Norwegian Wool Newsletter Winter 2012
Happy New Year to all!
Comment
It is great to see that hand felt making is growing in popularity. In particular, dry needle techniques seem to be taking off in a big way. It's not so easy these days to find good spinning instruction. We will be trying to address this in 2012 by scheduling some woollen spinning workshops, though dates and locations still have to be decided.
New Price Range
Our new needlefelt packs have proved very popular, so in response to that, we now list a price for 25g of wool in both our C1 and our Pels/C1 ranges. For those of you who are not familiar with working in carded batts you can now put yourself together a trial pack of any number of colours in 25g quantities by ordering the colours individually.
Great New Colours
Hifa have introduced three exciting new colours into their range of C1 - the first new ones for a few years.
One of these is a skin tone, but darker than Complexion 524. The others are a rich blue and red. All will go on the website as soon as we receive the new stock.
New Product Range
We have decided to stock a small number of the Clover range of products for needlefelting, including their needlefelting tool and mat. Keep an eye on our website over the next few weeks.
New Blog
Shortly we will be introducing a blog site to our website so you can give us instant feedback or just exchange views with other customers. Keep an eye on our home page.
North West Wool
In the Autumn newsletter we announced our new brand North West Wool and it's looking very good, see www.northwestwool.co.uk. In this part of the world, shearing only happens in June/July and last year we only purchased enough fleece to launch the business. Half of that stock is now sold and we will be buying and processing a much larger quantity this summer.
Saving Rare Breeds
We are now working with the charity Saving Rare Breeds, based in the Forest of Bowland. This was set up by Stephen Pickup and his partner Tracy Owen three years ago and aims to preserve rare breeds, restore ancient traditional hay meadows and protect and enhance wildlife habitats for a range of birds, mammals and insects. Over the last years they have worked tirelessly to rear breeds such as Boreray, Castlemilk Moorit, Hebridean, North Ronaldsay and Portland, which are at risk of dying out. Maggy, Stephen and Tracey will be organising courses in feltmaking and spinning using the fleece from some of these breeds and others.
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Textile Magic
Artybird Carnforth, Norwegian Wool and North West Wool will be collaborating this year to stage the first of our exhibition and demonstration weekends called "Textile Magic". There will be lots of magnificent textile art on show along with fine art and craft sales and demonstrations. The venue and date are yet to be announced, but there will be a preview event on the last day of the Rheged WOW Festival, ie on 15th April where we will have wool, crafts and artwork for sale and advice about courses. Download the flier here and see you there!
Needlefelt Workshops
In November Maggy gave a Christmas needlefelt workshop for beginners to the York Guild of Spinners and Weavers. It was very well attended and very much enjoyed. All the participants created their own Christmas snowman: see them all in the photo. If you are looking for someone to teach needlefelting to your local group please to see if she is available for your date.
Courses
Artybird Carnforth provide a range of courses for embroiderers, felt makers and fabric designers. This year they have added to the range:
- Dry Needling Techniques Four sessions, one per month.
- Creative Business Skills Aimed at sole practioners, the Level 2 and Level 3 courses aim to give you the industry-recognised professional craft and business skills you need to produce well-designed craft items and artefacts that you can sell. Distance learning, enroll any time.
Woolfest
Don't forget Woolfest in Cockermouth on 22nd and 23rd June www.woolfest.co.uk/. We hope to be there with both Norwegian Wool and North West Wool, though we haven't had confirmation of our stand numbers yet. Look forward to seeing you.