Advanced Felting Class with Dagmar Binder April 2016

Taieri Creative Fibre, on behalf of the Otago Area Spinning and Weaving Association, is hosting internationally renowned master felt artist, Dagmar Binder, for a once in a lifetime opportunity to hone up your felting skills.

 Date:          Monday April 11^th –Wednesday April 13^th 2016, 9am to 4pm

Venue: Mosgiel Presbyterian Church, Mosgiel, Dunedin

Description: Boas/collars– first day intro to multi-layer techniques

For an idea of Dagmar’s felting skill- and what you could create- check out this pinterest board- https://www.pinterest.com/sjieq/felt-by-dagmar-binder/

and look at these lovely items, examples of Dagmar’s work…

 

 

Cost for 3 day workshop- $260 for Creative Fibre New Zealand members, $300 for non-members. Morning and afternoon tea provided.

Venue close to sandwich bar/Subway/cafés or BYO lunch.

Accommodation not included but Mosgiel motels within walking distance.

A list of requirements for class will be made available closer to the time.

THERE ARE ONLY A FEW PLACES LEFT IN THIS CLASS!

Please email Sarah Gamble bunny1@clear.net.nz

or phone 03 4894876 to secure your place in this class…

Weaving day November 14th 2015 for Otago Area Spinning and Weaving members

The Otago Area S and W Assn Education committee are planning an informal weaving day for members. This will be held at the Taieri Creative Fibre meeting rooms at the Mosgiel Presbyterian Church in Church St. Mosgiel, 9-4, Saturday Nov 14th 2015 (weaver Christine Keller’s wedding day!) Final details of this weaving workshop to be confirmed, but all levels of weavers are welcome. Plenty of tables for lots of looms; even a sunny veranda you can use (weather permitting)

Beginner weavers with rigid heddle looms may want to try a lattice felted scarf- bring along your loom, and three or four 50g balls of FELTABLE yarn- something like mohair is good, or a mohair blend with alpaca, merino or similar. If you don’t have a RH loom but still want to have a go, email Sarah (see below) as there may be a few extra looms available for you to use on the day.

More experienced weavers- there’s something here for you too! Bring along your loom with your current project; have a look at Pamela’s double weave pick up and maybe have a go, or you can weave a lattice scarf on your shaft loom as well if you like.

Cost for day- maybe $10– we just need to cover the cost of renting the room, and the tea, coffee and bickies we’ll put on for morning and afternoon tea (byo lunch) … BYO loom, warped and in progress if you wish, or we can help you to warp up your RH loom.

for more info, email Sarah at bunny1@clear.net.nz. Info will be sent to all groups and individual members in the Area in a week or three, so keep this date in your diary.

Stash Swap day and Denise McGirr

Today Taieri Creative Fibre members were delighted to host an exhibition of some of Denise McGirr’s work, along with a talk  by Denise. For those of you who don’t know Denise, she is the most amazing artist of wonderful wearable art and accessories. She travelled to Mosgiel from Naseby with a carload of her wondeful creations, crafted from a mixture of felted wool, fabrics, recycled materials, and a whole lot of dedication and imagination. For once, I did remember my camera! (to be honest, I didn’t- my lovely husband delivered it to me!) and Denise was happy for me to post a few photos…

      

The photo on the left is a dress made out of car parts, the hat is sitting on the dummy’s shoulders and the headlight actually glows. On the right is a glamorous pooch in an exotic handbag. The roses on the bag are made from egg cartons (note to self- must Google that!)

             

After our felting class last weekend, we were interested in Denise’s use of nuno and other felting techniques.

After an inspiring 90 minutes listening and talking to the dynamic Denise, we all agreed that a trip to Naseby to view more of her collection was definitely in order, and have pencilled this in for early next year…

At 12.30 we opened the door to the stash swap, where people had brought along craft items that were languishing in their stashes, and/or making them feel guilty when they looked at it. A great opportunity to re-home these items and bring home some new-to-you!

A Wild and Woolly Weekend of Felting Fun!

On behalf of the Otago Area Spinning and Weaving Assoiation, Taieri Creative Fibre recently hosted tutor Kate Mahoney for a weekend of beginner to intermediate felting classes. Kate came down from Canterbury, bringing with her a range of her Heavenly Wools- a selection of merino and halfbred in yummy colours, with some silks, silk blends and yarns thrown in for good measure. Check out Kate’s website (www.heavenlywools.co.nz/) and you’ll find some very interesting ideas and lovely fibres. Kate’s a great tutor, full of fun. we’d have her back for another bash at felting any time! Some of the class were very new to felting others had a bit of experience, and it was interesting to see how different felters use materials in different ways. not a pop of bubble wrap plastic to be seen or heard!

