Back to Kintyre

Linda reminds me that I last blogged on 8th July!  Oops!  Sorry!  Well, I’ve been rather busy.  Morag, Norma and I drove over to Kintyre to attend a felt-making course for a few days with the other Linda who organised the lace course I went to in April.  It was fun!  Mo and Norma began with an introduction to the craft by making the same type of little pouch I made in April for my camera, while I started by making some beads for a necklace.  Mine are the green ones.  Starting with small tufts of carded merino wool and getting your hands wet and well soaped, the idea is to roll the tufts of wool into a little ball, rolling them around between your palms till the wool has bound together, and is felted!  Then they get rinsed off and left to dry in readiness for making whatever you want – a string of beads for round your neck, a bracelet, earrings, key rings, even small toys….  I was going to string my beads together as a necklace, but that was for later. 

Then I got started on a bigger project – making a hat!   Here I have gradually covered both sides of a large flat hat shape with several layers of wool tops, watered and rubbed them, and rolled them between a sandwich of plastic sheeting.  Once the hot water and rubbing had felted the fibres, I could cut along the bottom of the shape to release the template.  Then the felt got bashed and squashed, squeezed and rubbed on an old scrubbing board to help it reduce in size, till it fitted my head.   I have to say it came out looking like a cross between a cloche hat and a sou’wester, but I’m quite proud of it, and yes, I will wear it, in the winter!!  It will be warm and waterproof!

Later we all had a go at dry felting, using a barbed needle to punch into the wool to tangle it up.  We all made troll faces, adding features to a basic oval shape of needle felted wool!   

 

 

 

 

I think Morag’s was the best, though Norma’s “one-tooth wonder” gave us a giggle.

As well as working we had time to go wandering along the beach, finding stones and shells, even eggs!  The oyster catcher had just left her two eggs , but came back again later, but the much

 

 

 

smaller plover eggs had been deserted and were almost covered with sand.  The next day we saw they had been smashed and the contents gone – a tasty morsel for a black backed gull, no doubt.

More about the felting course next time.  I have a bit to catch up on!

Talk again soon.