Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘spinning’

Lots of activity on the reserve this holiday! ( This scene of tranquillity is a “before” picture ).

WonkyGiraffe Easter Event Dscn7464

The arty bits were held in the barn; which was NOT COLD and filled with the scent of blossom! Yippee.

Wonky Giraffe Easter DSCN7457

There were workshops and the middle “ drop-in” event, which was another “spin into spring” day ( as last years was such a success ). Simple pompom creatures were made into bunnies and springy chicks.

WonkyGiraffe Easter Dscn7340

There were demonstrations of knitting, crochet, and drop spindle spinning. Sadly I was so busy I didn’t get any pictures 😦 that day. If anyone did take pictures I’ll add some later. Between us we managed to teach the basics of spinning, knitting and crochet to quite a few people, including children; boys as well as girls.

We made all sorts of Easter bunny and chick things, in the workshop sessions.
There lots of bunny characters made from painted “dolly” pegs; some had chenille arms

WonkyGiraffe easter pegdoll  Dscn7421

and some had “crocheted chain” arms I made as we went along…

Yes, I am a glutton for punishment! But actually it was another way to demo some crochet to the uninitiated; and was an extra bit of fun. I think I will include this in my peg doll tutorial as it saves using pipe cleaners with little ones.

WonkyGiraffe Easter peg bunny 2011 Dscn7414

WonkyGiraffe Easter peg doll rabbit 2011 Dscn7424

Just look at this funny, sweet couple!

WonkyGiraffe PegDoll couple Dscn7433

We also created some Easter trees made with network wire and crepe paper – These are easy and very effective; if anyone wants a tutorial leave me a comment and I’ll send one. (The PDF is going to end up in the shop as well.)

WonkyGiraffes Easter Tree Dscn7403a

Many of them had a sort of post psychedelic, magic roundaboutish, vibe!

WonkyGiraffe magic roundabout tree Dscn7423

Some had bunny visitors

WonkyGiraffe Easter Trees bunnys Dscn7425

and some had nests
WonkyGiraffe easter tree nest DSCN7442

and amazing illustrations of woodland dwellers added ( look at the base of this one carefully ! )

WonkyGiraffe Easter Tree Dscn7444

I loved this cheeky fox especially! He was peeping out from under a more natural tree. His creator was more of a wildlife purist than some of our younger craftspeople.

WonkyGiraffe Cheeky fox Dscn7432

We also made felted eggs, from some wool of the Jacob sheep on site! The coloured wisps were extra bits- we didn’t dip dye the sheep!
WonkyGiraffe easter felted eggs Dscn7412a

WonkyGiraffe Felted Easter Eggs Dscn7397

These took longer than anticipated, and were very wet and messy, but everyone did have a go with a great deal of soapy relish.

Then there were baskets to take it all home in!

WonkyGiraffe Easter baskets Dscn7405

WonkyGiraffe Easter Basket  Dscn7437

WonkyGiraffe felt picture Dscn7435a

What sweet scenes on this one!

The owner managed to sort out these shapes out from a mixture of flowery ones left over from another event! Such a patience and a delicate touch.

Plus of course paper bunnies (morphed from the hares) and lots of marbled egg cards ! ( The marbling was also messy ! )

WonkyGiraffe Easter Holiday Event Dscn7358a

A lovely, sunny, good old fashioned day out.

WonkyGiraffe the view Dscn7456

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

( it feels like I should write “Tra la la” after that !)

WonkyGiraffe Tring BBOWT

We had beautiful day for a great event with beautiful weather, loosely woven (sorry) around Sheep, Wool and Spinning.
There was a spinning wheel to have a go on, drop spindles to try and of course sheep.
Meanwhile, in the barn we made woolly cords using lucets, with my nifty idea of using clothes pegs. (click here for free pdf tutorial folks)

WonkyGiraffe Lucet Thread

Baa Baa Black Sheep Star Books

WonkyGiraffe Baa Baa Black Sheep Star Book

and lambs on a spring (get it?) on a jam jar.

WonkyGiraffe LambJar

Because.
I thought winding wool around little card sheep would be cute, and we gave them the working name of “woolly winders” (we love a bit of alliteration in our titles).
Then after using it for a bit, and some slips and giggles later, we quickly decided we needed a name change as that tongue twister might not be the best name… hang on for this…

WonkyGiraffe Wooly Lamb

WonkyGiraffe Woolly Lamb

Then we needed some weight on the base.
Stones? Lids.!..
No! Whole jam jars!
Well mainly because I had the jars, and yes I really did have enough
(70+ !) lovely retro Bon Maman jars stashed, to do this activity.
Not to mention lovely versatile stripped network wire.
I told you I needed to de-stash my “useful stuff”.
Now maybe you believe me. lol
[I have also disposed of my, much smaller, collection of pickle jars for someone actually pickling, so that was quite a good week’s result de-clutter wise.]

Hence lamb jars- see what we did there (don’t groan)!

We do get into the zone a bit with planning these events.

The “Lamb Jars” went down a storm; with lots of boin-gy lambs on their “grass” filled jars.

WonkyGiraffe BonMaman Jar

Some were slightly more woolly than others,

WonkyGiraffe Sheep

and some were a rather surprising pink, snaffled from the “decorate spring branches” table!

WonkyGiraffe Sheep Jar

WonkyGiraffe BonMaman LambJar

Some were collected later…

WonkyGiraffe LambJars on shelf

Perfect end to a perfect day.

WonkyGiraffe Tring BBOWT View

Read Full Post »

%d bloggers like this: