Well, we’re well into 2012 and so many celebrations happening this year. At our annual Portsmouth Village (which it was until it was incorporated into the City of Kingston in 1958) residents AGM we talked about how the neighbour hood needs to be spiffed up as we will have and influx of sailors this Summer. They will come from around the world for CORK in August(Canadian Olympic Regatta Kingston) to train for the Summer Olympics in London, England and the view from our front porch will be of masts, masts, masts! Then there is the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 along the our border with the US which will be celebrated, reenacted and feted this Summer. Whew!
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| Show Booth at Ottawa Originals Spring Craft Show |
My own celebration is first – my
thirtieth year of
Carolyn M. Barnett Designs, and now of my move to into felting and falling in love with the fabric I can create and the new people I’m meeting and the new colleagues I’ll glean. Here is a snap of my booth this past Easter Weekend in Ottawa with only four of my seven vest and two scarves left, then the red vest and the scarf went too!
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| Coalman Vest |
I love this vest but there was not much interest in it…. it looks great on me as a casual topper over a shirt and jeans or long skirt. It dips in the back and the pockets in front hang down to balance that dip. I’ve embellished it with leather.
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| Harlequin Plain |
The other new knit was the plain Harlequin. I had done a patterned one a year ago or so and thought I’d give this one a go…I had a lot of fun putting the colours together. This is what you do when time is too short (or you’ve used up your fibre budget on felting supplies and dye!) and you are faced with a wall of partial cones of fabulous wool that you can never do a complete garment from as you’ll never get those dye lots again. I’ve done this a few times before and should keep doing this as they are so colourful and successful!
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| ‘Purple Rain’ |
This, I think is my fave….or one of my favourite vests…I’ve not done many yet, and I cut up my finger cutting out the little green triangles, but I love the colour my felt turned out with this dyeing…I must start writing down the formulae I use for each piece so I can at least try to get it again. This is such a pretty colour.
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| Sea Scape |
Here are three others I did in the week or so before the show, I did one more flat vest ‘Sea Scape’ which went to a lovely slim lady (it came out smaller than I had thought it would as my throwing seemed to get better).
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| ‘Tango’ |
This vest I started to lay out one afternoon, (I rolled it with the ‘Sea Scape’…two at a time) then took a break to head out to Chapters for a coffee. I poured over some books in the craft section and something hit me and I came back to the studio and reworked the layout!
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| ‘Yellow Submarine’ |
This is the second time I’ve dyed with a colour labelled ‘Chartreuse’ but it comes out more yellow than I’d like…more experimenting. However I do like it and have worked some pieces of rayon fabric patches into it along with some colourful wool. I’m glad I threw in a bit of red to warm it up a bit …. but not enough.
Well, I’m off tomorrow to Toronto for the Downtown Knit Collective monthly meeting. I’m not sure what I’m doing but going as a knitting professional at the invitation of Anne Woodall of our local
Wool Tyme Kingston, now known as
KnitTraders. I’ll enjoy the fact that someone else is driving (I’ll take my socks to knit in the car) and I’ll be able to pick up some more dyes and silk. Not dyed silk yet but …. when I get back from my post show break….look out!
