The Wedding Shawls

The bride wanted to give her bridesmaids and brother's girlfriend shawls to wear in case things got a bit chilly standing on top of the mountain.

She asked me to make them. I was delighted.

First the sampling with white mohair.

Blocking the sample.

I knit a sample shawl on the bias using a Church Mouse pattern.

It was decided the pattern worked but the yarn was too woolly. 

So I had to go to the yarn store - oh dear.

We settled on a kid mohair/silk mix in colours matching the dresses.

Seven shawls, plus the sample one, were completed in good time. But I had to watch lots of movies on TV to get in the necessary number of knitting hours each week, to meet the deadline.

Here is Amber wearing her shawl.  Each time I saw her over the evening she was wearing it a different way. She made her dress too. She's such a clever girl.

The Wedding

We had a wedding. On top of Kicking Horse mountain in British Columbia.

Our older daughter, Katherine, married Sebastian on July 5th.

Many guests travelled great distances to get to the top of the mountain.

Our first family meal together. 

At this time some guests were wrestling with car troubles, flight delays and diversions, and lost luggage. They were still to join us.

Dirt Dyeing

While on a 'Girls' Weekend' at the ranch we did some Bengala dyeing.

Rose and Kerry tie stones into a tea towel.

Norma kneads a white t-shirt she is overdyeing.

Rose, Gail and Norma hard at work.

Rose taking out the stones.

The results

French Bucol Fabrics

A friend gave me 2 lengths of lame-type fabric. One had this label. A search of the name revealed Bucol has been a famous silk house in Lyon since 1920.

I needed to test the fabrics to find out if they were silk, or not. Out came the burn chart.

The silver one burned briefly then self extinguished. It melted giving off an odor of sweet chemicals and formed a hard black round bead.

It is polyester.

The gold one burned and melted. It was not self extinguishing. A hard black irregular bead formed. 

It is an Orlon or Acrilan acrylic.

I am a little disappointed they are not some vintage French silk from the 1920s but their melting properties will be something to take advantage of when working with them. And they are very pretty and shiny.

Projects' Progress

The Fairy Ring mushrooms, lichens and bark had been wrapped in a wool blanket for over month.

It was time to take the bundle down to the pond and unwrap it.

Looking good but rather smelly.

It needed a good wash.

Some interesting marks I could work with.

My Garden Tower after a week.

We will be eating the arugula and celery next week.

My garden partner planted his tower this week.

He opted to plant mostly seeds.

Garden Towers

Around our house the only place deer and rabbits can't reach is the balcony where we have taken off the stairs. 

We bought a Garden Tower, gardentowerproject.com, each, to grow edibles in.

It is like a large strawberry planter with a wormery/compost maker down the centre.

After a pleasant  morning at the nursery we each bought home our favourite edibles.

Ingredients for the soil mix.

A mix of the compost we made during our Organic Master Gardener class, Gaia College, info@gaiacollege.ca, and all the additives to make a rich growing medium.

It was getting dark by the time I had planted my tower.

Now to keep up the water and to enjoy watching it grow.

Andy Goldsworthy

Here is a Tate Studio Visit video of Andy Goldsworthy.
I found it on Rachel's great blog.
i.art.rachel: Andy Goldsworthy
Do visit her blog for lots of interesting posts about art, artists and music clips.

Pattern Design Course Progress

One of the morning exercises was to analyse different patterns and to find examples of different types of patterns to put in our Pattern Dictionaries.

Elisha is working out how this pattern was made.

Elisha working with a new stamp she carved.

See below the resulting pattern.

Charlotte's new carved stamp produces a number of appealing repeating patterns.

Another pattern Charlotte produced with her new stamp.

Connie made several stamps using hot glue. They make a distinctive mark.

The Garden is Blooming

Our garden is most showy in the spring when the rhododendrons are blooming.

A couple of years ago, when my mother was visiting, she pruned and wrenched this rhododendron.

In the fall I moved it to its new bed.

This spring it has produced huge blooms telling me it is happy in its new home.

Purple french lavender and a red rhododendron - quite a colour scheme but the bees are in heaven.

A problem with the present garden is there is not much for the insects to feed on over the summer months.

I'm working on it.

Busy Weekend

Each day I have continued to repair the bead work on this dress.

The weekend started out warm and breezy - perfect conditions for laundering my collection of domestic linens, acquired over the winter.

Outside in the breeze until damp dry.

Then "polishing" with a steam iron.

This process took 2 days!

Pattern Design For Artists

The students have spent the past couple of weeks learning how to make repeating patterns, developing their own designs then using them to create different patterns.

Connie cuts a quick, inexpensive corrugated cardboard stamp to trial a design.

Elisha created a design based on a building then translated it into foam stamps, one the mirror of the other so she could make a greater variety of patterns.

She chose one of 17 different patterns she could make with this stamp to print on a heavier weight cotton.

Charlotte is developing designs based on the pineapple.

Sarah is exploring pattern making with a design based on lines found on rocks.

She made quick foam stamps of the design in the positive and negative and the mirrors of both. These 4 stamps allow her to create a vast number of different patterns.  

Connie's humming bird wing design is proving to be most successful.

She has produced many pleasing and promising patterns with it.