blogspot.com...black-eyed-susans-part-1.html
Christina says that using mud dyes is fast and easy, with beautiful results.
Hunter used a natural dye kit to turn some white napkins into coloured napkins. Over two or three blog posts she emphasises that it was a lengthy process.
Her cochineal, osage, logwood and madder have produced cheerful colours that you may not immediately associate with natural dyes.
In June we learned about The Longest Yarn exhibition which is a 3D depiction of the D-day landings. It will be on display at Southwell Minster for most of September. This article contains a little more background about the work.
www.englishcathedrals.co.uk...the-longest-yarn-southwell-minster
Harris Tweed is the only cloth in the world governed by its own Act of Parliament. A judgement was made 60 years ago which says that the name can only be used for cloth that is made of pure virgin Scottish wool which had been dyed, spun, and finished in the islands of the Outer Hebrides and hand-woven by the islanders at their homes.
www.scottishlegal.com...harris-tweed-was-woven-into-the-fabric-of-the-law
we have seen a couple of stories recently about entrepreneurs having low-quality wool turned into soil-improving pellets for gardeners.
Taproot, a community farming organisation in Nova Scotia, is planning to install a pellet machine to give local farmers another revenue stream.
ca.news.yahoo.com/turning-wool-pellets-could-keep-090000581.html
This is one of the most amazing niddy-noddies I've seen. What an extraordinary design.
The yarn is paper and in this post, Peggy writes about spinning and wet-finishing paper yarn.
Sarah has long been turning her used coffee filters into yarn but here she tries a different tack. Layered and sewn together they make a sturdy but flexible fabric.
Mary Lou Egan enjoyed learning about Carl and Karin Larsson, known as the creators of Swedish style, at a touring exhibition, Let the Hand Be Seen.
www.moderndailyknitting.com...mother-of-swedish-style-fiber-craft
Christina Garton suggests three ideas for dog-related woven projects. She considers the question of whether this is a useful way to spend time.
Felicia was able to spend ten hours spinning during Tour de Fleece and has a bobbin of singles to show for it.
She has also been considering whether this was time well-spent and presents some lessons that she has learned from it.
sweetgeorgiayarns.com/is-this-time-well-spent-a-2024-tour-de-fleece-recap
Kath Andrews has some reflections on the recent Pop Up Wool Show and on the show 'season'.
By choosing colours that graduate from very light to very dark, you can create a glowing effect in your weaving.
Kathy and Janet have both detailed their method for tying a warp. Neither is better but both weavers explain why they do things the way that they do.
My main link goes to Kathy's version, and this link goes to Janet's version.
Plaiting is a nice way to finish a woven bookmark. Two colours in a five-stranded braid was used for belts, hat bands and mittens in Sweden.
Susan has this tutorial in pictures as well as a video.
If you have trouble remembering the moves for grafting or Kitchener stitch, this may help.
I must confess that I've read this through a couple of times and still don't understand but maybe this will work for you.
This is a very simple idea for making a rectangle when you have a square pin loom.
This is an introduction to slip-stitch colourwork. If you've never done colourwork before, this is an easy way in because you still only need to hold one colour per row.
If you haven't seen this before then it's a useful thing to have in your toolkit. As Kathleen demonstrates here, it is a very efficient way to make a 2x2 cross. I don't think I've seen this used to cross more than two stitches, I imagine it could work but may be more tricky to correctly catch the stitches that are briefly off the needles.
Peggy is enjoying making this jumper from stainless steel yarn. It looks like regular yarn but holds its position.
peggyosterkamp.com/2024/08/from-gold-leaf-to-stainless-steel-threads/
Artist Julie Beeler has published The Mushroom Color Atlas, a beautifully-illustrated how-to guide. It contains 500 colour swatches and a guide to identifying, harvesting, and distilling the hues.
This is Colossal's review.
Jess has been making these yarn-inspired stained glass suncatchers and is planning more wool and spinning-related designs.
