Drop in to the Wool Works, my open studio at Crookstown Craft Village, open Sun - Fri 10am to 6pm

Just went out to find some black yarn at a wool shop I was told was round the corner from my Irish studio and found a great little wool shop in Johnstown near Naas. I wasn’t expecting to see whole fleeces and bags of natural Irish tops. Great to have that near.

FIBREFEST 2011…

Last weekend I attended FibreFest in Devon, the 3rd big wool based fair I’ve tried this year. I reverted to setting up my stall like a market stall that I stood behind, like the old days so felt in my element.

Some stuff I saw while away was Hannah Foley and Reuben Ewan (Fellows at Edinburgh College of Art) helping people to make their own paint brushes from all sorts of animal fibres and Alison Murray’s giant knittted underwater installation ‘Above and Below the Waves’ http://www.all2knit.co.uk/page2.html.

Hannah has just published an illustrated book of sheep, you can check it out at http://owlingabout.co.uk/.

I’ll be at FibreFest, this weekend. It’s at Bicton College, Budleigh Salterton in Devon. Come say hello!

I’ve decided to separate out areas of my work, starting with giving my animals their own identity and website www.feltanimals.co.uk (what it says on the tin etc.). It’s actually another tumblr where I’m adding a page for each animal and keeping the main blog for previews of new ones and related pics and videos. It’ll take a while to fully populate as there’s over 120 animals. Hope Tumblr actually allows that many pages!

Inspired Rugs by Emily Twomlow…

My highlight from Fibre-East last weekend was Emily Twomlow’s rugs. It’s great to see really normal stuff being properly made in a contemporary and stylish way. Emily uses loads of natural undyed British yarns in her hand tufted rugs and only a few muted colours. I had no idea how rugs were actually made before but can report back in layman’s terms that you stretch your backing material over a frame and shoot wool through it from behind with what I’ll call a magic wool gun. Which sounds like great fun. For more accurate information and descriptions check out the website http://www.inspired-rugs.co.uk/index.html

Following a successful weekend at Woolfest 2011 I’m now in full swing preparing for Fibre East http://www.fibre-east.co.uk  in Bedfordshire this weekend. It’s the first year and I’m looking forward to a show packed full of woolly trade stands, lovely fleece, rare breed animals, workshops, demos and other attractions - I hope to catch the Sheer Sheep Experience http://www.sheersheep.co.uk/ 

I’ll be making stuff in my stall each day so come and see what I’m up to

Wedding Hat…

A customer of mine likes to wear a hat he bought from me to weddings and, like my own, it tends to get passed around for everybody to try on. But in a couple of weeks time it’s his own wedding - Congratulations Regan! So I’ve made a pair of special hats to match the wedding suits for Groom and Best Man with bands made from the same silk as the waistcoats. Only got a pic of one though due to different fitting times.

Friends of Cotteridge Park hold their annual festival this Saturday. With local bands, workshops, local businesses and much more there’s something for everyone. I’ll be doing drop in feltmaking workshops in the orchard, come say hello. See you there.