Handmade Monday 33

Where has this week gone?! Handmade Monday has come around again! I have started quite a few projects this week – I bought some fabric earlier in the week, to make a pillowcase dress for the dressing a girl around the world charity. With the left over fabric I have decided to make a sling bag and using some left over fleece interfacing from the Molly handbag, pad it out a little. I also hope to make some bunting from it too, all from 1.5m of fabric!! I love making the most out of a piece of material!

I have actually completed one ongoing project this week – 2 sets of bunting which I am hoping will be part of my launch of items to sell on Folksy. They are in shades of baby pink, perfect for a little girls bedroom. I think I have gone bunting crazy – I love making it as it so easy to do! However, other than the bunting I have been quite lax this week and havent had much time to sew. Yet again too many projects on the go! I really hope that this coming week I will be able to finish the molly handbag and hopefully the pillowcase dress. The handbag is almost finished – I was about to put the lining into the bag and I ran out of cotton. Lesson learnt – always have enough thread in the house!! Plus I really must start making my iccle sheeps for join the flock!

So although not a momentous week sewing and finishing projects, I have had a fabulous weekend spent celebrating my hubby’s 30th birthday at West Usk lighthouse! Such a romantic and unusual place!

Check out Wendy’s blog to see what everyone else has been up to for handmade monday!

Sarah x

Wool Week

With this being the start of wool week, I thought it was only right to post something in honour of our wooly friends. My thoughts on wool (yes my mind does think about quite random things at times!) started about 2  weeks ago, on a journey back from a local garden centre, I spotted a sign advertising raw wool for sale. It got me thinking about several things – how much I take wool for granted and where do you start in getting wool from its raw stages as a fleece from a sheep to the lovely coloured stuff I swoon at in the shops?!

I did a bit of an internet search on processing raw wool and came up with some interesting info – I have put links at the bottom of this post if you want to check them out. Some places will take your fleece, scour, blend, card, spin and finish it into beautiful yarn.  I even found some people who had attempted the process themselves! I find the whole process fascinating and really has given me food for thought on the effort that goes into producing the lovely yarns we can buy. I also feel a little sad that I take these things for granted when I go to the fabric shops etc to buy my materials.

There was a feature on Jeremy Vines Radio 2 show today about how maybe younger generations are more reluctant to do manual jobs. I think these things are related in a round about way – the basics of how things are made, more jobs that involve sitting in an office etc and the generation of young people who are so used to using the internet and having a TV that they wouldn’t know what to do without them. I feel I have fallen into that trap to a certain extent and in my philosophical wool moment, I have vowed to think more about where all these things come from and next time I go to buy some wool I will see it in a completely different light!

If you love wool as much as I do, why don’t you sign up for Love Wool and share with everyone your wooly projects! Ihope to be making some cobweb scarves from Merino wool tops or I might be tempted to make a little wooly friend as part of the join the flock campaign!

I am so tempted to go back to the farm where I saw that sign and buy a fleece and attempt to do something with it. I feel like it would be a personal challenge for me! Has anyone else worked with raw wool and had any success in making something from it?

Sarah x

http://www.campaignforwool.org/

http://www.thenaturalfibre.co.uk/

http://www.hjsstudio.com/washwool.html

http://www.woolgrowers.org/education/wool_pdf/Wool%20and%20Fiber/Washing%20Wool.pdf

http://www.spinningforth.com/articles/spinning/washing_fleece.html