While we didn’t fill the classes, in many ways it was great to be such a small group (5 or 6 in each class) as we got lots of tutor input and made some great felted items, while learning some felting techniques. we started with a merino scarf, using variegated dyed top, then made a small bag using a resist. on Sunday we made another scarf, a lacey one this time, with some wild yarns thrown in. then we moved on to the ‘beanie on a ball’ which was great fun,  we had some really good laughs delivering our balloons out of the felted hat shapes…I guess you really had to be there!

As usual i forgot to take my camera so here’s just a couple of photos of my little bag and hat- but i may load some more if other people send them to me…

 

 

more photos- thanks foe sending them through, Kate!

Our Open Day is on Tuesday October 21, 2014…

Every second year, usually in October, Taieri Creative Fibre/Spinners and Weavers has an Open Day. This year it’s on a Tuesday- we usually meet on a Wednesday- and it’s at our regular venue in Mosgiel, the Presbyterian Church Complex in Church St. For those of you unfamiliar with Open Days, many Spinners and Weavers/Creative Fibre groups have them, and its an opportunity to get together with people from other groups, and for new members, or interested people in the local community, to come along for the day to see what it is we get up to!

Our Open Day will follow a fairly ‘tried and true’ format- displays of work by our members, including spinning, knitting, crochet, weaving, dyeing and felting; traders selling a variety of items including  fibres (alpaca. wool and possibly others), yarns, dyes, books, sewing notions and craft supplies. Our club sales table generally has lots of plants, among other things. There will be raffles- a garden raffle, grocery raffle, and items donated by traders. We have an excellent guest speaker with a not-to-be-missed audio-visual presentation from 11-12. We will have competitions- a knitted baby jacket, made from your own handspun 100% wool yarn; a woven notebook cover or cover for a digital device (gotta move with the times!); and an item of neckwear, using any fibre or technique as long as it is created ‘in the round’. In the afternoon, there will be some crafty demonstrations that you can check out if you wish, or you can just catch up with other members, or cruise the traders in the hall… many of the traders bring along ‘specials’ which are well worth looking for.

Come along any time after 9.30 am; entry is $5 which includes one raffle ticket (you can always buy more) and morning and afternoon tea. Bring your own lunch, and a shopping bag to hold your newly acquired goodies in! Most people head away by about 3pm… see you there!

Weaving Workshop with Nynke Piebenga

On September 5th and 6th, Taieri Creative Fibre hosted a weaving workshop on behalf of the Otago Area Spinners and Weavers. Our tutor was the Creative Fibre travelling tutor Nynke Piebenga, who also taught in South Canterbury and North Otago on her way to Dunedin. She has a wide range of class options, and we chose Many Weaves on one Threading. 11 of us, from complete beginners to much more experienced weavers, thoroughly enjoyed our two days together with Nynke. We had three options for warping up our looms- Rosepath, Extended twill and Monk’s Belt, and we used whatever warp and weft we felt most comfortable with- this ranged from cottons, to double-knit weight wool, to commercial sewing thread, from 8 EPI to about 40 EPI. The majority of us, myself included, did the Rosepath threading, and we had about 15 different patterns from twills, to overshot, waffles to lace, and were encouraged to try variations for example weaving a fine tabby between the twill picks and so on.  This is my bad boy Rastus, ‘helping’ me warp up my little Ashford 8-shaft table loom the day before the class started- why do i always leave things till the last minute?

       

group photo

Nynke was very generous with great weaving advice, and we  learnt a lot of general weaving tips, for example the importance of weighting or floating selvedges, and changing our lifting before beating. Nynke demonstrated warping one of the club looms (and yes, I still like warping front to back!!! even though i was very much the odd one out!) , and how to lace our warps on, saving on wastage and meaning tensioning was a lot easier, and we learned lots of other tips.

rosepath

extended twill

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i think this is monk’s belt?

how to tie a weavers’ knot

how to lace a warp on

    

 

All agreed that it was a most worthwhile two days!

