Fiber Play Day

Our textile arts group, "Fyber Cafe" had a fiber fun play day, at Vera's house in Days Creek. Up on top of the valley with a great view of the pastures. Good friends and new ones. We started with types of fibers, silk, wool, merino, alpaca, rayon, angora and mohair. We discussed their properties and felt them all up. Next was trying to use the drop spindles to learn to spin yarn, good luck, most people couldn't get the coordination to pull the wool and pinch off the twist of the yarn. Several ladies tried to use the spinning wheels, and Pat W. caught the hang of it, and Vera was getting along good with the spindle, but everyone else said, "Not for me!" It is like patting your head and rubbing your tummy at the same time. We had a nice break for a fabulous potluck lunch. After lunch we played with more fibers to do needle felting, we piled a whole lot of wool, yarns, threads, Angelina fibers and hand dyed cheesecloth onto the table. It was a dazzling mound of colors!!! We used hand held needle felting tools, or individual needles and used felted wool for the background. We started with the wool and added yarns and cheesecloth for texture. We never did play with the chiffons, silkies and polyester fabrics that I had brought. Playing with color and texture was the key to the small felted pieces we did. Nobody really knows what to do with what we made, just samples I guess, but I might add beads and frame one or two of the pieces. Also glasses cases, small purses, and pincushions were discussed. They also might benefit from some free motion quilting to add more detail and texture, and to stabilize everything. Corrienne brought a big bag of "thrums" the end pieces from her weaving, that we all pawed through, going ooh and ahh! Mostly pearl cottons, but also chenille yarns and wool yarns, we took what we wanted and she'll bring the rest to the next meeting for people to go through. A fun time was had by all, thank you for attending and the delicious lunch.