Wool House

Today, I finally got a chance to take a good wander through Wool House and to take a cubic boatload of photographs. Seriously, I took more then 100 photos in an hour, which is exponentially beyond my normal photo taking MO. In the interests of not having this post be 40 pages long, I'll share a selection, but all the rest are in a Flickr set here.

First off was a shot of the sheep flag flying proudly over Somerset House as I walked over Waterloo Bridge. Yesterday was the first day of spring, which in London this year apparently means that the second day of spring should be sleeting and windy. Lovely! It did mean that the flag was flying straight out, so I guess that's one positive outcome.

On reaching Fountain Court, I was greeted by some colorful sheep,


and a personalized entry way.

The foyer contained a huge brown bear (crocheted), and a bunch of awesome sheep fleece hats, some complete with horns.


On the right side of the foyer, a long hallway led to seven separate installations of interior design, including a bedroom,

drawing room,

study,

snug (aka den),

a nursery,

a psychedelic party room Austin Powers would have loved (my description),

and a "natural" room.



I loved the old fiber-prep implements scattered around the display.




The other wing was all about wool in fabric and clothing (as well as the room where we did our spinning demo and they had classes). There were several rooms looking at wool art in the form of tapestry weaving and felt making.




I love how these pieces by Claudy Jongstra incorporated felt and intact locks - they were just stunning!


Then there were the Saville Row suits and high fashion, including a wool bike jersey!



The left hallway had a glorious rainbow colored carpet,

and ended in an archway made of yarn strung on frames.

I ended up in the craft room, where Alli was (yet again) spinning, and manged a few shots of some of the displays there.



So there you have it - Wool House, a photo-essay. If you have a chance to drop by Somerset House before Sunday (when it closes), you should check it out. It doesn't have to take long to get through, and it is absolutely gorgeous and inspiring. And, on a day like today (when it's cold and rainy and generally miserable), being surrounded by wool seems like a really good thing.

Sidetracked

Hello! Long time, no blog! It's been a crazy week, I tell you, absolutely crazy.

Let's start off with last Friday - I spent the morning at Wool House. If you haven't heard of Wool House yet, please head over to the Campaign for Wool's website and take a look. In short: massive, glorious exhibition of wool in all it's various guises and forms, from on the hoof to on the wall, or the chair, or the back. I spent two mornings in the last week demonstrating spinning for the visitors to the exhibit, and on Friday I ended up in a video with Allison. So if you have any interest in hearing/seeing me in virtual person, take a look.

Spending two mornings spinning was a fantastic opportunity to get a whack load of sampling done for Porpoise Fur.

I'll share more details on those samples on the PF blog over the next week. And I have a grand post on Wool House planned, with pictures and details and lots of wool goodness for tomorrow. Today, I want to share the cutest face in the world:

Pattern: amigurumi walrus by Aeron Aanstoos
Yarn: Brown Sheep Cotton Top (long since discontinued), 160 yds/4 oz skein in brown, about a third of a skein.
Hook: US G/4.0 mm
Start/finish: 19 Feb - 20 March 2013.
Comments/mods: first off, I'm totally embarrassed that it took me a month (a month!!!) to finish this thing. In real time, I could have been done in a week and a half, which is how long the crocheting took me. Then I faffed about not putting it together for another week, then I pretended that I didn't need to get embroidery floss to do the eyes, etc, etc, etc. Finally last night, while the girls were doing their homework, I took the 4 min to finish the eyes, and this morning I wrapped it up and it's waiting by the front door to go to the post office. #craftyauntiefail


The pattern was absolutely fantastic - clear instructions, lots of pictures to illustrate the assembly, and very easy to follow. This designer has a bunch of other absolutely adorable toy patterns (yes Sarah, including a narwhal!), and I will definitely be doing more of her designs. If nothing else, I need a porpoise...

What a week!

