in the vein of a charming book "knitting with dog hair: better a sweater from a dog you know and love than from a sheep you'll never meet" is jodi redwolf's woven dog scarves modelled by her canine pals.
we're makin' our way to knit'n'knatter this thurs, so if you happen to be local or a little obsessed with knitting or crochet, the north fitzroy star at 32 st georges rd fitzroy north from 6.30pm could well be the place for you.
sheesh. we can't believe that early friday morning, we were fretting about whether we were doing the right thing by taking off a day of sculpture and art history to go to the sheepshow was worth it. sheepshow was awesome. highlights included the train trip down with the ladies including their president valerie along with dolores who has a little handknitting get together from the handspinners and weavers guild.
the bus trip (free, thanks sheepshow!) was kinda neat too, because you got to find out about your fellow fibre fiends. so much for us being nuts travelling from melbs to bendy. methinks the winner was the woman from tokyo(!!!) who came over just for the event, and from what we gathered, was simply staying for the whole 3 days, and buying up as much as she could. there were also quite a few people from nz who came over (including exhibitors such as the luscious touch yarns. what was kinda interesting was finding all the stuff from melbourne that we didn't know about. sure, marta's yarns did well...dyed wool yarn (Marta's Yarns, 33 Waverley Rd Malvern East 3145, ph:(03) 9572 0319) -marta's yarns. however, one of her staff was there with her own amazing stall of stuff she'd handknitted herself, and she also had a few of marta's more unusual things like a beautiful ribbon that we've been trying to track down in order to knit a dress from the urban knitter. the stallholder was wearing one of her own creations - a dress with a little shawl over the top, and it was so inspiring - a really beautiful start to our day. she also showed us a neat little technique - handknitting, literally by hand, without using needles - quite useful for thick yarn and smaller projects like scarves.
'cause it's a sheepshow, they also handle the farming/animal side of things. there were the usual suspects of guys running around in their moleskins, rm williams boots and merino jumpers splitting the wool on the backside of sheep to check out the quality of it, but what really got us were the alpacas. we hadn't seen 'em before, and the humming sound they make, paired with them big brown eyes and huge eyelashes...we just wanted to take 'em home.
the cashmere goats were kinda sweet too - at least, the ones which were being taken care of by schools, and used to a lot of human contact were ruvly, except for their mischievious habit of wanting to eat everything - the little rotter we petted was having a go at the coat, cashmere scarf (the rels perhaps?) and jeans we were wearing - it'd try anything once.
after exhibiting huge restraint by just buying a little chunk of dyed mohair to play with, then it was time for the woollen mills. all day, we'd loved the look of rovings and sliver - it's the in between product of a fleece and yarn, and it's thick, soft, lovely stuff which takes dye extremely well - the colours that we'd seen during the day were dreamy - we really loved the subtle as a sledgehammer versions of bright reds, purples, pinks etc. bendigo sells a wool/alpaca mix of sliver for around $30.00 a kilo. sold, to the lady in pink. methinks one of the ladies from nz summed it up best - donkeys travel better loaded. on the way home, every one of us had a little donkey magic.
yep, the melbs scarf fest starts this week - there's demonstrations, a bunch of knitters to gawk at, a gallery of groovy things to buy, and a general crafty good time, really. check out the program c/o craft victoria.
in other scarf news, we were happy as punch today...a new knitter came into the store, and instead of the standard freaky fibres, she took our advice and is knitting a beautiful scarf out of wool. the benefits? it's australian (perhaps nz?) wool (supporting our local industries leaves us all warm inside), lovingly hand dyed, so no one will have a scarf like hers. she's knitting two strands of the wool together, so it's going to come out really special - a whole range of subtle changes of colour that will all work together, and look sensational together, and all she needs to do is knit garter stitch.
by popular demand - here's the details for one of melb's best kept secrets:
Yarn Barn
200 Reynard St Coburg 3058
map.
ph: (03) 9386 0361
yarn barn is awesome if you know what you're doing. if you're new to knitting, please, go to a lovely store with friendly knowledgeable staff who are happy to help you out - what you may pay extra for in money, you save in time and frustration.
we love what yarn barn has - heaps of fine wool (it's for machine knitters) which they're happy to ply up to the thickness of your choice, imports such as chenille and italian rayon, rovings in really great colours and all sorts of ruvly stuff (mohair and fancies too!). we just had a really bad run in with the customer service - needless to say, it was probably a bad day, we were being overly critical etc, but we've had similar reports from other visitors.
wow. thanks to everyone who turned up to s.e.x in brunswick. had a ruvly time going through the yarn, and scored the world's most subtle as a sledgehammer pink mohair...mmm. just in case you've scored or you have a stash, and you're wondering...what the hell do i do with all this stuff? here's some hints and suggestions:
dyeing: - if you'd like to dye the yarn that you have, or dye something to go with it, lucky melbinites have a whole store dedicated to dyeing - kraftkolour in northcote. kraftkolour create their own range of dyes, and also have the goods to assist you in creating your own (eg fixatives if you'd like to make a dye from plants etc). we found 'em to be really knowledgeable and helpful. kk are open 9.30 to 5pm monday to friday. another option is the handspinners and weavers guild - they have kraftkolour's landscape dyes for wool - around $10 for 100 grams dye, which will dye approx 1kg of wool. for the full skinny on wool dyeing, there's a great article on knitty about acid dyes.