I’ve had these miniature embroidery frames for over a year, and every so often I bring them out out and see if I can be inspired.
This morning I had the idea of using them as a kind of record for my handspun yarn.
I did a woven rose for three of my more recent spinning projects. And it was heaps of fun. I love how they look, and it’s a good visual of the handspun yarn.
Putting the little frames together was way to fiddly and annoying though, and as you can see they look pretty rough.
I still reckon it’s quite a good idea. Maybe I just need a different execution, or more patience 😁
After a weekend of full on geeking I reflected on how lucky we are in New Zealand to be able to go to events in person. We can hug old friends and new, and not have to worry about whether we are putting ourselves at risk of getting sick.
Saturday was a full fiber immersion at FibreTron2020. It was the first in person yarn event since lockdown and it was crazy busy in a good way.
A sample of my purchases
I helped out Julie from Wool on Wheels for the day. I feel like this meant that I got to see so many more people than if I’d been there as a customer. And of course I managed to squeeze a bit of time in to have a nice little shop, and a chat to some of my favourite New Zealand indie dyers and designers.
Talk about exhausted! As well as being on my feet helping all day it was a constant sensory overload and I loved it 🙂
Sunday’s in person geekfest was all about sci-fi, fantasy, pop-culture and cosplay at the Armageddon expo. A two day event that goes around all of the main centers in New Zealand. This year it was missing its overseas guests, though it made up for it by having them attend virtually on a really big screen. Luckily Sunday was quite a bit quieter than Saturday so it was easy to get around and have a really good look at what was there. And of course admire all of the people in their amazing costumes!
It’d be lovely to have a few days of rest now to recharge the batteries, however work awaits, (something else I’m incredibly grateful to still have), so resting will have to wait until next weekend :-).
Last weekend we went to the dye day that was held at the Auckland Creative Fibre club rooms. Our tutor was the amazing Annette Montgomery from Twisted Zisters.
We dyed 2 pieces of roving – one by adding dye to the pot and another by ‘hand painting’ the roving. I put hand painting in ” because we didn’t really paint it (you can’t really unless you want it felted).
We dyed silk, silk hankies, superwash roving, plain hanks and also played with overdying.
We used pots on the hob, slow cookers, microwaves and also talked about dyeing using the sun
It was a fantastic learning atmosphere – nothing we did was wrong, it was all part of the process of learning what we liked and what we didn’t, what worked and what didn’t. And it was great to see what colours other people put together.
Cup of Tea and a Yarn 