Blueberry Fest Success!

Well this year's Blueberry Festival marked my first booth ever. I am very pleased with how well I did, and can't wait to do it all again next year. I took some mental notes and next year I hope to have a more attractive booth, with more heads to display hats on, and something for the pursesand other items...perhaps an angled surface so they are tilted more upright for people to get a better look. I am surprised that it never occurred to me to fill up one of the purses so people could see what they look like. :P

Also I can't wait to get my own pavilion for shade, so I won't be constantly squinting as I look up at the folks asking questions. And, of course, I'd like to have a nice black table cover with a skirt to go around the base. Just a few things to make the booth look more professional.

All in all it was a fantastic day, and I am already almost done the three baby set orders I received, and thinking about possible items for next year.

And here are a few images of the baby sets. The first two images are of the tri-pom version, and the lime green and aqua is the quad-pom that I made for my friend Tiff's baby, Quin.



He was such a good model! Anyhow these sets come in both tri and quad-pom varieties, with regular or thumb-less mittens, and in any color under the sun. I usually don't do regular mittens unless the set is for one year old and up. These sets come in all sizes including BIG KIDS like me. :)

I will post a few more of the finished sets soon, including my first duo-pom hat (which I want to make in pinks!)

And coming soon: Another fluffy addition!

Hearts off the charts!
JQ

Quick pictureless update...

Hello all! It's over! I made it through my first festival and didn't do too badly. I Learned a lot and managed to make up my material costs plus some, all the while having fun chatting with people and getting my business card out there into the universe.

I will post a photo and some more details tomorrow or Monday. In the meantime I must get some rest!

<3JQ

Popcorn-o-riffic!

Hello all! Just thought I'd leave a picture of the "popcorn hat" I've been mentioning. This is the first one I ever made and like a silly monkey I never wrote down the pattern. I had to re-make the hat, comparing it to the original as I went to get the exact increasing pattern I start at the tip of the hat and work down. Folks really seem to like this hat and It's one of my favorites too, so I thought I'd bust out a couple more for the fair. So far I have a burgundy variegated, teal variegated, black and grey variegated, baby lime green solid, and bubblegum pink solid almost completed. Just the ear flaps and tassels to go. I will post those pics ASAP.

Today it's time to make ten more purses. I aspire to get ALL of them sewn to the point where I just need to add tassels/frogs, and straps. I have them all cut out and ready to go so I don't think I'm being too deluded. :P

I suspect I'll be pulling a couple all nighters before the fair because once I get the 20 purses I had HOPED to accomplish done I will switch into "just a few more" mode until the last bitter second.

MORE COFFEE!

Ta-dah! I Finished off the first ten purses. The colors in this photo are as accurate as I could manage with my limited editing skills. It's the finishing work that kills me every time. I despise any end-tucking, decorative-bobble-making, twisty fringing etc and it takes me along while to work up the nerve to spend my whole day finishing what I started. This is one reason why I am so excited to have this blog because I feel a bit more accountable and it keeps me motivated.

I AM NOT and expert seamstress by any means and this was a total learning experience for me.
But I do feel better about them now that they are all spruced up with tassels and frogs. I feel like I would consider purchasing one at a fair which as a big leap from how I felt at the beginning, staring down at my first attempt. :P


Here are a few images of purses and detail work There is a bit of puckering where I hand stitched on the frogs but over all I am decidedly relieved at the turn out:

Irish?

Sorry the details are a bit fuzzy...


Okay, well that's a start anyways. I'll try and make sure my next images are a bit smaller and clearrer. :)
And now off to finish as many popcorn toques as humanly possible in a day. See you soon!
<3 JQ

A Quick update

Hello everyone,

Sorry! I meant to have a nice, picture filled post of all my Blueberry Festival creations by now but I seem to be running behind! I just came out of my hole long enough to leave this note. I must sleep now and get up at the crack 'o dawn to keep on keeping on. I keep promising pictures of my finished purses (the ones I decorated with inkles) and eventually they will turn up in here. As well I am working on some pretty neat crocheted hats and have four almost completed. tomorrow night I will at LEAST take photos of those to post.

Hearts off the charts!
JQ

Tapestry Madness!

Ahhhh Tapestry! How I love thee!


Sorry everyone! That's not a very ideal backdrop but alas! I had no black velvet lying about to set these against. In my last few years at the college I went tapestry crazy. Above is my first large tapestry (I say large and really mean about 18" x 18") I made this as a final project in my intro to tapestry course, along with the two minis you see below...

