Thursday 21 October 2010

Busy, busy

So much for regular posts. Lately I have been restoring vintage hand crank and treadle sewing machines for an eco sewing weekend at the Sally Bourne Interiors Workshop in Crouch End, North London. That's taken up the last 5 weeks pretty much.

It was a really good weekend. We taught about 8 children to hand crank starting from about 21/2 years old (sitting on Mummy's lap). They were amazingly creative. One little girl about 6 or 7 years old, made (with our help) a dress, a pair of sandals and a carry bag for her fluffy bunny. We taught a couple of teenagers and several adults to treadle and sold 2 machines and possibly another 3. My daughter got a few bookings for her quilting and sewing classes. I found my Jones CB treadle will free motion quilt quite well, I just need to practice. You don't need a feed dog cover as the stitch length lever can be put in neutral.

A few weeks ago I did a swap, one of my treadles which I repainted and repolished for a needle felting machine from Rosie who makes Morsbags. We are both happy with the swap. I intend to make some wall art for the lounge for when we decorate.

We went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace 2 weeks ago. I bought some purple, deep red and cream prefelt, red silk fibres (for felting) and a pack of alpaca mix yarn in autumn shades. There was much more wool and yarn this year, plus a lot of felting supplies.

I have started 2 knitting projects, a long scarf for Casie my son-in-law with huge cables. That's in grey Rowan big wool. The other project is a heavily cabled sweater for me in a blue fleck aran wool and acrylic mix.

Today I brushed some of the Angora bunnies, cleaned some Leicester Longwool fleece to be carded and spun some Portland fllece which I will dye with vegetable dyes later on.

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