The Workshop is almost ready......

Well, it has been a long haul but we are very nearly there.
On Friday, 2nd March we open our doors to the public once more so if you are over this way, stop and say hello. Fortunately Inverness seems to


Beauly Firth - the view from Bunchrew this morning

have escaped the snow that is covering much of the country, so we should be fine for opening our doors.
For some reason, it seems to be a general rule that building and refurbishment work takes twice as long (and costs twice as much) as you plan for. I think I should have taken out shares in B&Q before I started down this route.
The work seems to have gone in jumps - some big, some little. Yesterday the particular thing of note was that we got our new signs up. We hope they will encourage people to stop and come in to see what we do.

new roadside signs

Today we are making felt coverings for our display heads that we use to show our range of hats. In the past we never had space to have more than three heads on display. Now we have space to show all ten styles, plus the Harris Tweed headbands and the hooded scarves.
Covering the heads is quite time consuming, but the bare polystyrene is very ugly, marks easily and generally looks rather cheap. What we did was needlefelt some icewool onto the polystyrene to give a base to which the merino

needlefelting the base layer

wool fibres would easily felt, then it was a question of layering on small tufts of fibres, wetting with soapy warm water and rubbing.... and rubbing... and rubbing some more. Once sufficient felting had occurred we wrapped the heads in protective cloths and put them in the washing machine to finish them off. By the time we open our doors on Friday morning, the heads will have dried.

covered in merino wool fibres and rubbed with soapy water

wrapping heads in organza to protect while washing

heads fully felted and drying

All that remains to be done is to vacuum the carpet, do a final bit of dusting, put away all the tools, screws, picture hooks etc and generally tidy up.
Phew.... so glad its done. Now we can get back to real work.

Comments

A Guide to Commissioning a Liturgical Stole

This post is aimed at those who may never have purchased a stole before. Perhaps you are preparing for ordination or maybe you are commissioning a stole as a gift. There are so many possibilities for a stole that it is difficult for some people to know where to begin. Here I try to guide you through the process and ask you to consider many different things so that you can arrive at the right decision when it comes to making that purchase or placing an order. The stole is an ecclesiastical vestment worn by ordained clergy in most western Christian traditions during church services. The wearing of stoles goes back to the very earliest times of the Church and references Jewish traditions as described in The Old Testament. "And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty" (Exodus 28:2). It is a long, narrow strip of cloth, usually embellished in some way and is normally in the specified colour for the liturgical season - although some P

Garden felting

For a very few days each year the blue irises in our garden are in bloom while the marsh marigolds are still flowering. The complimentary colours of yellow/gold and purple/blue are wonderful to behold. We are enjoying a little heatwave just now so the other day I sat in the garden and did a little watercolour sketch of an iris. And today I set about making an interpretation of these flowers in felt. The first step was to select my colours of merino wool fibres. It was definitely a question of blending as nothing I had was quite right for the irises - which are somewhere between blue and purple. I decided on the inlay method - that is, make some pre-felt for the various components of the piece and cut them into the various shapes that I wanted. The process of painting the flowers is helpful because it helps to analyse how the flower is formed. The iris has three petals that point up into a peak, three smaller petals that spread out horizontally and a further three large petals

Designing and Making Liturgical Stoles

The process of designing and making a stole has many steps. In this post I hope to give an insight into what is involved so that you will understand how I work. The first step is a discussion with the client. This might be in person at my studio or at a vestments fair at one of the theological colleges. It might all be conducted through emails, or it might involve a combination of zoom chats and emails, with perhaps the odd telephone call as well. Whichever way the discussions take place, the important thing is that we arrive at an outline of what the client wants that works with what I am able and willing to make. Designs often evolve through this discussion process. A client might start off simply asking me to make a design exactly as they have seen in an earlier photo of my work, but then through discussion they become aware of different variations. In one of my Google Photos albums I have posted photos of my Celtic Angel design so that you can see the huge range of design

Our Textiles Workshop at Inchmore

Search This Blog