Equipment Rental Scheme Now Live!

What a great initiative 🙂

The Irish Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers

The Guild has some great news! We have been busy bees in the background, and now we are delighted to announce the new Equipment Rental Scheme. You can rent a spinning wheel, a loom, or a drum carder, with all of the accessories needed for each item. This is the perfect way to try out the crafts of weaving or spinning without committing to a big buy. Read all about it here!

The Guild would like to thank committee member Cathy for her hard work on this project. Email rental@weavespindye.ie with any queries.

Happy Weaving/ Spinning!

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Our Rock Art Exhibition!

This gallery contains 8 photos.

Originally posted on Roaringwater Journal:
A joint post by Robert and Finola… For all of you who are fortunate enough to live within reach of our beautiful part of West Cork we are pleased to invite you to our exhibition,…

Women’s Bodies, CrossFit & Advertising

Am still on a bit of an anger rush regarding the treatment of women within the Irish culture. This is a really simple essay. I love it, love it, love it!!!!!!!

A Letter to Amazon

A post close to my heart. Loved it!

Lucy Blue Writes

Dear Mr. Bezos,

I was very excited to receive your Email request this morning, asking for my help in your battle against Hachette. Not since Carrie White got invited to the prom has a girl been more pleasantly shocked to be included. And you’re right; those big publisher types are just fuckers. I was a mid-list romance author for Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster all through the 2000s, and let me tell you—

Oh, right, sorry, you want to talk about your thing. No, yeah, of course; it’s totally fine. So anyway, okay, Hachette and its other big nasty “media conglomerate” friends have been being all hateful to you at Amazon about your e-books. I heard about the whole collusion thing – those bastards! You and the Supreme Court are so right; I don’t blame you one bit for being upset. I mean, I know in my heart that if you…

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Beach vs Yarn

I love taking the kids to the beach. Mine are small enough that reading isn’t an option for the supervising adult, so I like to bring my work in progress or WIP . My hands stay busy, but I can watch little missy moo at the water’s edge.  So the above photo is my new handy go to pack for crochet at the beach! I just need a flotation device so I can crochet and swim. (I am joking here. I do have some boundaries)  This particular project is a mint green striped with forest green kids pixie hat due to show up on etsy in about two weeks.

Next Friday, I’ll be starting the fb giveaway on the Eve & Apple page for a handmade crochet fuchsia brooch. So keep checking in…..

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Shibori in Kerry

Felting workshop a bit closer to home …..Such a beautiful technique!

Feltmakers Ireland

Felt making workshop in Dingle, Co. Kerry

Shibori Workshop – Ancient techniques, Contemporary designs in Felt making

We will experiment with a range of ‘shibori’ techniques that can be applied to felt to create striking three-dimensional effects in your felted fabric. The main focus is on experimentation and discovery.

Inspired by beauty in simple form, Nessa’s style brings together her love and fascination of the natural world and felt making in sculptural form.

Nessa has been exploring and teaching shibori and nuno felting techniques in her more recent works and is particularly interested in the contemporary approach of binding metal pieces with delicate fibres such as silk and lace with wool.

This workshop is suitable for beginner to advanced felt-makers of all levels

One day workshop on Friday August 22^nd , 10:30 am to 4:30 pm, in Dingle, Co. Kerry, cost €75

Contact Nessa McCormack at nessamccormack@gmail.com, 086 6022511, 

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Hand Spinning

 

 

  I was lucky enough to win some wonderful vegan batts from the talented Designs by Amber. Please take a moment to call over to her website http://www.designsbyamber.bigcartel.com/.

I had not handspun since I was 15 so many many years ago. It was weird to try again, and yet as the fibers came together in silky flowing colours, my hands remembered. I forgot to think and the yarn just became. I am a worrier. All my kids know this. My husband knows this, but after spinning I felt calmer than I have all summer. Ok yes, it is a awkward summer, with many unknowns and financial challenges. But I felt at peace, and I also felt connected to my crochet work in a new way. Now that I have re-found this skill, I’m excited to create new more colourful and weird pixie hats. The yarn above is going into a special hat for my little sister’s new son .

 

Thank you Designs by Amber!

The Joy of Membership

Advice on tackling the dreaded moth…. I’m sold !

Feltmakers Ireland

All our members will have received the latest edition of our quarterly magazine in the post in the past week.  This issue includes :

• Report about ‘Felt for Architecture’ workshop
• Details of exhibition opportunities with the Design & Crafts Council & Feltmakers Ireland
• Interview with Pam Mc Gregor
• Exciting ways to use silk hankies
• Tips on inexpensive felting tools
• Advice about tackling the dreaded moth
• And much much more….

The magazine is just one of the joys of membership. Membership costs €25 per year and includes reduced fees and priority places for workshops, eligibility for exhibition entry, use of the resources of Feltmakers Ireland (eg library and studio) as well as the magazine delivered to your door. The cost of the magazine accounts for the majority of your membership fee. We have generously been sending the magazine to people whose membership has lapsed but we can’t continue to do this…

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Talking to Daddy on the Wind

Last night I was on my own with the four kids. My 3rd old daughter is trying to sleep in her own room, or more accurately I’m trying to get her to sleep in her own room. Normally she sleeps on either myself or her Daddy, with that all night burrowing into you action. It is making for many sleepless nights.

So there we lay, each in our own room, with the doors open so we could talk.

‘Mommy – what are my boys doing?’

‘Mommy, I think the sun has come up and we are all done sleeping.’

‘Mommy, what you doing?’

‘Mommy, can I play WII?’

And so on. We started bedtime at 8:00 and it was about 9:00 when I realized she had stopped asking me questions and was talking away in the bedroom. She was asking Daddy all the questions she had previously been checking out with me. I said ‘ are you talking to Daddy?’. She answered:

‘Yes Mommy, I can hear him on the wind’ .

 And it was after 10pm when I finally heard her snores.

 

 

Chicken breeding

We are taking the leap into being proper chicken breeders, I’m now the proud mommy of lavender and cuckoo pekins, lavender aruacaunas and the beginning of a proper flock of speckled sussex. The biggest stress is making sure that the housing is correct, safe and actually predator proof. Seeing as we are in relocation time, I only need about 750 euro to make sure it all is. Lottery win perhaps? ( insert  winking smiley face ) Thankfully the new FC farm has sheds, so Zeus and Hera ( the geese) have a proper locked in house. The egg flock is fine for housing, as well as the ducks. And with that the most boring post of all the Friendly Cove blog posts is coming to an end.

 

P.S. My children now comment that I love the poultry more than them. Should I be worried? I’ve also only been packing the craft supplies and the books……..