Another addiction...errr...hobby!

As you know, I went to the Hobbycraft show in Exeter last week. Whilst I was there I saw a lady called Margaret Beal doing fancy things to sheer fabrics and synthetics with a soldering iron. It looked very nice and I found myself at her stand several times. I enjoyed watching what she was doing so I bought her book and took it off to look through it over a cuppa. Biggest mistake I made that day! By the time I'd finished my tea I knew I had to go back and buy all the stuff to get started - lol. Actually it wasn't expensive at all - I managed to get everything I needed for under £40. Anyway - this week I've managed to get it all out and start playing. These are a couple of the things I've made so far - blogger won't let me upload more:










































The long, thin ones are hair clips and the square ones are broochesThe photos don't really do them justice - in real life they're really sparkly and bright and appeal to the drama-queen-magpie in me. I've put them on the site to see if there's any interest in them and if there is I'll make some for the Christmas Fairs I'm hoping to do later in the year. I've already got my eye on crisp packets and sweetie wrappers to use. I'm sure I can find reclaimed chiffons and organzas and other shiny stuff in charity shops and jumble sales. That'll offset my guilt about them being synthetics *rolls eyes @ self*

Natural bent

That's the name my husband sells his hazelwood furniture under :) We've just been to the beach to take photos of a couple of pieces to put on the Cledry site. They came out quite nicely I think.



















































We had a few people come and talk to us about what we were doing and one woman who insisted on standing in shot to take her socks and shoes off. If we moved the chair she moved with it!
I'm off into the workroom to lay out some felt today. I bought some leather bag handles at the Festival of Quilts and I want to make some bags to use them with. I can't do much more than lay out fibres today though as I start my Textiles AS level at the local college tonight and I need to save some energy. I'm excited :)

I'm such a scrubber

This week I are been mostly makin felted soap

















I bought some nice, smelly melt and pour soap from The Soap Tub as they're pre - certified meaning that you can sell them. I bought Nag Champa, Hemp, Juicy Orange and Lavender and I'm attempting to cover them all in merino to make felted soap scrubbies. I've put one on Ebay to see if there's any interest (260030618171)and some more are on the main Cledry Yarner site. I've only got Nag Champa and Hemp on there at the moment but tomorrow I'll hopefully get some of the other fragrances done and posted up. I've got one for myself and they're brill. I'm trying to wean myself off those nylon scrubby things as I think they're a bit rough on my skin and not too environmentally friendly. I'm hoping to be able to do some kits for people to buy to do their own as you don't need very much wool at all so buying a 100g to do one soap would be a bit costly.

Anyway - better toodle off and finish tea - ttfn

ETA - If anyone knows how to get paypal to combine postage for multiple items I'll be your best friend forerever -well - until someone buys me some chocolate anyway. I can do it on ebay but it doesn't seem to be an option for your own site. Ideally I'd like to be able to calculate postage by weight but that would be too sensible.

It's a jumbo problem

Some months back I bought a Jumbo flyer for my Ashford Traditional. It's never been right, the bobbins have always seemed a bit too long, it's noisy, you have to wrestle the wool as the flyer has a fierce pull. Yesterday I took it off to have a look at it and this is what I saw:













































Cracked to buggery! I'm not a happy bunny. I was unhappy with the overall feel of this when it arrived. It came at the same time as my Ashford skein winder, which I'm also not happy with. The winder squeaks and judders and just feels quite 'cheap' even though it was the same price as the competitors. I've started wondering if Ashford are cutting back on the quality of their raw materials or are unable to keep up with demand in some way. I had the choice of an Ashford niddy noddy or a Kromski niddy noddy a while back and I have to say the the Kromski won hands down due to sheer quality. I'm buying myself a new wheel next year and I'm not convinced it'll be an Ashford. I've emailed the poeple I bought the flyer from to see if they have any suggestions. I won't name them as they're very helpful and friendly and I don't want this to look like negative comments about them. It's not, it's about Ashford. Ho hum - we'll see what happens.