I took heaps of photos which i transferred onto my computer them deleted from the camera, before finding that intead of going into a folder on the computer they had disappeared into this air! however several hours later, with the help of my lovely friend Alex and a freeware programme called Recuva, the photos were safely retrieved… lessons learnt there too! Thanks Nynke,  Otago Spinners and Weavers, and Creative Fibre New Zealand, and teh Taieri members who helped to make this workshop a success…

– Sarah Gamble, Taieri Creative Fibre/Spinners and Weavers

Legacy of Yarns Event Challenge- Flora Fauna Fibre

If you have not sent in your Challenge entry form yet don’t delay . We are looking forward to receiving an exciting range of pieces for the display!

If you are still needing inspiration take a look at the photo gallery on Dunedin tourism website at

http://images.dunedinnz.com/photos.aspx

And click on Otago Peninsula or wildlife for some great photos .

Another site is Stephen Jaqueiry’s photo gallery at the bottom of the home page in the Orokonui website:

http://orokonui.org.nz/gallery.php

Just in case you missed reading about the Challenge, here’s some info for you…

Our Challenge for 2014 will take a slightly different path from the last few years where participants have created items for charity. And we’re not going to send you a materials pack either- you’ll need to use your imagination and raid/extend your stash…

“Flora Fauna Fibre – will give you the opportunity to be part of a venue wide display, using your amazing creative ability you can go wild – literally!

All we require is for you to design your piece (or pieces) using the natural environment of the beautiful Otago Peninsula as your inspiration. You can create a garment, homeware, artistic piece, yarn, whatever takes your fancy!

Here are the requirements for the challenge…

* You must be a current financial CF member
* Entries can be any size but the cost of freight is your responsibility
* Must use the Otago Peninsula Flora and Fauna as inspiration
* Can be created using any fibre in broadest terms
* But must be a manipulated fibre technique
* Can be the creation of individuals or groups.
* The entry pack (for single or multiple entries) will be $10
* All entries will be displayed”

… and you may even win a lovely prize!

any questions please direct to Jo <mhd.jd@xtra.co.nz>
or Gill <shekiwi@orcon.net.nz>.
Parcels must arrive between 2 April 2014 and 16 April 2014 and be addressed to:

S Broad
79 Albert Street
St Clair
Dunedin 9012

Please also include:
– Return mail/courier coupons – (alternatively arrangements can be made for drop off and pick up)
– Your packing slip

Please Note:
While in transit and throughout the display insurance is the responsibility of the artist
You will be notified either by phone or email of the safe arrival of your entry.

Go on… take the Challenge!

Getting around in Dunedin…

There have been some queries re the shuttle services at the Event in April – not long now until the fun begins!

Shuttles are provided by Iconic Tours Ltd:  Phone (03) 471 2331  Mobile:  27 278 5865  Email:  bookings@iconictours.co.nz   Small groups can pre-book with Iconic by email prior to the event or by phone on the day

Airport to City addresses (or vice versa) $20 per person

Venue transfers (to/from John McGlashan) $5 per person

A Food Van and a Mobile Coffee shop will be on site during the Event.

Note:  Some classes still have vacancies… not too late to book in, or you can take your chances and may be able to book in on the day… email nolaallan02@gmail.com to find out what

Hope to see many of you there!

and for crocheters…

… you can get hooked on W14 Crochet from Charts on Saturday morning, 9-12. So many great patterns come from overseas, where English is not the language the pattern is published in, or maybe there are differences in crochet terminology… crochet charts look like spiders’ webs to me, and this is a great chance to get a handle on this skill…

Colour to dye for!

Gone are the days of  black (with all it’s variations) and white (which could be pretty variable too) wool! There are some wonderful monochromatic works of course, but for many of us we just want a bit of colour- and we don’t always want to boil the life out of onion skins or flax roots (though that’s a lot of fun as well…)

W10 (Friday 1-4) Dyeing with Natural Plant Extracts bridges the gap between creating your own natural dyes from scratch, and today’s modern synthetic dyes.

W5- Dyeing with Earth Palette Dyes– is full, but yes! we have scheduled a second class W5B on Saturday morning 9-12.

W19- Colour to Sample,  Saturday 9-4- promises to be a fun romp through some fantastic and achievable dyeing techniques using Ashford acid exhaust dyes. You’ll be able to go home and dye up a whole rainbow of colours and effects!

For an in-depth look at colour theory, you shouldn’t go past Stacey Harvey-Brown’s class Saturday 9-4-  W17- Colour Play for Textile Artists. You’ll have a lot of fun and challenge your ideas of colour and design in this class.