Raven is a little misshapen, but seeing as he was my VERY first attempt I still love him. I love the image so much I am thinking of doing a very similar one for a handbag design. Both Raven and the one below are only about 6"x 6".



Second tapestry attempt ever. This was supposed to be a landscape reflected in water:



The frog prince. This and the following three are from the first semester of my Grad year. These were mainly me just flexing my tapestry fingers before tackling the Grad work:


Arachne. :) I had to do it :


Oroborus:

The Fox and the Grapes:


As for the actual grad work my parents absconded with them! I will take some digital photos while home for the holidays and post them later on. In the meantime I am just finishing up ten crafty little handbags with Inkle trim for the upcoming Blueberry festival and will post pictures of them pronto! Now onwards to present endeavors!

Hearts,
JacQueline

Spinny Linny...

That used to be my nickname as a child! Little did they all know what was to become of me!

This is my first spindle. I learned how to make it while at a fibre fair in Edmonton. The ladies there were all very surprised when I took right to it having had next to no prior experience spinning (my weaving instructor at college showed us briefly one afternoon and we each made an attempt before continuing on with our drafting assignments). I hung around the Edmonton Weaver's Guild booth all day asking a bizillion questions and oohing and ahhing over all the hand-spun silk and painted warps.

Also in the picture is my first attempt at drafting the fleece for spinning. They never taught us about this stuff at the college. We learned how to weave, and dye yarns and paint warps etc but not preparing fleece to be spun. So it was all trial and error on my part until i got something I thought might suffice.

I came home from that fair, bags loaded with some pretty hand dyed Alpaca/Merino rovings that I spun up as soon as I got home (I was so addicted already). For only my second attempts at spinning and plying, and having next to no knowledge or experience I was EXTREMELY satisfied with how it turned out. ;)

Only recently have I discovered in my readings that there is so very much more to spinning than I had imagined. I basically only knew about z and s twists, and that a strand of spun fibre is called a singles.


And this *gasp* is a few of my many bags full! Fluffy, soft, billowing clouds of happiness. I spent the whole day washing small amounts of fibre in my sink (deathly afraid that I would be too careless and felt it in the process).

The tawny lefthand bag of fibre is off Airo. He is the nicest Alpaca of the four (fairly soft, medium fine and the crimp is the strongest.. On the right is a bag of longer fibre. It's...(staple length?) about five inches. This bag was a bonus from the breeder we purchased from. I was all too happy to take it off her hands!


MacFluff's fleece is sooo soft and sooo fine that it managed to get every little particle he brushed against lodged in his locks. I am too stubborn to throw out any of it so I will painstakingly salvage every bit I can.

Also My father in law found a set of carding paddles at an auction sale not too long ago and bought them for me! I love auction sales! But the copper teeth are green at the bases and I am not sure what I should do to clean them. :P

I should mention that I am in love with visiting Sara Lamb's blog right here at blogspot. Her blog is entitled 'Woven Thoughts'. She spins and dyes silk (oh so beautiful and the colors!), makes knotted pile rugs and handbags, card weaving, and attends all sorts of neat retreats and workshops (I think she teaches as well). Anyhow she is totally awesome so if you've happened here and like what you see you should definitely cruise through her space too!

Okay there you have it! My second entry. :)

Hearts,
JQ

My fibre crush...

...Hello my name is JacQueline...and I'm a fibre junkie.

In August 2000 I headed off to my first year at ACAD in Calgary intending to start my BFA with a major in drawing...and then I took one teeny tiny elective in the fibre department and GOT HOOKED.

By second year I had transferred departments and was eagerly learning about dyes, surface design, and embellishment, paper making, and weaving, and anything else I could get my hands on! By my graduating year I was concentrating on creating tapestries, while still dabbling in the dye studio.

I moved out into rural Saskatchewan with my husband a year after graduation in 2006 and bought four pretty Alpacas (the photo above is of MacFluff and Airo) to start my fibre supply and am eagerly expecting the arrival of my first spinning wheel at the end of this month!

For these first few years I plan to involve myself in every single process from breeding and raising the animals, shearing them, and sorting the fleece to spinning and dyeing and eventually weaving or knitting up the finished product. I am a process girl. The more obsessive the project the better!

Anyhow I'll post more on specifics a bit later on.
Cheers!