It's a bit difficult for me to believe that Friday has finally arrived, and I'm still more or less in one piece (barring my still-injured right hip, but the less said about that, the better). It started with a lovely Mother's Day, marred by bad news (more on that next week), then the build up to a shop update (always tiring), then a lovely trip to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Olympia yesterday, and culminating in a fabulous morning doing a spinning demo at the Campaign for Wool's Wool House exhibit at Somerset House. I'm exhausted!

Since there has been so much this week, I'm going to spread out the events over several posts, otherwise this post will be waaaaay too long. Let's start with the easiest first:

The Spring Knitting and Stitching show at Olympia Kensington, running from 14th-17th March

.

I went to the Ally Pally K&S Show

in October, 2011, but I had an even better time this go around. Maybe it was because I had company, maybe it was because I managed to find some goodies to take home. In any event,

Alli

and I had a fabulous time.

We arrived promptly at 10:00, and headed inside. First up were the quilts. Many, many amazingly fantastic and glorious quilts. Here are a few of my favorites.

More pictures in

this Flickr set

. After the quilts, we did a strategic walk through of the entire show. Which is to say, we wandered up and down the aisles dreamily for a couple of hours.

I first fell off the wagon at the

Textile Garden

button booth. Alli actually wandered off for a while because I was so obsessed. I came home with plenty of buttons for at least 5 sweaters...

That's ten buttons each of five different styles.

I love the jumping sheep (hello baby sweaters!), and the others are all slated for various sweater designs.

Next falling-down point: a pile of bagged yarn at

Black Sheep Wools

. And Alli actually did fall down in it to reach a particularly fetching shade of red (sadly I was not quick enough on the draw to snap a photo).

Bags and bags and bags of wool. I ended up with three bags (oops). Two bags of Rowan Wool Silk DK in a lovely pale lilac.

And one bag of orange (!!!) Luxury Cotton DK - Alli insisted it was my color.

I keep telling myself that my fascination with orange is a recent thing, but

clearly that is not the case

. It might be time for me to actually make myself a freakin' orange sweater just to get it out of my system.

Final purchase: an alpaca dress (!!!!) from Toft Alpacas. No picture taken at the time, but you can see me wearing it today at

Wool House

 and babbling on about my miniSpinner. More on that next post...

Spinning in Public

This morning I went off Allison of Champagne and Qiviut to Somerset House to do a spinning demonstration for the Campaign for Wool's Wool House exhibition. Video was taken and subsequently posted on the Campaign for Wool Facebook page. So if you want to see/hear me, here's your chance!

Alli and I had a great time demonstrating our two very different types of spinning wheels, and it was fantastic to chat with people about spinning. We will both be back on Tuesday morning from 10:00 til about 12:30 or 1:00, but there are spinners there throughout the exhibition. If you get a chance to come by, please say hello!

(I'm spinning some FRET YFP-CFP Romney, just in case anyone is curious...)

A dip into the molecular lab and mathematics

I've just finished updating the shop with some really bright new colorways. I think the long, dragged-out winter season we're experiencing here in London is really starting to get to me. I want strong contrasts and warm tones to put on my head, feet and hands. 

Euglena on Brown Suffolk

This is the tamest of the colorways in this update: Euglena on Suffolk. I like how the bright, contrasting greens still show up on the darker brown fiber. This is a good choice if you want something a little less wild, and would be really good for some sturdy socks.

FRET YFP-CFP on Romney

From the tamest we go to the wildest - FRET YFP-CFP on Romney. This is a colorway inspired by a technique used in determining molecular interactions within cells. You can read more about it from links on the colorway page. And along with it, comes its blue/purple/red compatriot on Cheviot. I'm seeing these two as a grand, cheerful hat/mitten combination!

FRET BFP-RFP on Cheviot

I think this might be my favorite of all of the new colorways: Golden Mean on Shetland. I decided I needed some more yellows, and I'm not a big yellow person generally, so it was a bit of a struggle to get this one together. But I love the interplay between different warm tones and the purple. And this Shetland is so soft, that I want it cuddled up right next to my face: a cowl for sure!

Golden Mean on Shetland

I hope you are all managing the end of winter, wherever you may be, and keeping warm while you're doing it.

Happy spinning,

Rachel