What a great meeting on Monday night. Brett Schuyler subbed in for his wife, Carrie Woolley, who stayed home looking after their 2 week old son. Brett spoke about being shepherds to 600 ewes who produce over 1000 lambs each year. We can see the sheep grazing in the fields and orchards north east of Simcoe. Brett kept everyone’s interest for an hour and I know people had more questions for him. You can follow Carrie on Instagram @carriewoolley1 and the lamb website is here.
For the overall Schuyler Farm operation, click here.
Heather, thanks for the organizing the treats last night. I was happy not to bring anything else with me to the meeting!
And thanks to Jan G, Jill, Karen and Julie for their demos last night and help getting the wool ready. Did you see how cool Jan’s embellisher was? Did you take some fleece home to try something?
If you Google any of the felted items you are interested in, many links will pop up. Our modus operandi was to read 3-6 tutorials and then give it a try. And then tweak it.
For wet-felted items, you need all 3 of these things:
- a change in water temperature (Jill’s ice cube bucket and hot water bucket for dryer balls)
- agitation (rubbing with your hands or bubble wrap or a washboard) and
- detergent. Dish detergent is really the best for raw wool fleece to dissolve the lanolin (a grease). You don’t need to buy fancy wool washes.
For needle felting, you can find the Clover Felting tool at Len’s, down the aisle with the sewing notions, on the other side at the end. It is $22. Individual needles are a little harder to track down.
The Woodstock Fleece Festival is Saturday, October 19th 2019. Mark your calendars. You can get fibre at The Fibre Garden in Jordan. You can buy dyed roving from Sheepspot in London. She sells fleeces also.
To make a large sheet of felt, watch this video
In response to the question about buying mill carded wool for quilt batting or duvets, I did find an Ontario farm that can supply it. Circle R Lamb north of Kitchener. It would be wool from Ontario sheep but the processing mill is Zeilingers in Frankenmuth, Michigan. A queen sized batt would be $160 here. So you might want to wait until Carrie’s shearing next spring and buy a fleece or 2 from her! Especially after watching the video above. Carrie and Brett’s sheep are free from straw bits as they are outside on grass all year round. A definite plus!
Hopefully everyone will be able to see the “Red Cross Quilts of the Great War” exhibit at the Waterford Heritage and Cultural Museum. Details are here. It is on until February 15th and the museum is open Tuesday to Friday 10-4:30 and Sunday 1-4.
Vice President’s Days are Saturday and Sunday, February 9th and 10th. Signups will be at the January meeting. Terry is working on some great ideas.
Mark Friday, Saturday and Sunday November 1-3 on your calendar for our first Quilting Retreat at Camp Trillium. Details and pricing will be ready for the January meeting.
Do you think you want to do the Rainbow Scrap Challenge in 2019? It was a lot of fun this past year. Each month a colour is posted and you can make whatever blocks you want each month. You can find links to previous ones on So Scrappy’s blog. She is even looking for people to design blocks for her.
A monthly tracking sheet is attached to this email. You can look up the colour at the beginning of each month or you can wait until the meeting to find out. Either way you have a month for each colour.
Our next meeting on Monday, January 14 is about adding colour to your fabrics yourself. We will have an indigo vat going, will demonstrate snow or ice dyeing, baggie dyeing and using InkTense pencils.
On a sad note, Martin MacNeil, the gentleman who talked to us about Quilts of Valour 2 years ago, passed away last week. https://www.simcoereformer.ca/news/local-news/popular-teacher-coach-mourned
Twilight Quilters' Guild of Norfolk County 