Workshop & Craft club projects

Yes I know it's been almost a week since I last did a post and I have no real reason why that is I do have stitching to blog about but I've not got round to it for some reason, well I tell a little lie there part of the reason is that I borrowed the Twilight books off Mel and read the first 3 in 2 days!!!! I'm working on Breaking Dawn now

Thursday night was WI craft club and we had a go at Bargello and here's my little effort. I'm at a loss as to what I finish it as so if you have a suggestion I'd be glad to hear it.

It's the scan that's wonky not the stitching

Yesterday was Guild day and we did a workshop for a felted silk scarf, you start off by doing the felting in whatever way works for you (I wet felted) then you do the painting after.

After I'd done the painting, folding and twisting to spread the colour mine looked really awful, very muddy and uninspiring but and I was very tempted to go and run it under the tap and start again. I didn't in the end and by the time I'd set it the colour it improved vastly (in case you don't know anything about silk painting the colours change when you set it and all you need is a iron)

There are 4 of these patches, 2 on each end and with out trying I got them fairly level!

I'm still not totally in love with my creation but it is growing on me, all it needs now is the have the edges neatened up which Mum will do for me because although I have a new found freindship with my machine I'm not confident enough to tack working on silk.

Holmfirth, home of Last of the Summer Wine

We went to the Knitting & Crochet Guild today with the Spinning Guild for our annual day out and after admiring just a tiny portion of the 10,000 items they have in their collection, a history of how they got started over a coffee, parting with some ££ (I bought a book about knitting socks, what a surprise) and an excellent lunch at a Garden centre we went into Holmfirth because Mel has never been. After a little wander round the town we headed for Nora Batty's house and unlike the time we visited when I was a kid you can now stand on the steps, in fact you can even stay in the house and the couple that are there now let us have a quick look inside and pose for pics

Fans of the programme will know that Compo lived under Nora and that has now been turned into an exhibition, you have to pay in The Wrinkled Stocking Tea Room (love the name) and someone comes and unlocks the door for you. One of the first things you see when you walk in is Compo's clothes hanging over the fire place

There's various bits from different shows including a few of Seymor's daft inventions then you go up some steps into a room that tells you bits of the show's history and has loads of pics of the cast and crew from it's long life. You can sit in these cast chairs to watch a programme that shows you some of the behind the scenes work and out takes


The one thing that spolit the day besides the woman that owns The Wrinkled Stocking being rather rude to us when I said that according to the opening times on the door we should be able to have a brew was the weather, it rained all day but Mel got to see for real some of the places she's only ever seen on TV as well as a Black Swan for the first time

Braids and Tassels

Yesterday was Spinning guild and The Mulberry Dyer came along to do a workshop on braids and tassels.
The braid part of the workshop was for me boring as we made a basic braid which is something I already know how to do but we needed the braid to attach the tassel on to so off we went.
First up was the braid and once the practice one had been done you were free to play around in the fibres they had with them to make your proper one

My practice braid & tassel

I chose to have a nosey through the fibres Mum had taken with her and came up with a card of Rainbow Gallery Bravo and a skein of #5 pearl to do my proper one, because these fibres were thinner than the practice ones I needed a weight so I borrowed Mum's scissors with the plan of cutting it off once we got home but it turned out so well that I decided to leave it attached.

The finished braid & tassel

Although it doesn't show up with the pic being dark the Bravo is there and looks like it's running vertically through the braid while the purple #5 spirls round it
All in all it wasn't to bad a day but I really must remember to put some knitting when going to guild so I don't have to do the workshops if they bore me of if I finish quicker than everyone else (which happens quite often!)