Tag Archives: flowers

At last ‘Cascade’ is installed and Clasheen Autumn Swap

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Well at last ‘Cascade’ is installed in the Great Palm House at the National Botanic Gardens thanks to a lot of help from Alan!  Thanks also to everyone who sent me emails and comments with suggestions about the stringing and transportation of the felt flowers.  I eventually wound the strands around old election posters of Alan’s and secured both ends with packing tape, it worked a dream!  I must say that we nearly came to blows on Wednesday night and I was beginning to wonder if the project would ever come to fruition but come Thursday morning everything looked a lot more hopeful and all went extremely smoothly in the actual installation thank goodness.  We arrived at the Botanic Gardens a little after eleven in the morning and Ana Duncan, Beatrice and everyone concerned with the organisation of the exhibition was a great help as were the horticultural staff working in the Palm House area itself.  We had no problem accessing the gantry and Alan ended up lying way up overhead dropping down a piece of string through the gantry floor weighted with a small fishing weight!  I then attached individual strands of flowers by means of a swivel hook before Alan pulled the whole thing up from above.  Although he needed to be careful not to pull to quickly or else the strands would wrap around each other this only happened once during the whole process and we managed to sort the problem out without too much fuss.  By about half past two we had the bulk of the long strands installed and had a welcome break for a spot of lunch.  (If you do go to see the exhibition the restaurant/coffee shop is excellent, I actually had never had anything to eat there before and realised that I had been missing out on some really great home cooked food and cookies!)  Feeling refreshed we then went back to the Palm House and I started attaching shorter strands of flowers from some of the surrounding foliage.  The main body of the installation is approx 3.5m long and the lower strands just serve to continue the cascade down to a level where everyone will be able to view and enjoy the felt including the many children who have great fun running around in the garden.  We finished the work by about five o’clock when I positioned some loose felt flowers amongst the lowest plants to ground the whole installation.  Alan thought that the flowers could be a bit bigger but overall I am pretty happy with the result.  I think that the masses of small flowers do what I proposed in my submission but obviously I will need to let the public be the deciders of that!  I was so wrapped up in installing the work that I didn’t think to take any photos but Sculpture in Context opens on Wednesday night and providing I locate my camera (which I have mislaid since last weekend) I intend taking images which I will then post to the blog and Flickr.

Clasheen Autumn Swap  – sign up today!

Sorry about the really late notice for those of you not checking the Clasheen Crafty Swap group regularly on Flickr but sign ups for this swap close tonight as I want to get partners assigned before I leave home on Tuesday afternoon for our holidays.  This swap is all about spoiling your partner on a budget, a little bit like a Green meets New Year de-stash swap with a difference! We will create a thoughtful but inexpensive package using mainly items that we already have in our homes or can buy locally and add in a little hand made gift that we have created ourselves for our swap buddy. Using the list below for guidance select at least five items that you already have at home and then let your imagination do the rest ……..

Old craft magazines or book you no longer need
That gorgeous soap or body lotion that you have never opened
Buttons and beads
Fibre (the more the merrier!!)
Yarn
Hand made paper
Greeting cards
Notebook
Candles
Jewellery that you have never worn
Fabric
Ribbons and bows
Scrap leather
Coffee
Your favourite tea
Chocolate
Patterns
etc., etc., etc.

If you want to sign up for the swap please go to our sign up page on Flickr and make sure to also add your likes and dislikes to the relevant page.  Packages then need to be sent by Friday 16th October (any earlier is a bonus!) giving everyone plenty of time to make their hand made gift and put together their package.

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Success from disaster! My fulled (felted) jumper saga, South East Textile Group …..

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I had a very enjoyable time yesterday at the monthly get together of the South East Textile Group.  We meet on the last Saturday of every month at the Demanse Yard in Castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny for inspiration, textile related tutorials and workshops, good food and a bit of fun!  Stephanie was teaching members how to needle felt a doll so making my apologies (needle felting really aggravates my back and I am NOT a doll person!) I settled in for a relaxing session of wet felting.  I felted a selection of glamorous flowers using some sparkly merino for the top layer and now just need to sew pins onto the backs and upload them to my Etsy shop.  I also felted three new rings and showed everyone how you can also use them as a ‘clasp’ with a scarf, really multi functional and fun items.  After a great lunch in the cafe I gathered a twisted stick and felted a flower onto the branch, part of my experimental work before I submit my proposal for ‘Sculpture in Context’ which is taking place at the National Botanic Gardens in Dublin this September. 

When I arrived home from Castlecomer I was faced with my previously beautiful cerise mohair and wool jumper after I had made a mistake with the controls of my washing machine.  Previously I had washed this soft and beautiful jumper on a 30 degree wool wash but for some alsolutely crazy reason this time I had a rush of blood to my head and lumped it in at an active 40 degrees, disaster!  Although it was not totally ‘fulled’ it was getting there so nothing ventured nothing gained, I decided to bung it in on a 90 degree wash and take my chances with the resultant fabric.  Happily it worked a treat (obviously I would have preferred not to have shrunk it but once the process had started there was no going back) and this morning I cut up the jumper into various useful sections.  The piece that I am most pleased about is the neck, it now makes a really beautiful and warm headband with the addition of a crochet and felt green and pink corsage!  The sleeves are now fingerless mittens awaiting some embellishment and the body looks like it may be redesigned into a soft and comfortable cowl!

Felting crazy

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Had a great day today on the felting front.  First thing this morning I called over to Carmen and thankfully she was a little better although not fully recovered from her virus or whatever.  As a result we had a spot of breakfast and I was home and ready for action by about 10am.  The first thing that I got stuck into was shaving the rug I made at the Mehmet Girgic workshop and then the felted lariat with the spirally bits that I mentioned in my post yesterday.  I made some more long cords, very thin and then worked further on all the cords to make sure that they were fully compacted before winding them around the metal knitting needles and putting them in the oven of the Rayburn (oil fired range).  A great lunch later I recieved a call from a friend and I decided to go in to Borris for a quick coffee with them and to visit the bank.  About an hour later I suddenly realised that the spirals were still in the oven, boy was I lucky that they were not burnt to cinders!!  Anyway, I finished that lariat, made two more nuno felt neck pieces and then assembled another lariat, this time two thickish cords with flowers on either end.  Tomorrow morning I am going to photograph all the work and then I need to go to Kilkenny and meet with Ann Mulrooney, the curator of Breaking Out.