Sorry for being so late this month, busy old time here and not a lot of spinning to share anyway. I have however been doing a lot of felting which I have blogged about on my blog Raising Seedlings. Other than that it has been getting my woven squares ready for the Guild challenge for our meeting this weekend.
So those weaving squares I have been making on and off this year were to
a) use up odd bits of spun wool, small balls that wouldn't make up much else; and
b) to make a cushion for the Guild challenge.
It's the Guild meeting this weekend and the November one always includes the revealing of members' Guild challenge projects which this year was to make a cushion for the seats to make sitting at meetings a little more comfortable.
This week I gathered them all up and realised I needed another couple in white so quickly made them on Sunday. I have now sewn them all up - using white breed squares on one side and a mix of colours on the other side. I then looked at it and thought it would look nice with a border so quickly started knitting that up to sew in between the layers. Here are the squares all sewn up -
Squares sewn together
Greys/White mixed squares side
So here it is finished with the border, I have used Dorset Horn, Hampshire Down, Portland, Jacobs, Zwartble/Suffolk cross and a little Shetland.
Greys and mixed colours side above
White square side below - 2 shades of white from different sheep breeds
Sheep to finished product - all fleece prepared from raw fleece from the sheep, spun, plied, washed, woven and a little knitting and here is my finished cushion to make those hard seats more comfortable to sit on.
I am really pleased with the result, enjoyed making this and it has inspired me to make a blanket out of more squares - I'm going to do it as a kind of fibre samples blanket - every time I spin something different I shall weave a square to add to the blanket. I have a plan to spin as many breeds as possible in all their glorious natural colours over time.
So a challenge finished for the Guild challenge of 2011, and a new challenge for me which I shall start and blog about in January 2012.
