Flock And Fiber Festival

Hello

Stink eye

 See this black dude - he's got spots - as in Dalmation spots

 I met up with some blogging friends yesterday afternoon at the Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival at the Canby Fairgrounds. It's a free event and it is just amazing to see all the spinners, the knitters, the groupies, the alpaca's. The event keeps getting bigger and bigger.


For those that want to dye their yarns, comb their wools,  this is the place to take classes and show off your wares.

Unwashed Mohair

 I bought some of the unwashed/undyed and some brown dyed mohair to use the curly locks in felting. Planning on making a sheep. Teresa bought one (!) already felted. It was cute - square nails for legs, cute little face. I really liked the curly outer coat.

Every color under the rainbow

Felted sheepies.

Customers wearing their fiber arts

Spinning circle

 I don't know about you, but I think she is holding his ear and twisting it to keep him so still.


They have judging events here too.

This last month I've been watching The Great British Sewing Bee.
The entire seasons 2 and 3 are now on Youtube.

No more trying to watch on sketchy internet sites. I've heard a rumor that season 4 is being filmed. 

I've also been watching this season's Project Runway which has definitely toned down the drama and other subjects which have nothing to do with sewing. I appreciate Heidi focusing more on sewing and designing.

Flock And Fiber Festival Canby 2014

Yesterday, I met for the first time, one of my favorite Oregon bloggers, Teresa Kasner.
She writes over Corbett way with stunning views of Mt. Hood, Crown Point & Multnomah Falls - where she does volunteer work every week.
She is a gorgeous photographer and showcases a lot of iconic Oregon scenery.

She made some crocheted bunting that I just love. She used it on her annual family camping trip and it made the canopy very bright and happy.
She has shown Multnomah Falls in all seasons. This one is from last Fall.
She also likes to photograph flowers which I enjoy seeing.

She treks over to Canbyland for the Flock & Fiber Festival most years and I suggested we meet up.

The Flock & Fiber Festival is all about flocks of sheep, goats, alpacas, etc and their fiber.
How to spin it, dye it, knit it, crochet it, felt it.



Felted purses. I liked the felted 'leaf' flap with the burn outs.


Teresa coveted these baskets.


While I need to pull out my felting supplies and do some needle felting.



For the Bunting Queen, Benta,  over in the UK - apparently this trend has made it's way to Oregon. Quite a few booths featured bunting for decoration.

Vendors were selling wool, roving, felted creations, knitting paraphernalia - stitch markers, hand-turned needles - anything to do with sheeps, goats, rabbits, alpacas and llamas.
 
The Spinners were set up outside where the sun finally broke through the clouds and people in their wool jumpers suddenly got hot.

I rather liked the dude on the right with his hair-do.

Teresa brought her husband and two grand kids along. Her husband used to raise goats and told a few stories about how they get the horns off while still babies. These goats with the horns escaped that.
Her husband also flew helicopters in the Vietnam war and afterwards on the oil rigs and I enjoyed those stories too.

It was fun to watch the boys with the goats and alpacas. I miss having small children around.



These boys reached right in to pet these goats and alpacas.











This is for my bloggy friend Gene Black. The denim strips were woven along with some shiny silver  mylar and yellow ribbon to create this large shawl.

The Flock & Fiber Festival is a free event that comes to Canby each September at the fairgrounds. You can register for classes online or just come and watch the animal judging and vendor booths.
People come from far and wide with their creations to show off and talk to fellow fiber artists.

The spinner below in the video was telling me about the "2:00 pm   Spinner’s Triathlon Competition – Central Lawn" on Sunday.

 I've always gone on Saturday after work but next year, I think I'll make time for the Spinner's Triathlon - a fun way to show off your spinning talents.

If you've ever wanted to spin fiber into yarn....

Flock & Fiber

What a great afternoon. My friend, Pencil Girl, brought along a well-rounded crafty gal (not rounded friend - she's skinny and tiny) and we met for lunch at our local 'hotspot', the Thriftway deli in Canbyland.
Then we walked two blocks to the fairgrounds to the Flock & Fiber Festival.


This is the first time we have gone together so we had a fine time talking and dreaming amongst the roving, the wool, the spinners, the loomers, & of course, the sheep and llamas. Don't forget the angora rabbits.





I also met up with two friends from my hometown who came to take classes in nuno felting (Sandy) and  I believe Nancy was taking 'Beginning Spindling'. While I have attended many times, I have never taken classes. They liked them so I may see if I can get time off work next year so I can take the class on Indigo dyeing.

Japanese Indigo plant grown locally - Vancouver, Washington.

I did some easter egg dying with red onion skins but I can see more possibilities with working in the blue tones on eggs. My house will smell better.

Pencil Girl bought some Indigo plant seed which are supposed to grow here. I bought a hunk of beautiful dark grey shot through with blues and green roving so we are trading some roving for some seeds.

knitting pattern in my colors

Hairpin Lace

Goat cheese samples

For another blog post I wrote about felting thrifted sweaters:
Felting the Easy Way

 Funny little zippered sheepy pouches

The fringe has little crystals twisted onto it.

 And finally - one last photo for my gerbil shearing friend (lol) from Tales From the Sheep Shed.

kk

Felting the Easy Way

I found this lovely coral sweater at a garage sale Friday. He wanted $2 but I talked him down to a buck. I just knew that all that cable goodness was going to felt into an interesting texture.

