And Now For Something Completely Different

So all in all, Victoria was a hit, and we had an amazing time, and I was inspired by the mountain ash environment to come out with some new ideas. I made my fingers off all around the state. Came up with a whole new style of stuff. Realised that I've been definitely playing in the more extremely alternative fringes for a while now, and whilst it's tremendous fun to clothe and adorn the more outrageous of the species, I seem to be heading into a different wind of change that's making my things more accessible to the average person, as well as artistic in the extreme.

I need to take some brilliant photo's of the details of the creations coming out of me at the moment. The subtle play between hook sizes shaping a drape, and the fountain effect of small through to big holes is quite stunning.

I seem to have initiated myself into the next phase of my chosen path.

My designs are coming together stylishly, at the same time as colourfully, and I'm coming out with some really elegant numbers.

Inside the Scarf Festival

Just filling out that last bit about the scarf festival with a few more shots...mostly of the clan. And the actual Scarf Festival itself.

Scarf journeys

So we went to the Scarf Festival. Finished off a stunning scarf on the way, and it was another wonderful serendipitous occasion, with only two inches left of the yarn after I'd finished the scarf....just enough to finish it off. We'd driven for most of the day when I finished it, and I made my long suffering family try my scarf on to show me how it looked, before we went for a toilet and food break. You can tell by the look on Currawong's face......

The folks at the festival were friendly and enthusiastic about my scarves when we delivered them, they tried them all on and showed them around the office and took photos of each other, so I thought that was a good omen.

We had two weeks to kill before the actual festival opened, so we checked out some communities and markets and schools and other festivals - the Winter in Warburton festival was a bit of a highlight. Caught up with friends and family, and fell in love in general. So much so, that we're selling our house so we can buy a bigger bus and go and live there!! Griffyn realised a life long dream (he's 5 years old) to see snow and we all had a bit of a play in the white, cold stuff.

When we got to the festival opening, Barbara Coddington, the editor from Yarn magazine walked straight up to me and recognised me by my handspun!! She'd checked out my blog after I sent her the address, and I was a bit thrilled about that. We had a lovely chat, and then it was the time for the awards. I found out later that Barbara had turned up that afternoon when most of the judging had been done, and decided that the scarf I'd finished on the way over needed a prize, so she created the runner up prizes to acknowledge some scarves she felt deserved it.

So I got a bag, with Yarn magazine, a beautiful ashford spindle, and some tops from my fairy godmother Katherine who I buy all my sheep fleece from!! What beautiful irony, to come all the way to Melbourne to win some tops that I could have bought from her any day of the week! We both got a bit of a laugh out of that one....

I'd been promising myself to get into drop spindling and buy myself a spindle sometime soon, especially after issue 6 of Yarn magazine, so I was wrapped!! I took my prize home, and the next day I taught myself to drop spindle and spun Katherine's tops, and the day after that I made a scarf that was my interpretation of the winning scarf. I thought I was a bit of a smart bum, to not only teach myself to drop spindle, but also spin and crochet an original scarf within two days of winning the prize....

I ended up giving the scarf to the beautiful Veronica...she liked it.

If you go down to the woods today....

We went to the Bundaleer Festival.

We got free tickets.

It was very posh.

And we both left inspired! We being my lover, Currawong, and our kids. We got there because Currawong's a drummer. As inspired a drummer as I am a fibre feeler. We have parallel journeys you could say. And I've been remiss in not mentioning a lot earlier, he's also the chaos colourist extraordinaire, who dyes all my fleeces for me, to give me the incredible colours and shades and palettes you see.

So. The Bundaleer Festival introduced us to the most magical playground of a forest I've ever been witness too. They had all sorts of classical musicians at playing posts through the forests, and a labarynth, and a drum sculpture, an outdoor gallery with wooden frames that had chicken wire stretched over them, and natural found objects laced through it. They had a forest of fairies and fairy dwellings made by schoolkids out of sticks and wire and material and yarn, and I absolutely loved it.

We both decided that next year Currawong would be on the stage.

