Last day of SAFF

I had a nuno class set up for early Sunday morning but overslept and just enjoyed myself at the cabin. Too soon I had to pack up and leave so I headed back to SAFF one more time. I just had to get more roving from the buy 5 get one free ladies. I have never had merino and that much silk felt so tightly and so quickly.
I went by a booth to talk with a nice vendor who I had bought from 2 years ago. I had made a wall hanging out of her product and had entered it in the fair. I also entered a scarf that had wool from a local farm that I had dyed and felted. Well to my surprise, I won a second place for the wall hanging and a third for the dyed piece. This really made my day. I also won prizes that the vendors had given and both my prizes where Angora and I got a lot of it. Beautiful colors and sooooo soft. Can't wait to use it.
Well with my winning in my head, I talked myself into treating myself to a new carder. My old one had been home made and all the pins were bent so it took forever to card anything. This new carder is so fast and will card almost anything you put thru it. So very happy with it. Now I will be able to put much more roving on to my Etsy shop!
I decided to head home after that major expense so off I went. Drove thru valleys and mountain peaks, the leaves were incredible. This week they have had major wind and rain come thru so my visit was the perfect timing.
Got home to see my dogs that were going crazy, my step-son and DH so involved in a football game that they grunted a hello. Wonderful to be home again, now if I can just get rid of this 6:30 to 3:00 job so I can create more. S00n I hope, soon.

Friday at SAFF

I woke up thinking I had plenty of time to get to class but turns out I didn't. I flew to the classroom and was late but she hadn't started class so it was ok. I brought my piece of felt that I made the night before. We did lots of beading and embroidery to the outside of the felt. I loved doing this and will be adding this to more of my wall hangings. This class was how to make a traditional longstitch bound book, covered in felt. Lots of measuring, not my strongest area. I managed to get the piece of felt cut out ok, not great though. They had forgotten to send out supply lists so I wouldn't even have known I needed the felt piece accept I stopped by to talk with Chad Hagen on Friday. At class I didn't even have a pair of scissors so I had to wait alot and borrow the whole day. It was frustrating though every one was very nice about sharing. Chad had cut all the paper for us so we only had to fold and count. Then came time to punch holes using a template. More measuring. I tried hard but when I stitched thru the holes it was obvious that they were not lined up correctly. My little book turned out to look a bit sad but I did learn lots of new techniques and I will try this again.
My friends stopped by to say they weren't staying Sat. night which was fine with me, more alone time. I was so tired when I got back to the cabin. I rocked on the front porch and enjoyed the twilight coming. It was a full moon but you couldn't see it in the sky, so many trees still had leaves on them.
I came inside and crashed on the sofa. I missed my dogs so much. I woke up about midnight to hear something scratching at the front door wanting in. I couldn't get the nerve up to even look out the window to see what it was, gave me the willey's for sure. Slept well the rest of the night though, a little too well as I will tell you in the next post.

Friday at Saff

Woke up late on Friday so sat on the porch and had my oatmeal and tea. You could hear some distant traffic but other than that it was only the leaves falling. Closed up the cabin and headed up to Fletcher. The parking lot was full much to my dismay. I finally parked way in the back, behind all the animal stalls. The arena was a sea of people. I almost turned around, I am not much of a people person and definitely don't handle crowds well. I first went to turn in my 2 entries. Walked, dodged, waited and pushed my way thru the top mezzanine. Delivered the 2 items and tried to find some stairs to get down to the main floor which looked less crowded. Almost passed by one vendor who had the lovliest mix of merino and 3 types of silk, all dyed with one dye but each fiber took the dye differently. They had yummy colors so as I was contemplating, the co-owner whispered in my ear that it was buy 5 get one free. Get behind me Satan so I only bought 3. They gave me a pass so that if I decided to come back the next day, I could still buy 2 and get a free one. Nice ladies, we talked a long time and I must have dragged many people to their booth during the show.
Downstairs finally and I found several familiar vendors so of course went and bought more supplies from them. Eventually I am going to own their entire booth. I finally bought some solar pool wrap since I plan to start working in a much bigger format. I had to go take this out to the car since I hit someone everytime I turned around. I wandered around to see the llamas and alpacas. They are all so beautiful and their owners were willing to talk till I was ready to fall over. Tried to leave but I got caught again by the llama rescue group. They catch me each year, they can tell just by watching me with the animals that I really want my own little fiber herd. I actually have 2 acres I need to fence in so we talked for a long time. Finally I just went back to the cabin.
Enjoyed some homemade sunflower seed bread for lunch. I tried to knit but kept falling asleep. I really must have needed a break.
2 friends showed up to spend the night. We went into Hendersonville to look for GoodWills and dinner. Found a Salvation army store and a GoodWill but no good buys to be had that day. Drove by a Thai place and decided, with much pleaing from me, to eat there. The food was so good. I had fresh bamboo shoots with red chicken curry, so yummy.
Went back to the cabin where I needed to felt something for my class next day. I used some of my beautiful new roving with all the silks in it. Ahhh, it felted like a dream, beautiful and quickly. We all settled down for the evening and I slept like a log.

