April Area Open Day

We had a fantastic turnout for the Area Open Day co hosted by ourselves with Oxford Spinning Group. Thank you to everyone that helped to put the day together and to all those that came to support the day
As always, pictures paint a thousand words so I will let them do the talking

The hall soon transformed into spinning central

The colourful sensory bands will be donated to local dementia patients

Time to catch up with friends

The results from a dyeing day or two with the Malvern Spinners and Weavers

Oxford Spinning group have been busy preparing for the Golden fleece event  - Oxford 21st April

Some of the Merino items created for the Golden fleece event

More golden fleece items, the woven bag was created by Jo from handspun Perendale dyes with hops,broom flowers, blackcurrant cordial and sandalwood! appropriately woven in 'Hopsack"

Fay Hider brought the travelling suitcase along and it was wonderful to see the diverse items from the Dunedin Festival

More from the travelling suitcase

Plenty of knitting got done and a good bit of catching up with friends

Shona was kept busy demonstrating various exciting products

We were spoiled for choice with some beautiful fleeces

Kate brought along a good selection from Heavenly wools - it was like a sweetie shop

She also gave a very entertaining demonstration of drop spindle spinning

Shared her knowledge and love of her various styles of drop spindle

I think we all fell in love with the beautiful little turkish drop spindle

A close up of the colourful sensory bands, soon to find good homes

A display of useful and sometimes just too cute items to use up those little bits and pieces

Another view of the dyed items from Malvern Spinners and weavers, the cardigan on the left was spun, dyed and knitted by Ann using a Rowan pattern that was steeked - very brave!

To cap the day off we had Alison and Whaea Daph come and speak about the project they work on to educate new mums and provide a harakeke (flax) bassinet to keep new babies safe from being accidentally smothered in their parents bed

Getting started and locking the leaves together is the tricky bit, helped by the use of several clothes pegs

It was fascinating to watch her transform flax leaves that can be found growing all over into a beautiful bassinet

The base is complete

Now to form the corners

Then the sides get woven

Taking shape now

A little aside when Whaea Daph shows how you you use the odd ends to make a flax rose!

Here's one she made earlier, the leaves get folded back into the weave to make a straight and strong edge and the the top edge is folded down inside the bassinet, it's left to dry out and a wee mattress is placed in the bottom - done!

In case you fancy having a go yourself - a warning that Whaea Daph reiterated throughout the demo -
ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE EATING OR DRINKING AFTER HANDLING FRESH FLAX-
it will give you a nasty tummy upset

Welcome

Welcome to 2015, it looks like it's going to be a great year
We got off to a good start by representing the group at the Two Rivers Community Trust Darfield Summer of Fun event held on Waitangi Day, Friday 6th of February

We arrived at the crack of 9.30 and set up a display of work produced by the group, fibre, spun wool and some of the tools of the trade for people to see

We then settled in for the day doing what we love

Valerie displayed the art of kiwi craft 'spinning'

It was warm work all that rolling, Jayne seems pretty relaxed spinning in the conventional way!

Valerie was soon knitting away though while Jayne and I were still spinning!

We also demonstrated with the sample it loom which proved popular with adults and children. Many of the more mature visitors reminiscing about doing something similar at school.

It was a great day with lots of interest in the group and what we do.