On October 3rd the Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild had a display at the One Straw Society’s Fall Faire. The Faire was a celebration of community, local ecologically sound sustainability and the harvest of local food producers. There were booths with delicious baked goodies, herbal remedies, seeds and plants and a diversity of locally grown […]
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Marigold Shooting Star Balls
The celebration of festivals is an important part of education at the Waldorf schools. Michaelmas is celebrated as the “festival of courage”. It falls at the time of the year when the earth travels through the tail end of the late summer meteor showers and the northern hemisphere starts to tilt away from the sun. […]
Read MoreHarvest Festival 2015
On September 6th the Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild once again participated in the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden’s Harvest Festival. Lynda D. and Merrily arrived at 8:30 and undertook the challenging task of setting up the two tents. Despite the cool, overcast day a number of visitors stopped to look at our Sunshine Coast […]
Read MoreNuno Felting: a Creative Fibre Weekend
First Workshop: Introduction to Nuno Felting On June 12th Marie Claire and I attended the workshop Introduction to Nuno Felting as facilitated by Jill Denton from Devon, England. Jill’s exciting body of work titled Maids and Meadows was showcased at FibreWorks Studio & Gallery and enticed us to register for the first of two workshops […]
Read MoreDyeing with Japanese Indigo
This is the third summer that some members of our Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild have grown and dyed with Japanese indigo. In mid-July five of us gathered together to dye using the vinegar method. The indigo was growing in garbage pails with three plants per pail. We cut the stems just above a […]
Read MoreCoast Colours – Horsetail
Horsetail (Equisetum sp.) is a living fossil. Those of us who find it as an uninvited guest in our gardens can be thankful it doesn’t grow 30 metres high like some of its ancestors in the Paleozoic forests. It’s also called scouring rush as the stems are coated with abrasive silicates and the plants were […]
Read MoreMarie-Claire – Our First Certified Artisan Producer
Three years ago Deanna Pilling introduced the idea of the Sunshine Coast Fibreshed as a project for our Sunshine Coast Spinners and Weavers Guild. After a great deal of time, effort and love on her part, everything came full circle at the Guild’s annual potluck lunch as Deanna presented tags to Marie-Claire DeClerck as our […]
Read MoreSoft as Silk
Sammi the llama is guard and protector of Round Table Farm’s flock of Icelandic sheep. This spring Sammi was sheared at the same time as the sheep and his wool was available for our first Fleece Sale at the FibreWorks Studio & Gallery (see blog May 11, 2015). Deanna, Merrily and Lynda D. shared his […]
Read MoreFibreshed’s First Fleece Sale
The commitment to a Sunshine Coast Fibreshed began 3½ years ago with an article in ‘Weaving Today’ on Rebecca Burgess and her quest to bring together farmers, spinners, knitters, weavers, dyers and clothing makers within 150 miles of her Northern California home. Her commitment to caring about “how do we clothe ourselves?” was echoed from […]
Read MoreSpin-in at the Yurts
Once a month Guild members gather for our northern spin-in at Yvonne Stowell’s beautiful FibreWorks Studio and Gallery in Madeira Park. On a windy rainy day we gathered in the yurt which is Yvonne’s studio and set to spinning with our assorted wheels. We knitted, carded, visited and shared our creative ideas. And then the […]
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