Cleo the Alpaca Part One

Cleo the Alpaca Part One

Two pretty girls. Caroline and Cleo

Cleo is having her fleece shorn next month and is giving it to me to spin into yarn. Her fleece is beautiful shades of greys and creams. I've decided to spin it in it's natural colours.

Watch this space for Cleo Part Two

Herbie Part Three

Herbie Part Three

Herbie's fleece has been dyed and is laid out to dry. I'm really pleased with these gorgeous colours. 

I'm planning to make a rug and before dying the fleece imagined the colours I would need.

Some pretty Hot Pink fleece, nice and dry and ready to be prepared for spinning.

Preparing the fleece using my drum carder. This helps align the wool making it easier to spin.

Yummy Hot Pink fleece now ready to be spun into yarn.

Some of the fleece spun into yarn. Once i've spun all of the fleece I will start making the rug.

Herbie Part Two

Herbie Part Two

Herbie's smelly fleece. First I sorted the fleece, taking all of the horrible bits out.

Herbie's fleece was cleaned by soaking it in well water (we have a real well in our garden) and washing up liquid and to make it and soft and smell nice, the final wash was in Woolite.

After lots of soaking and rinsing in well water, Herbie's fleece was laid out to dry.

Nice clean fleece ready to be dyed.

Herbie Part One

Herbie Part One

This is Herbie; he is a Poll Dorset cross and is having his fleece sheared next week, and is giving it to me to be spun into yarn. I'm so excited as I have seen Herbie wearing his fleece and will be able to make something from start to finish. Sort the wool, wash the wool, dye the wool, spin the wool and then make something spectacular. The other sheep with Herbie are pure bred Poll Dorset, they have wooly faces, whereas, Herbie's face is nice and smooth.

Watch this space!

Glaze

Garden Art

I'm keeping a note of how different glazes turn out so that I can see which ones I want to use in future projects. Here are pictures of some      that I have used so far.

   I need to look at what colour clay has been used as a background, as      the clay colour will effect how the glaze turns out.

Garden Bugs

Garden Bug: Botz Chameleon (Body) and Mayco Leapin Lizard (Teeth)

Garden Bug: Fantasy Nebula (Body) and Mayco The Blues (Teeth)

Hedgehogs

Hedgehog: Botz Gold Aventurine (Body), Botz Blue Effect (Face), Botz Black Gold (Nose, Eyes and End of Spikes)

Hedgehoge: Botz Mirror glaze (Face), Botz Waterfall (Body)

Hedgehoge: Botz Mirror glaze (Face), Botz Waterfall (Body)

Snail

Snail: Botz Chameleon (Body), Botz Blue Effect, Botz Lavender and Botz Anemone (Shell)

Rabbits (Garland)

Rabbit: Fantasy Chromium

Rabbit: Fantasy Murano

Rabbit: Fantasy Renaissance

Rabbit: Botz Peacock Butterfly

Next Experiment with Clay

My next experiment is to achieve some different effects when glazing. For this, i'm going to layer different colours on top of each other to see what I get, and use some wax to try and make crisp patterns. I'm also going to incorporate some glass frit to see how this works with clay.

Watch this space!!!!!

Clay Garden Girls

Finished Garden Girls

I do need to write up all of my notes on the clay and which clays I liked the most, and how the colours of the glazes worked on the different clays.

One thing I did find; when I applied the glaze, I applied two to three coats, which looked like a pretty thick layer of glaze, but once the garden girls had been kilned, there were some thin and patchy areas of glaze. This did not ruin the overall effect of the Garden Girls, but when I make the next batch I will apply another layer (4 layers) of glaze.