You can find a lot of books about felting. You can spend a bit of money to get way too involved or you can felt the easy way. I bet you know how to do it already!

First off, find a sweater that is marked 100% wool.

Alternately, LOOK for Dry Clean Only.

Next, you are going to throw this into your washing machine. Who hasn't mistakenly done this to a beloved sweater only to find it child-size later?
You also want to throw in an old towel to help agitate  the fibers. Tennis shoes that need cleaning are perfect for agitating wool. You also want to add some detergent, or a drop or two of hand-washing soap like Dove,   or forget - like I did.

Remember to use old towels, because the by-product of felting is lint

- that gets on everything.

This is after one cycle through the washing machine. The back has shrunk but the front and the sleeves are still not quite felted enough. Conjecture and all that. You may have to throw it through a second cycle. Don't fret.

I also threw this through the dryer for more shrinkage power. Be sure to check your lint trap if you do this step.

This Shetland wool ended up with a lot of fuzzies. Go outside and shake thoroughly.
Before you track it down the hall to go find the camera.

This is from the doll bedding my sis and I made our great-niece for her doll. This striped sweater was 100% Lambswool and felted without hardly any lint. Very smooth texture.

Excuse the colors. It still is the same lovely coral color but it is raining cats and dogs (no snow, grumble, grumble). Photo was taken inside with the yellow tone lighting in the kitchen.

You are aiming for a thicker version of the sweater and much smaller. Adult Large down to child's large. You should be able to cut anywhere without it unraveling. You can store it easily by cutting it apart at the seams. I tend to leave it as is until the perfect project comes along. I can see making this into part of a purse and utilizing the buttonhole band for a pocket closure. So, I don't want to cut off the buttons just yet.
You may want to use the sleeve wrist banding or even the neck banding  The cables are still discernible.
.
I still need to de-fuzz the rest of the lint balls sticking up. I've already shaken this outside. I usually wait until my project is cut out and pick off the pills as needed for the piece I have cut out. I think I actually have a battery operated sweater de-fuzzer thingy - somewhere.

That's it. No special equipment. Better yet, no books to weed through. No experts steering you in the 'right' direction. Felting the easy way.

You can find 100% wool sweaters at almost any garage sale or thrift store.
Give it a try.

The Doll Bed

 

 

This was a fun project for my sister and I to work together on. I found the doll bed at a rummage sale this summer.
The plan morphed from sewing some bedding to sewing matching nightgowns for little Miss Sophea and her dolly plus the bedding.

I started off making a mattress pad. Then I grabbed a piece of muslin to make a sheet and did some embroidery -- mostly daisy chain stitch.

I drew a chalk line and envisioned a green stem with pink and red flowers twining across the sheet and I am really pleased with how it turned out. No pattern - just free-hand stitching.
After I finished embroidering - I used a hoop - I cut it to a sheet size and utilized a double fold narrow hem on three sides and the fourth is folded over  all of the embroidery stitches - keeping the loose threads safe.

I was also working on this blanket at the same time - binding it with a blanket stitch.

This blanket started out as a wool (lambswool) sweater that I picked up at a garage sale. Even though it was seriously pilled, the gal wanted $3.00 for it just because of it's label (Gap?). I talked her down to a buck because no one was ever gonna wear it again with all the pillballs. I felted it the easy way by throwing it in the washing machine with an old towel. Then I threw it in the dryer. I picked the sweater after skyping with my sister who was in charge of buying the flannel for the nightgowns. Our color palette started off in red because of the doll bed. The computer screen clearly showed a PINK fabric which this blankie matches quite well.

Next up are two pillows because one is never enough. I had some old sheeting in my stash and cut two 4" x 6" pieces of loft batting and one 3" x 5" piece which I sandwiched between the two larger layers, creating a rather inviting pillow. I serged two sides of the folded fabric, turned it right-sides-out,  inserted my batting package and then pushed it out of the seam area while I serged the fourth side closed. A little finger push was all it took to move the batting back to flat.
The pillow cases were made similarly but before I sewed the two sides together I sewed a pink running stitch along the seam where I doubled the fabric (as in a real pillowcase). All rough measured with fabric on hand. The only thing I measured was how wide the doll bed is. I took some fabric, folded it over the batting - is there enough for a seam? and sewed.

Lastly (haha), I cobbled together a Waldorf nightie for the doll. I looked around the web but I did not want to purchase a pattern as I don't have the doll here. Not sure if there is enough room at the shoulders for the arms, but everything is elastic. I might still do some more trim work here (or not)-- If it works, great. I don't exactly have dolls laying around anymore. My kids are more into bottles.

My niece's kids have four sets of grandparents so they are quite busy during the holidays. I won't see them for another week - which gives me time to work on a little doll quilt, and maybe a fitted sheet for the mattress. I would think putting a fitted sheet around a mattress would be a huge dexterity skill for a 3-yr-old.

My sister is still sewing Phea's nightie and will send it as soon as she finishes. She actually bought a pattern which we can use again.

Bottled presents at our house.
About the size of Phea's doll.

I was thinking of a simple patchwork quilt with lace trim around the edges. I will utilize some of the nightie fabric and some other fabrics that go with this rosy pink color theme. Then again, I may come to my senses and realize I am done with this project and it is time to move on to the next -LOL.