At first glance this may look like an abstract pattern but if you're into electronics you may recognise it as a microscopic view of a microprocessor die, specifically an Intel Pentium. The Navajo weaver, Marilou Schultz, created the artwork in 1994 using traditional materials and techniques. It was commissioned by Intel themselves as a gift for the American Indian Science & Engineering Society.
Seawool is a patented fabric made from oyster shells.
The shells have low thermal conductivity and make a "magical yarn". Eddie Wang has developed a low-carbon process that turns a "waste product into gold".
Dr. Sophie Skach and Dr. Victor Shepardson have devised a set of smart fabrics that can produce musical sounds when touched, stroked or scrunched.
https://www.designboom.com...e-textiles-sounds-electronic-musical-instruments
fabrics like cotton that are cellulose-based can be broken down into glucose and a small amount of residue. designer Jinghan Li wants people to consider waste as a resource for food. It's just one of the opportunities to create a closed loop.
With thanks to Pamela for the link.
UK company Fibe have developed processes to make fibre from the above-ground parts of a potato that are usually a problem for the farmer.
The strong and soft fibres are said to have similar properties to cotton.
Sometimes just a picture is enough
Beate Fischer made these socks from East Friesian fleece dyed in two colours. There's lots of detail in this article about how she achieved the colour progression in a three-ply yarn.
The pattern is Frasier Fir by Verena Cohrs.
The gradient in Emilia Vasnin's shawl is beautiful so it's unsurprising that she says "gradients are my thing". Her favourite part was watching the colours blend into a gradient, and then watching the knitting change as she worked.
Sarah has blogged these beautiful milkweed bangles with lots of pictures and cartoons in her unique style.
Artist Faith Humphrey Hill draws portraits of strangers, scans them and uses software to knit the images using vintage knitting machines that are hacked to be driven by her computer.
She enjoys drawing people that she didn't know and meeting them through her work.
www.thebeacon.net/fiber-artist-meets-her-subjects-through-her-work
These felted slippers have been 14 years in the making. woolandfabric started making them when her daughter was 4 and she has now turned 18.
This post contains lots of pictures of the finished cardi and the whole process from fleece to finished.
It combines wool from two Romney fleeces. The pattern is Felix Cardigan by Amy Christoffers.
Spindelicious says that she couldn't be happier with it.
This is a jumper adapted from a cardigan pattern. It's made from a "hand blended and handspun alpaca mix".
A selection of free seasonal patterns which will work well with handspun yarn.
This fun bag uses around 740 yards of worsted-weight yarn on a 4mm hook. It's the perfect size for your purse, phone, keys and a few other small items.
This design is intended for "those extra Zoom Loom squares that somehow didn't get turned into a project", says Margaret.
The bag plan is based on a traditional Japanese rice bag, traditionally made from scrap fabric, called a komebukuro.
schachtspindle.com/blogs/projects/zoom-loom-eclectic-art-bag
Valentine is a free tablet weaving project. It makes a wide band, using 26 warp threads and a 64 pick repeat.
www.tabletweavingintheoryandpractice.co.uk/2024/08/valentine.html
This is a cute and customisable posable toy. It uses worsted-weight yarn in seven colours, approximately 155yds total, but I guess gauge is not critical.
cbfiberworks.com/free-crochet-pattern-farrin-the-frilled-lizard
Mary Aycock has both a knitted and a crocheted version of this cuff distaff.
It uses a very modest amount of 4 ply (14 wpi) yarn.
This unisex jumper has clean lines and an attractive neckline. It's made in sport-weight (12 wpi) yarn and is available in nine sizes.
Hazel wrote this pattern for twelve colours but after being asked for the pattern, rewrote it for five colours. The pattern includes both the five and twelve colour versions.
It can be made in a wide variety of sizes, and there are instructions for making it shorter.
The crown of a hat can look like a sea urchin and so the next logical step for Hunter Hammersen was to knit sea urchins.
Bricker has a 'robust' brickwork knit/purl pattern that can be read in reverse if, like me, you prefer toe-up. The pattern has four sizes.
This blanket makes effective use of the mitred square.