SAFF in 4 posts

On Thursday I drove up to Saluda, NC to an 1800's cabin I had rented. Talk about personality, I fell in love with this small place. The logs were put together with wooden pegs and the mud chinking had been replace with cement. The front porch was tiny, perfect for one or two people. After I unpacked, I sat outside and water colored. Guess what? I can't water color in the mountains any better than I do in town. Still it was fun and very quiet. No birds at all. I found out why though. While looking up at the trees I saw a huge bird that turned out to be a bald eagle and it had a nest very close by. It did seem strange to not hear birds though.
Inside the cabin, the small living room was perfect. There was a wood burning stove which was hard to light but when it finally did, it put off lots of heat. The kitchen had all modern appliances. The back door led to a fenced in back yard for dogs and rocking chairs for people. I really missed my dogs so next time at least one of them will be with me.
The bathroom was a real trip. It slanted back from the house at such a degree, you could slide down to the toilet. You felt like you needed to pull yourself off the toilet but the sink was help up by wooden wedges so it would land in your lap if you pulled hard enough. Taking a shower was fine but a bath would soak your feet while leaving your butt dry.
There was a loft upstairs but the steps were very steep and slippery so I slept on the sofa down stairs. Figured I would kill myself if I tried to come down in the middle of the night to slide into the bath room. Quite an adventure. More tomorrow.

I got a nuno piece to work!

I used a larger count silk and rolled about 2x as much. The wool went thru very nicely and I love the scrunch of the cotton gauze I added. Just wish I had dyed the silk and wool so the colors didn't stand out so brightly. This is a scarflet by the way. Has 2 button closure but can be worn in a number of ways.

Adventures in Nuno Felting

Well remember at the top of my blog where I would show my mistakes? Well this last scarf was a big mess. I was using the super fine Merino that Jill Gully sells at Outback Fibers (great source of info, demos and material). My silk was a silk painted scarf that I cut into window panes. I laid out the scarf so that there were 4 panes of silk and the rest was covered in wool. I put light layers of wool around the edges of the silk so it would felt into the wool.

I am not totally sure where I went wrong but after I finished rolling it, I rinsed and slammed it in cold water to shock those fiber scales together. Immediately panes of silk came out of several areas of the scarf. As I opened it and put the slightest pressure on the scarf, all the silk panes came out. Only 1 area of one pane seemed felted.

Now what did I do wrong? Probably several things but everything can be salvaged and used in other pieces so no real harm done

new meds

Well, it has finally happened. I had to pull out of a show at the last minute because of my depression. I had know something was off for over 2 months but it too that long to get an appointment with my Dr. Took some tests and some of my meds had stopped working. He upped the dosage this week but so far no results. I hate to mess with my meds, it always takes over a month to see what will work for me. That being said, I had to pull out of one of my favorite shows and I doubt they ask me back. Can't blame them though. I wouldn't want the mess I am in trying to meet the public and sell my work.
On a good note, I have been much more prolific on writing down ideas. I haven't tried to execute any of them yet, but they will great items if they work. Mean time I am mindlessly carding wool and silk, making beautiful blends of roving. I hope next year to have all felting and supplies on my site and maybe another site for my dolls so they will both get seperate attention that they deserve. What do you think? Would it be worth it?