We went back weeks later to walk the labarynth again, and found a building that we hadn't seen on the weekend. It seemed there were more treasures left to find! It had no roof, grass for floors, and beautiful sandstone and paint peeling walls. Seemed the perfect place to take photo's.

So we did.

Tried to line up some models, but it didn't quite work, so we just got my beautiful man in my gear again. Maybe it love's him so, because he's the one that dyed it. Didn't birth it, but he dyed it....

Currawong has in fact been the main model for most of the things I make. He's always on hand for a start, when I need an emergency measurement, and he's also most alluring in all states of dress or undress. There's a lot of larger women who really don't like him though. They think if he was larger, they might get more outfits their size.

Maybe I should feed him up.

I could if I did the cooking.......

Welcome to my parlour said the spider to the fly....

After a healing fever I finally found out how to get out to other bloggers, and realised that I really was in the blog network and not just floating around in web like annonymity.

I went a bit mad.

I found some amazing sites in America that inspired the hell into me, and made me feel like there was all of a sudden a HUUUUGE world of crochet or hooking out there, rather than just the markets I've done where people call crochet knitting.............

Here's what I do

And there's more, but that will come later

Crocheting towards the Scarf Festival in Melbourne

Lofty ideals in place - to crochet the world - paths are pursued to find trails through the world.

So there's a scarf festival in Melbourne. It's been going for a while, with different themes every year. Customs, traditions, modern versions etc, and this year, guess what the theme is...

go on, guess....

Spin. That's it. Really. Quite profound actually. And I've been playing around with the scarf concept for a few months now, looking at different ways of draping it on and around the body and head.

I knew right then that we had to go...

And I'd already got one stunning scarf, so another two were needed.

So I started with a big foundation for the end of a scarf, and then I dreamt about it one night, and woke in the morning with the idea of a panel that can be a cover over the back, or on the front, or even pulled over the head as a hood.

So I crocheted and hooked, and ran out of yarn so I spun and spun, and then I ran out of the right coloured cotton, so I went down the street and battered the ears of the woman in 'The Sewing Nook", I was so excited....

And then I hooked some more and there it was. I took some photo's of my beautiful man against a tin shed in the back yard and they're stunning.

Just one more, and the triptych is finished, ready to be sent off to Melbourne.

Stay tuned.

Spider web dreaming

There's a man who makes spider webs as an art and way of life. I really liked that concept when I heard it. And I either saw him, or someone else who really liked that idea at the Rainbow Serpent Festival in Victoria, making an awesomely huge spider web. I thought I'd give it a try.

I also make many allusions to spiders as being my sister spinners and other such yarns, and have talked about making spider webs for years. When we moved out to the Far North, I told people they could come to town and look for the shop with spider webs on the verandah.

So I thought I'd better make good my promise.

I had to think about it for a while. I figured if I anchored it with nails into the posts and then sewed the web through the framework.....

I only use single ply usually, so I had to make some two ply - then I remembered Navajo plying which is ostensibly 3 ply and got into some of that. It started off innocently enough. Just one up with bells on all the ends, so it lightly tinkled in the breeze.

What I wasn't prepared for was the reaction from the town folk! You see, where we live, is full of people who search hard for entertainment. One of the local rituals is the 'mainy', which is the process of driving up and down the main street all day. I must have been mainy candy, cause a lot of cars went past a lot of times, while I was doing it and afterwards. The town was abuzz! and the postmistress had to drive her girls past the spider web three times in one afternoon.

I grew to really love that spiderweb.

So I made another little one in another corner. Neighbours and people who walked by all said,

"They'll pull it down!!"

Who they hell are 'they' for a start, and maybe if people didn't focus on it so hard, things like that wouldn't happen!!

So 'they' did, whoever they were, and I was really bummed. I tried to think of ways I could make spider webs on frames that I could take in and out, so I could protect them. I thought I wouldn't bother at all. But then we did a market here one day, and all these people who I didn't know, knew about us, and they all mentioned the spider webs!!

So I got over myself and put them back up. I'm even contemplating doing more.....