Tea Cakes

Oooh!  OooooOOOOooh!  She found teacakes!  Weesus and Small favourites!



Maybe we can sneak a bit without her noticing?  just a little nibble?



Omnomnomscoffnomnomscoffscoff

Oops...


Maybe if we reshape the foil she won't notice and think the wrapper was empty all along?



Nope, that's not going to work. Maybe if I make a skirt from it she'll think she never got one out?


Hi!  Do you like my skirt?  Does it say Teacake?  You had one out ready to eat?  Really?  Maybe the dog ate it and the foil?



(Weesus, Mike and Otter are lacking King Norty's skills)

Tiree Tech Wave 9

October will be the tenth tech wave!  Impressive.

So, what happened at this one?

Well, it was a relatively small gathering, about 14 or so and fairly quiet too, but definitely not lacking in the usual silliness!  Just yesterday we were marketing sanity EBay style and then corporate style and more.

Usually a tech wave runs from Thursday afternoon to Monday evening, with folk either flying or ferrying home on the Tuesday.  This time that went a tad awry.  First the weather was so bad that the ferry delayed and delayed and most of the folk didn't arrive until gone 7 Thursday evening.

So we started properly on Friday.

I spent most of Friday working on this strange bowling pin like thing:


After an hour and a bit it turned into a baby penguin:


Made Gromitty very happy.  Other than that I sort of circulated and people-watched.

Saturday was felting workshop day.  Lovefibre has been running these once a month and this time it coincided with the tech wave.  Five eager souls came to play with fibre, soap and water along with two islanders.

Lovefibre did a great job teaching them all and they all had a sample of wet felt that they had done in a little over an hour.




As the wavers finished their wet felt they came to me to try needle felt.  I handed everyone a wad of "Tiree lawnmower" fleece and a needle and told them the two rules:
1. Don't stab yourself too often
2. Enjoy and be creative

I worked on a new armature:




It got this far before I heard an idea and had to run with it.


Some of the items needle felted on Saturday included a conductive ball and a rather fabulous mustache.



The tech wave folks were trying to incorporate tech into fabric.  What a fab idea!  One suggested the idea of a bug or butterfly head or similar that would light up when it was placed on an apron or similar.  I was suddenly hooked.  I spent the rest of that day making a ladybird with LED eyes and two needle felted conductive fibre pads on its underside.  That evening I borrowed the tech wave Lilypad kit and made a leaf for it to sit on.

It ended up a tad demonic.


The issue with this little bug is that it only works one way.  LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes) light up one way and stop nearly all current the other.  So, for someone who maybe has a bit of a memory issue it could be frustrating, especially as leaves don't have fronts and backs.

Sunday was a quiet day, delicious carvery from Cobbled Cow and thoughts lazily floating around.  I went to work on a flower to hold the battery holder.  The flower was rather likened to those that eat things, oh well, it goes well with demonic ladybird!


Monday was the last day (or so we thought) so I worked away to make a caterpillar that lit up no matter which way it faced.  I learned some things doing this.  Red and yellow LEDs are far less demanding than green and blue and a single 3V cell can only manage to get three LEDs going at once if they are red and/or yellow, but not blue or green.  This is partly due to the relatively huge resistances found in conductive fibre and thread vs. wire and solder.  Wiring up the caterpillar took as long as making it!



I still had time after that so I added some pink LEDs to the flower for the final demonic look.





Lots of jokes were made about having it in your bedroom and then finding the bug on your duvet infront of you, still glowing and saying it was going to devour you.  Much silliness!

I seem to have inadvertantly set myself the challenge of getting a photo of bearded Steve looking lost while something else is happening.  This tech wave was no different.


That evening we all dined at The Lodge, fab food!  Alan did his usual speech, at the speed that cameras cannot catch.


We all enjoyed the evening and chatting.  Two Steves had the fish that came with a little dish of peas, silliness took over and they did "pea shots" akin to tequila shots, including the lemon and salt.  Highly entertaining.

By Monday evening the ferry had been cancelled, 18ft swell combined with wind speed and direction meant it wouldn't be safe or able to dock.  Tech wave extended!  Fortunately everyone who needed to was able to extend their accommodation time so no couches were required.

Tuesday was a bit...off.  No one had expected the extension and so we had all raced to finish things on Monday.  The time was still passed and things were done.  I spent the time between browsing pinterest for needle felt ideas and finishing an embroidered item for my Dad's birthday.  Folk were either full of energy or looking a little tired.

Wednesday really was the last day.  The morning and early afternoon we all gathered again and did things.  Alan and Ed did a recital of "I'm a little teapot", I got their expressions at the end.



