Since I've always been easily bored and since retirement brings lots of 'time' with it I've been in search of things to do. I can only quilt so much and knitting & crochet hasn't been high on my list of things to do lately so, via the retired Professional Business club I've gone to some of their craft activities plus there is a lady 2 streets over from me who has a studio in her home and she offers crafting activities.
Last night the daughter and I went and we each made one of these. Mine turns out to be one of the more tattered angels. Guess mine has been busy out there saving the world and so already looks a bit 'worse for wear' and/or MINE has character! Could also be a bit tipsy - you never can trust an angel not to imbibe when given the chance!
The week before the daughter and I went to learn the art of "Felting" whereby we were given real wool and then long needles (single long needles, needles set into a utensil in groups of 3 and needles set into a punch of 7) that we used to punch or stab the wool into felt. We started with a ball and basically sculpted it into an oval and then added other coloured wool stabbing and punching it into felt to make our choice of small animal. I opeted to make an owl as I could basically see it as ONLY oval. Not too sure this hobby is really me but it seems to be coming into vogue here as quite a few people are selling these felt animals as toys at the open farmers markets The real wool is relatively easy to come by, isn't cost prohibitive and once you get the knack of NOT stabbing your fingers you're off to the races.
Lastly by myself and over two weekends I went to the retired group and made silk scarves. Highly doubt I'll take up doing this hobby either. You need a large frame on stilts on a large surface (like entire dining room table) that you can attach via rubber bands 3 pronged hooks all around the blank silk scarf to keep it taut. Once you've got your scarf in place you mist it with water and then brush on the steam fast silk dye.
Interestingly you cannot use opposite on the colour wheel as then the dyes turn into mud. Given that I picked colours that were close to each other. After painting them onto the scarf in your design you then sprinkle salt - all different sizes of salt - onto the scarf. It is the salt that pulls the die and gives the ripple marble effect.
What interested me is that the purple die which had both large and small salt sprinkled onto it didn't marble. The blues and green achieved quite an interesting effect but the purple hardly moved.
After your silk scarf is dry - in a day or two - you take the scarf off the frame, shake off the salt and then put it into a steamer for a couple hours to fix the dye.
The top scarf was my first attempt and the instructor wanted us to leave spots of white (I guess for contrast) and I did but to me I preferred totally covering the scarf.
The instructors claim to fame is that she is able apparently to sell these scarfs for a ridiculous amount but ?? Again not too sure all the work and particularly mess that has to last a few days 'til completion to produce 1 scarf is going to be ME.
Soooooo the daughters will each get a scarf for Christmas and I'll continue the quest for a hobby that really appeals to me.
In Search of ..........
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Re: In Search of ..........
LLL, that looks really good and along the same lines, have a look at ice dying. It's very popular over here at the moment and I don't think you will have much trouble getting hold of ice or snow?
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