Wenceslao Martinez opened Martinez Studio to the public on 21 August to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
The artist weaves wool-on-wool tapestries using naturally-dyed handspun Churro wool. His weaving is rooted in ancient Zapotec processes and designs.
doorcountypulse.com/martinez-studio-rings-in-30-years-of-weaving
In Rosie James' work, neatness takes a back seat to character. Her large-scale Free motion embroideries include applique and screen printing.
Adrienna Matzeg has rendered snapshots from a trip to Portugal using punch-needle.
Lee ShinJa's New York show, Weaving the Dawn, "showcases several decades' worth of tapestries that challenge the boundaries of the art form".
Shervone Neckles combines textile art with Caribbean cooking.
www.textileartist.org/shervone-neckles-textile-tastes-of-the-caribbean
A name like Ben Venom automatically gets my vote. His teenage love of metal and punk bands is seen in his quilting and applique works.
These tufts of tulle, blurred by the breeze, look like braids of fibre or skeins of yarn on the lanscape.
28 - 29 September 2024, Skipton Auction Mart, North Yorkshire
Over 180 makers, craft workers, retailers, and artisans in the picturesque market town of Skipton, North Yorkshire.
'Spinning a Yarn' opens at Somerset Rural Life Museum in Glastonbury from 14 September to 30 November
An exhibition in the Mapstone Gallery will feature historic collections alongside work by contemporary artists whose work uses wool. The Nicola Turner and Trevor Pitt commissions in the Abbey Barn will close on 2 November.
The project aims to tell the story of wool in Somerset.
28 - 29 September 2024, Masham Town Hall
Craft market and fleece stalls, specialising in British wool to compliment the sheep-related events that fill the square of Masham over the weekend.
29 September - 5 October 2024
Shetland Wool Week is a world renowned celebration of Britain's most northerly native sheep, the Shetland textile industry and the rural farming community on these islands.
Includes classes, talks, drop-ins, art. See website for the full events listing.
10 - 13 October 2024, Alexandra Palace, London
Saturday 12 October 2024, Queen's Hall and Plas Hyfryd Hotel, Narberth, Pembrokeshire
A celebration of all things woolly. From beautifully hand crafted items, clothing and footwear to knitting wool, fleece and all the equipment needed to make at home. Demonstrations run throughout the day with stall holders sharing their skills and knowledge with visitors plus wool skill workshops such as felting.
12 - 13 October 2024, Kelly House, Lifton, Devon
Many exhibitors from around the South-West and further afield, producers of the finest woollen yarn to felt makers.
Saturday 5 October 2024, Liskeard Public Hall.
19 - 20 October 2024 Bakewell Agricultural Centre
A wool festival dedicated to the best of yarn, knitting, and crochet, in the heart of the Derbyshire Dales.
There will be exhibitors, demonstrations of fibre crafts and a fleece stand selling plenty of local fleece.
18 - 20 October 2024, The Trades Hall, Glasgow
Scotland's longest running yarn festival, championing local and innovative makers since 2011.
GSoY has an abundance of beautiful yarns, fibres, and accessories for every crafter.
26-27 October 2024 Leicester Racecourse, Oadby, Leicester LE2 4AL
30+ trade stalls, 30+ courses, food and free parking.
2 and 3 November 2024, Newton Abbot Racecourse.
Since 2016, Stitch Fest has moved to bigger venues and is now held under one roof at Newton Abbot Racecourse, showcasing some of the best independent makers, dyers, spinners and designers and a fabulous workshop and demonstration timetable.
8 - 9 November 2024, Sandburn Hall, York YO60 7RB
More details to follow
21 - 24 November 2024, Harrogate Convention Centre
Meet up with like-minded crafters, discuss ideas, learn new skills and shop for your annual craft supplies, including wool, beads and beyond from household name brands and special suppliers alike including Fabric Godmother, Toft and more.
I'm Shiela Dixon, I've been doing this for almost fifteen years in order to promote and encourage spinning and related crafts.
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Happy spinning!
Shiela Dixon - Editor / curator
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