Monday 12 October 2015

Serendipity - a visit to Woolfest at Narberth


Early on Saturday morning, I had a Facebook message from fellow-blogger Dawn of Doing It For Ourselves in Wales blog.  She had just noticed that Narberth was hosting Woolfest that day, and was I interested in going?  Well, show the dog the rabbit - of course I was.  We had a wonderful time and I had to hide my purse for fear of spending all my Malvern money on wool!!!

The INCREDIBLE deer head above was worked purely from wool, by needle-felting (I am going to clear out my craft corner-cupboard today to find my felting needles).  I don't doubt this took days and days to make but WOW!  Rustic revolution have a website where you can see more of their work in the gallery, and I noticed they also do courses.  Oh my, I would LOVE to go on one.


An overview of their stand - unfortunately I forgot to press the flash, but you will get the general idea from the individual photos below.



What a brilliant idea - a lovely knotty piece of wood with a barn owl peeping out.  I'd love to have a go at something like this.



Woody Woodpecker.  We have one who visits our nut nets in the winter.


I love the use of these lovely old bits of wood to showcase the needlefelting.  This green man is beautifully showcased.


Next door, some colourful flowers, lovely clothing , bags etc.


Then some needle-felted animals and birds and a chance to buy kits to make your own.


Rag-rugging - here is a lovely one with Pentre Ifan burial chamber on it.  I can do that, I told myself!


Above and below, a Great Wheel.  It was good to see a young man using it, and he knew his stuff.



Needle felting seemed to be the theme throughout the exhibition, and in all sorts of different techniques.  Here are some amazingly colourful needle felt pictures in a style which reminded me of the paintings of Eric Kincaid.





Below: BIG knitting.  Not for me, but I can imagine it knits up incredibly quickly.


A selection of lovely  Paisley pattern materials.


A wet-felted handbag.  Isn't it gorgeous?


A selection of more felted bags and some lovely scarves.  Note the little dogs!


Colombian knitters and spinners.  There were some hanks of naturally-dyed wool which interested me and I was tempted but managed to resist temptation. . .


These woven scarves were SO soft and warm.  The ones on the right were coloured with natural dyes.



A chance to win some lovely things in the tombola.  Dawn won a ceramic bowl which held your wool and needles, I "won" a toffee!





I bought myself some coloured tops for wet felting, a large bar of olive soap (ditto), a yarn gauge in the shape of an Alpaca in light wood, and a Lucet, which I have been playing with.  It is based on an Anglo-Saxon tool for making cord.  Now I've got the tension right, it is simple to use.

Malvern post tomorrow.  I am still recovering from a busy and very enjoyable weekend!  Thanks to Dawn for letting me know this was on!

12 comments:

  1. Thank you for coming and taking such lovely photos :-)

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  2. Yes, Dawn let us into the secret that she had asked you to go with her.

    Amazing needle-felting - it seems to be getting more and more popular.

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  3. Wow, looks like you both had a great time.xx

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  4. The felting looks amazing. There is going to be a woolfest near me in a couple of weeks. I'm looking forward to it. X

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  5. What a beautiful selection of items - I don't think I could have resisted the Green Man!!

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  6. I have a stash of stuff for needle felting, once I have some time it will be used, but for now it sits waiting.

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  7. I would just love to go to something like this! They always seem to be in Cumbria of Wales or other far flung places though. I love all those felted pictures.

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  8. How interesting. I was looking in the photos for my friend from Clunderwen. She dyes with natural materials, I am just packaging up some walnut, leaves, bark and husks for her.
    It certainly dyed my fingers and nails LOL
    I loved the felted animals and the paisley shawls.

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  9. The wools are stunningly beautiful-natural dyes and all. Thanks for the lovely pictures.

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  10. What a lovely day out, the wools and the felting are beautiful, especially the deer head at the beginning.

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  11. Dawn - it was such a lovely morning and I appreciate you telling me about it.

    Pat - I think needle felting can be done on various skill-levels and doesn't require a large outlay to get started,

    DD - we did. They had got together a good number of craftsfolk.

    Jules - enjoy your Woolfest too.

    R. Robin - he was rather splendid wasn't he?

    Marlene - I hope you get round to using it soon. Just look at what you could achieve!

    Rowan - the main Woolfest is in Cumbria. You will have to have a holiday up there. There's the Welsh Wonderwool at Builth Wells next April. You could always come down for that (and stay!)

    Kath - I was expressing my interest in natural dyestuffs to one exhibitor (who had very vivid and pretty wools, truth be told) and she was rubbishing it. I felt she just needed to say that hers were synthetic and then shut up!

    Lynda - I was very taken with some yarn dyed with gorse and may try that one at home. It was a soft yellow with just a slight nod towards a very soft green. The artichoke was just as pretty, a very pale green.

    Thelma - you'd have loved it I'm sure. That deer head must have taken weeks to make.

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  12. Thank you for sharing your visit. What a lot of lovely woolly inspiration. I enjoy seeing the photos of your best finds from Malvern too. Oh to have a house and kitchen that could house some of those gems.

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