We love Hilary’s knitted slippers. The bag ones are great because they are so easy to store or pack. It’s a great design and then they just stretch over your feet to make dainty slippers. The other ones are slipper socks and could well be knitted bigger and then felted. There are lots of knitted slipper patterns to choose from on guidepatterns which also has a Facebook page. The thing with knitted slippers is you can use up oddments and they don’t use a lot of yarn. Hilary had knitted the smaller ones in homespun yarn and then acrylic so we could see the difference in how they look and feel.
Advertisements
Alexis brought these hand felted boots along on Monday for our felting workshop to help us see the possibilities of felting boots. We were starting with baby booties but could look at these boots Alexis had made and know we could aim for something as cosy , comfy and warm as these. Alexis was explaining, as did Jan, that the sort of wool/fibre you use will change your success rate or the feel and look of the boots. The workshop wasn’t just about teaching us how to be better at felting , it was also about helping us to envision where this might all lead. Merino wool will create softer felt than say, Border Leicester. Alexis’ boots were made with 6 layers of felting. They were sturdy and the inlay of extra colour at the top was an attractive touch to the overall look of the boots.
Christine was excited to have finished her tubular socks. While she was making them she’d used it as an opportunity to try out different round needles to see which ones would be easiest for her to use. She had also been doing art yarn workshops and other things so it was a big achievement to get these spun wool socks finished. We loved the wool because it was so soft and then we were intrigued with how they looked. They fit snugly and comfortably.The colours are really good too. Tubular socks mean you don’t have to knit a heel and the ribbed pattern allows for stretch over the heel without distorting the look of the sock.
Maria crocheted this beautiful table piece. The are two smaller pieces to go with it. She has used crochet cotton and says the design is a Lebanese pattern. The diamonds and flowers are Tunisian crochet and the rest is normal crochet. It just looks beautiful and is a tribute to Maria’s capacity to be patient an accurate. It is difficult to find Lebanese crochet patterns. They do make very fine lace and it would be good to see more of these sorts of patterns for those people who like a challenge.
Pure Wool Hand Knits
Cathy saw some little knitted beanie faces on Instagram and wanted to make them. She has forgotten whose account inspired her and we’d like to acknowledge them if you know. We have knitted little bears as comfort bears for children but we love our beanies and so Cathy though maybe Beanie Buddies might be something we’d like to try as an alternative. They take little yarn and are quick to make. She made four to try out the idea. The faces are embroidered on before the Beanie Buddies are put together.
Hilary has travelled widely and brings that keen sense of adventure to her spinning. She comfortably works with fluorescent and ultra bright colours and can combine them very successfully. She understands the magic of yarn and can make some very whimsical items which are very appealing and then she’ll suddenly blow us away with something like her stunning 
We waste nothing. Alexis had spun the wool for a jumper she knitted for herself and then didn’t like how the jumper looked. It just wasn’t for her. We have all been there. She loved the colours, though. She unpicked the jumper and then cut and handstitched the new pieces with wool and upcycled it into this beautiful bag. The bag is strong and roomy. It is well designed because it doesn’t look as big as it actually is. It does the job without taking over all the space. It’s a deep bag with a round bottom. Once she had hand sewn the pieces she felted it in her washing machine keeping a keen eye on it so that it felted to her wishes. It’s something which requires concentration and so Alexis doesn’t allow herself to be interrupted during that washing machine phase. She doesn’t leave anything to chance. Alexis takes control of the processes she uses to create something.
Another two big projects were finished this week. When you work on big projects they take forever and then you feel like you are not doing anything. When you see the finished items, though, it has always been so worth it. Karin’s 
Cathy has been spinning and dyeing wool for her crochet blanket all year. Most of it is natural colour from FinnX, alpaca and then natural dyes like avocado, onion skins, Tasmanian blue gum leaves and red cabbage. There are bits of red and green from Susie Horn’s bit and then some orange and yellow and banana fibre silk from Kathy’s Fibres. There is ramswool and BorderLeicesterX. Cathy joined the group in June last year and knew nothing so this blanket is about what she has learned from the group. The autumn colours look good.
