Thursday, 10 December 2015

Christmas Tree

Hi

Valerie and I spent Saturday morning setting up a Malvern Spinners and Weavers Christmas tree in the Darfield Library which was great for getting us into the Christmas spirit
The Library hold a competition for local groups to display a tree and the public vote on their favourite, we thought it would be a nice way to raise awareness of the group and join in the fun.
If you are in Darfield, pop into the Library and give us your vote!
Here is a sneak peak but there is nothing like seeing the original and getting to see the other trees on display - the trees are not up for long so don't miss your chance to vote!





Saturday, 28 November 2015

Highland Spin





Click on the image above to watch a video of our day. Six of us competed in the Highland Spin challenge. We had to spin, ply and knit a child's jersey in six hours! Our team finished in 5 hours 18 minutes. We were really grateful to Ashburton Spinners and Weavers and Christchurch Guild for sending teams to compete as well. This year was the inaugural event, we hope to have even more teams competing next year! 




Monday, 28 September 2015

Poppies, Mad Hatters and Craft fairs

Welcome back to the blog, it has been a while - thanks to 'upgrading' to windows 10 causing issues with my pictures. Hopefully we are back in action 
So an update on some of the things we have been up to
September - Trinity Church spring craft fair
We displayed some of the groups work. Lots of people stopped to look at the array of items and were interested in how they were made, hopefully we introduced some people to the group. Thank you to Jayne and Emily for helping me out on a wet and cold Saturday morning.
Here Jayne is spinning away and Emily is weaving on the Sample It
Show and tell from the September meeting
Jayne's hand spun wool and nylon sock wool
A selection of Jayne's own alpaca

Ann has had her spinning curtailed with an elbow injury sustained whilst playing ice hockey!
But managed to start knitting a pair of socks

August
Ashburton put on a great open day with the theme of the Mad Hatter's Tea Party - groups were invited to create a display to represent the theme and here is our table


Alice showing off her 2nd place rosette for the competition

A view of the whole tea party

A close up of the White Rabbit and some of the cakes being eyed up by a dormouse

The Cheshire Cat, grinning away and Absalom the caterpillar sitting among the mushrooms

                                                The Dormouse dressed for the party
More tea cakes and the White Rabbits fob watch



Last but definitely not least, the completed ANZAC wreath which was presented at the service on ANZAC day and later displayed and dedicated in a ceremony at the rec centre
Made entirely from hand crafted poppies made by members of the group

                                              










Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Malvern Spinners and Weavers 25th Anniversary

Hello everybody, Gail found these photographs from the group's 25th Anniversary celebration held on 29th October 2007
This was before my time! but lots of familiar faces around the table even for me so for some of you longer serving members there are going to be some lovely memories for you here, enjoy..














Thank you so much Gail, for sharing

Saturday, 27 June 2015

June meeting 2015

The June meeting and we were joined by some of the Oxford ladies for a lovely chatty meeting. Lots of show and tell as we haven't had a meeting in the hall for a few months -
Ann dyed this wool at our dyeing day and wove these table runners on her rigid heddle loom. The stripes have turned out beautifully

The multi coloured yarn is from the fleece that Robyn dyed at the dyeing day, she then plied it with the green to make it go  further and is incorporating it along with some of the green plied with itself for a lovely effect
A close up of the lace pattern

Some more of Ann's dyeing day results. Various methods were used! The result is a selection of self striping wool that Ann had to re-skein using almost every chair in the house and a lovely subtle blend of pinks and oranges using the squishing method - not sure if that's one you will find in the books though!

Jayne has finished this jersey for her brother using the first yarn she spun, she now has another order for one for her hubby

Val knitted this jersey using her 'Homebush' yarn - the yarn she spun while demonstrating for the tourists at Homebush. It is set off beautifully with a double row of diamonds in orange with a sewn white dot, it's amazing how such a subtle variation lifts this Jersey.

 

Val's skeins from the dyeing day, another self striping variation which was fun to re-skein! Along with the original white Romney, spun from the Homebush ram's fleece

Some merino fleece Catherine dyed in a rainbow. The first skein is 2 ply, the plan for the second half of the roving is to Navajo ply for a different effect

This is purchased wool yarn dyed on the dyeing day to be woven, The warp and weft were dyed in the same colour pattern but at different lengths to achieve a chequered pattern

Some of Catherine's sample It scarves - awaiting their tassels to be twizzled!

For a bit of fun with the Oxford ladies we covered a selection of river stones with yarn to make a colourful display

Some more of Catherine's yarn from the dyeing day - self striping yarn, wound on the warping frame. Originally planned to make socks but she was pleased with the colours so is making a shawl

Ann Loffhagen was visiting from Oxford and brought a scarf knitted sideways to use up some of the stash - nice colour combinations

A scarf woven by Catherine on the sample It using some 2 ply wool/silk dyed on the dyeing day with the warp and weft again at different lengths

More dyed yarn!

and dyed fleece!
Catherine now has quite a stash to keep her going through the winter

Barbara found an unfinished hand knit in an op shop and has reworked it to make this cardigan - very thrifty and lovely and soft too
Robyn brought the Merino cardigan she has been working on for her daughter, spinning and knitting this beautiful cardigan has been a mammoth effort

 
For the size of the garment, it is surprisingly light - I wonder how many metres it contains. I think Robyn is quite happy to be spinning something different - what a labour of love though
And finally, Jayne brought in her alpaca lace jacket, recently accepted into the festival at Rotorua. It was spun from Jayne's own cria fleece, the cria was bred by Pat. The jacket was knitted from a pattern that Jayne completely reworked and weighs 120g!!