I borrowed the elephant I made for Lovefibre and finished my baby elephant.




Come 3pm the visitors went to do the "tourist" thing and we locals sat for a while just getting on with things.


That was Tiree Tech Wave Nine.  I'm going to have to start adding tags to my posts, that way I can find the previous TTW ones without hunting through three years of blogging.  Hope you enjoyed and I hope the ferry sails today!

TTFN

Felting day

Ever since seeing some needle felted animals and having a go myself I have been in love with needle felting.  I like wet felting too but it's hard on my hands with the water and soap combination.  Needle felting is all done dry, you can wet felt it afterwards for a smoother finish but I rather like the slightly fuzzy nature.

Once a month Lovefibre runs a felting workshop at An Talla, it's usually the last saturday of the month and is a great thing to go to.  You can go with an idea or to learn, all skill levels are welcome and encouraged.

Back in October I think, I went to one and had a play with needle felting.

I managed a sort of guinea pig:


and a very hungry caterpillar:


The latter turned out a little soft and is more delicate than I'd like but I learned a lot and was hooked.

Then life got in the way and for two months I was too busy one way or another to do anything much.  Two weeks ago I finally had enough time to sit down and rest and decided to treat myself to a kit.  I'd um'd and ah'd over it for a while but decided to spend the princely sum of £18 including postage for a kit including various coloured wool, needles, a booklet with six projects, a block of foam to work on and finger protectors (most important!).  It all came in a very good box for keeping the kit and a work in progress inside.

Down came my spinning wool collection to expand my colour choices and out came a fleece I washed two summers ago that had turned out to have a weakness that made it unsuitable for spinning but ideal for filling out a shape and saving the "good" wool for colouring the outside.

I started off simple, a basic ball shape with colouring and maybe another shape felted on.

Robin:




Pair of chicks:


Then I got a little more creative, sheep:


I played with adding shaping to the ball to define features:




I put the kit aside for a while to catch up with some deadlines and friends and then on Monday I spent the day making two more things.

A rose:




and something that at one point considered being a dog...

First you make a rough frame out of pipe cleaners and cover it in "poor" wool to get a basic shape going:


Once that basic shape is formed but not firm, you add your "skin" of coloured wool:


I like to start with limbs so the ends at the body will be hidden and firmly felted into the body as that is covered and shaped.

Did you guess what it was?







I had a photo of an elephant up once the basic shape was done so I could get the ears and the head shaped better. 


Between the two cuties I had bought and the many experiments I've done, my table is looking a bit crowded:


Then today came, another felting workshop and my chance to try some other ideas.

The elephant was presented to Lovefibre and she was very happy with it.  Here it is watching her work:


Once everything was out we all got started with our ideas.

First was a ball with a spiral of colour and a flower.  The ball went fine, the spiral went fine:


Petal one went fine, petal two changed the whole thing to a bee on a ball:


Next was a different sheep, I made the head and four legs then took a rest for lunch.  After lunch I made a ball from fleece and added a black layer then felted on the legs...


And face:


This is the first of many sheep, the end result will be shown once I get there.  Right now I am on self imposed hand rest to avoid irritating a grumpy thumb.

But I did do one more felt today.  I made a smaller frame than the elephant and was aiming for a weasel, possibly a ferret.  I got the basic shape but then it went otterish.  With the wool colour I used, I just knew which otter it had to become.  A famous one who has his own book!

So I found his profile picture and one of him sideways on, waiting for Santa and got busy.  An hour and a bit later...





I think he's rather cute!


So that's my fortnight in crafty terms.

I am well on the road to recovery from my surgery in January and now that I can lift medium-weight things without injury I managed to find and hoover the living room floor!  We had friends over for a post-gallbladder-removal celebration meal and had a great afternoon, much laughter and happiness.

Jo went off on a teacher related thing at the start of the week so I had Gromitty over for a day and a night.  We watched far too much anime, made and ate pizza, and watched really jump-scary youtube videos right before bed.  We had to watch something funny just to allow the adrenaline to drop enough to get out the door!

I can watch horror, even the Japanese type that leave a lot of us quaking, but watching something where the tension builds and then the nasty thing pops up leaves me a little jumpy myself.

We had a powercut in the middle of this post, so I apologise if it doesn't parse as easily as normal, not only was my train of thought derailed by the loss of power it was then sent down a sidetrack when I lit our oil lamp and didn't get the flame under control well enough and the glass chimney exploded.  All bits found, including the bit that slightly melted the carpet, and all is well.  Must order more wick, just installed the last bit when the lamp stuttered out from wick not meeting oil (oops).

I shall go do that now.

TTFN