We love our gloves. We like knitting them for ourselves and others. We like to make gloves which look and feel good and have a bit of style. it is a good challenge and a good way to use up smaller quantities of yard. Marjorie’s homespun gloves are a lovely colour and the colour changes are what make them interesting and original. The embossed emblem on the back gives them a bit of style. To knit cloves with fingers you really need to master double pointed needles or you cannot knit the small round fingers. Once you get going it’s easy but it’s important to find the double pointed needles which suit you. Some people are better with bamboo or plastic. Others are better with steel needles and then it’s a matter of whether you are more comfortable with longer or shorter needs. The half hour video takes you through all of this so you can hopefully feel more comfortable with double pointed needs and knitting fingers on your gloves.
We’d like to congratulate Alan on this third place prize at the Royal Adelaide Show this year for his needle felted poodle. It is a replica of his own award winning standard poodle and he used the hair he had brushed from her. We watched him making this from scratch. He had brought the fibre, his needles and equipment and a photo of his beautiful dog. He was thinking it out carefully as he created this picture. The competition must have been really strong because this was a beautifully made image of his dog. He particularly thought out the eyes and nose. He thinks he maybe should not have put it behind glass because you don’t see the full effect of the fibre and expertise. We were really impressed and we are very proud of Alan. Well done!
Our links continue to be of interest to people and our posts are of value so we get good support from WordPress reader , as always, and our search engine responses have increased considerably. We then have a number of other solid ways of getting visitors to our blog and finally, finally people are coming from Twitter.
Our posts for September brought in good traffic and were popular. After a year in cyberspace we can feel pleased with ourselves. People like us because we are passionate about what we do and we like doing what we do. We share and they share back. That’s a nice way to be. The post about Anne and Bill really struck a chord because it was about overcoming adversity and then people were really happy for us because we’d been a year on our blog. That’s nice!
Pompom makers are one of life’s gifts. So much easier than using cardboard rounds. There are different pompom makers around and it is important to find one that you can use. It doesn’t matter if other people can use it. It is really important you can use it. Try before you buy if you can and that might be talking to people who have pompom makers or borrowing one to use from a friend. YouTube has demonstrations of different pompom makers. One really good trick for very small pompoms is to use a fork and here is a video link of how to make 
Alexis wore her show and tell last Monday. Why not? It was eye catching and stylish. She had felted fabric and made herself a really lovely tunic which sat properly, moved properly and fitted properly. Alexis confessed she doesn’t like to sew very much. Why would she if she can make garments like this with little or no sewing? The colours are well chosen and thoughtfully understated but make a visual impact. The movement of the lighter blue colours across the black and then the white designs is well conceived. It’s a beautiful tunic and suits Alexis well. She has used fine merino wool for this so that it produces a malleable fabric which is nice to wear. It’s actually good to see artistic felting used for something truly wearable as opposed to textile art which has display value but you cannot use it. Wearable art is as much a valuable skill and challenge.
There can never be enough beanies. Friends and family need them, homeless people need them, you need spares and choices. Beanies are a great way to use oddments and Cathy had made her fair isle beanie from oddments of acrylic yarn she had been using for other things. It’s a simple beanie of 96 stitches with 8 ply yarn on round size 4 needles. Once you are ready to make the crown/top of the beanie then it’s the classic knit 6 stitches, knit two together – repeat – to the end of the row, knit one row. Knit 5 stitches, knit two together – repeat – until the end of the row, knit one row…4, 3, 2 , 1. Then knit two together and draw the yarn through those stitches and sew the top of the hat and put on the pom pom. It is easy to remember a pattern like that and you can do the two colour work as you choose when you are making the beanie. The video has a simple beanie pattern two for those people who like the double rib monocolour beanies.
Maria had made this little doll for Margaret’s birthday. It’s a lovely little doll character and Maria always knows how to get the features just right. Maria was particularly taken with the doll’s ears. She thought they made the doll look really cute. She has used her sense of fun to turn the egg apron into a place to put the little sheep she made to go with the doll. Margaret is a spinner. She needs a sheep. The doll has a little handbag too.
Jan is bold with colour and teaches us to be brave. She is modest in what she can and has accomplished. She cares passionately about fibre arts and textile skills. Over the years she has influenced this in Adelaide by pursuing her love of style and colour. She loves felting and in our group she tries to show newcomers ways and means of being able to felt something worthwhile and interesting. She works with the Marion Cultural Centre to help develop Gallery M where she has her felted pieces in the shop and she has been part of their exhibitions. This breakthrough in elevating the importance of textile art in Adelaide is thanks to people like Jan. Her work is featured left. Sonya, our roving reporter, brings you her story: 
