Woolly Wednesday January 2013

Happy New Year, welcome to 2013, may it be full of woolly wonders!


Today welcomes our Woolly Wednesday gathering for January, whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share with us all what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month. All crafts and inspiration welcome. Post Christmas, come and share what you are spinning, knitting, creating ... or what are you planning?

Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture -  upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can.

Falling in love with silk

Lots of woolly things happening again here, but what to talk about?

I could tell you the story behind a custom order for a macBook cover, using handspun wool, but it's very similar to things I have said before.

 I could tell you about using up odd bits of handspun wool to make brooches, hair grips and bobbles for a stall the Guild are holding this weekend and Compton Verney, but that too gets a bit repetitive.

 So how about I tell you about a series of talks we've had a Guild recently?  One of our members grows her own silk, and gave us an amazing talk about the history of silk, the different kinds of silk, the different properties of silk, and had samples upon samples of all these different silks, from tussah to mulberry, from cocoons, to hankies.  And it was the silk hankies that really excited me. 

A hankie is a stretched coccoon.  It has to be processed to remove the sericin (the glue the silk worm uses in making the cocoon), but then can be stretched into a square and dried.  This site  http://www.wormspit.com/mawatas.htm shows the process in more detail.

 Once you have these hankies you can seperate them out and then , whilst sticking your thumb through the centre of it, you stretch it.  Keep on stretching and stretching (there is a lot of fibre in these hankies), and yyou end up with a long loop.

 Break the loop, and you have a pure silk yarn.  No spinning required, you can knit or crochet with it as it is. 

 

Needless to say, I had to buy myself some hankies.  I've had a little play, but would like to dye them first and then have much more of a play. 

 

This coming month we are learning how to make paper from silk.  I am very much looking forward to learning more about this wonderful silk.

Woolly Wednesday - September

Welcome to the September Woolly Wednesday! There is an air of Autumn here in England this week, the perfect time to sit cosily in your home and think of woolly things to create. So what have you been up to this month?

Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here.

Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month, we look forward to seeing you ...

Woolly Wednesday August 2011 ... join us

Welcome to the August Woolly Wednesday!

We are hosting Woolly Wednesday on the first Wednesday of every month.


Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here.

Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month, we look forward to seeing you ...