Some travelling experiments - Reiseexperimente

It's funny with travelling: some people cannot get enough of it and get so much inspiration out of it - it's a challenge that makes them really feel alive and vibrant.

I'm afraid I'm not that kind of person, really. It's not that I hate it: I can very well adjust to new situations and surroundings and feel comfortable with it - but at the same time, I can't wait to return home and get working on those new ideas and impressions! And the problem is that when I'm finally back home, there's so much piled-up everyday stuff to take care of ...!

I guess I just need quite some time to "get back" mentally, to find concentration.

Anyway, this is not really a 'concentrated piece', but just an experiment on weaving with recycling material, like newspapers and waste plastic. I saw something like that in Stockholm, I thought the recycling paper looked quite stylish with the black cotton warp inbetween. The original paper weave was more professionally done, though, more tense, probably on a 'real' loom.

The little thing above it are some folded paper scraps crocheted together with the same black cotton thread I used for the warp. Well, just an experiment.



Last weekend in Vienna, I saw a crocheted flower necklace which I thought to be a nice idea, but far too expensive - so I made an own version on that, one with a green and one with a red wire. I used a variegated stocking knitting wool to get different colours out of the same material and some beads from my stash (hey, it's nice to find everything you ever need in your own stash!).



And feeling the need just to sit down in the sun and play around - I made these two beaded butterflies to send along with the mail I was preparing for Sara and for Paula ...

(Metal wire and beads from my stash :-))



(German summary: Nur ein paar Gedanken über's Reisen ... Ein Experiment mit Weben von Recyclingmaterialien wie Papier und Plastik, auch zusammengehäkelt, mit schwarzem Baumwollgarn ... Zwei aus Sockenwolle gehäkelte Ketten und dann ein paar Schmetterlinge aus Draht und Perlen, die ich meinen Freundinnen schicken möchte.)

Experimenting with my handspun yarns - Part I

"The investigation of imperfection leads to creativity. A route to creativity is found through the attempt to master the skill.

You can focus so closely on perfect mastery that you go through the eye of a needle and you come out the other side into a creative world thrown wide open."

Lexi Boeger/pluckifluff in "Intertwined"


Good things are happening. I've been doing quite a lot of handspinning with the drop spindle lately - now I want to try out a real spinning wheel. It will be here tomorrow - and it's called "Joy". That's exactly what I feel too!

The quotation is taken from a fantastic handspinning book, filled with gorgeous pictures and very crazy and artistic novelty yarns, which I can highly recommend ... read it and you'll start dreaming, just like I did ... You can have a look at http://www.pluckyfluff.com/ first, if you like.

Another really interesting book is "Spinning designer yarns" by Diane Varney; it's a bit more 'serious', but still very creative and inventive.

The picture above shows a weaving experiment with my handspun yarn, where I've used this yarn for the warp in a small weaving frame and then used unspun wool for the weft. I plan to add more material to it and then punch at least some parts of it.

Here you can see another ball of drop spindle yarn, which I'm adding to my knitted scarf.

I've used a "nostepinne" to wind it up (well, I actually happened to have a piece of a broom stick handy ...!) - that's a simple and brillant invention - Norwegian, I presume!

And next week, Sara and I are going to spin together at my place - if that isn't good news!

Embellishing a book cover - and some recycling experiments

This is a book cover I made yesterday for a friend - it's basically made out of wool fleece and yarn ends punched on organza, then embellished with doodles in free machine embroidery. The lining consists of a red, middle weight acrylic felt, like used for place mats.

I inserted a normal A5 blank book, which can of course be changed when used up.

The edges of the cover were left uncut and so uneven as they came with the punching - I then adjusted the lining to it with a free motion stitch and cut the lining borders accordingly.

Today I spent the morning on some recycling experiments:

This one is a sample where I have woven in random scraps found on my working table (different kinds of fabric, yarn, wool, threads ...) in a weave of red wool yarn - and then punched it (from both sides) with the embellisher.

As I cut the edges clean, I realized that the cut-offs would make interesting stripes for other projects ...

The second one is a sample consisting of two thin layers of white wool fleece with tiny scraps of fabric inbetween - almost transparent, yet the colours shining through.

This could make an interesting background for embroidery, I thought - and it would also be thin enough to be further punched onto another background ...



The third one are actually two variations on a recycling spinning experiment (using my drop spindle, of course!):

- one single thread spun with orange&pink roving combined with small scraps of other colours of fleece and thread -

- and one using black wool fleece for the base, adding scraps of wool, threads, yarn and even tiny pieces of fabric, all found on my working table (yes, it's quite clean now ;-).

Finally, I plied the black yarn with a rayon silk thread in order to stabilize it and also for finding out how this opposite twisting would influence the look of it (I'm not so experienced with spinning yet ...).

For those of you wanting to try out drop spinning, there are some tutorials on YouTube, this one for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gXTWgMeMgI&feature=PlayList&p=DF33272B3994910C&playnext=1&index=13

I also found a small one-woman-company in the U.S. selling a quill supported hand spindle called "Spindolyn", which looks quite clever and interesting - this is the link: http://www.knittinganyway.com/

Does anyone of you have experience with this?<