Sunday, February 27, 2011

sunday shout out: two sisters stringworks

portable crafting then and now
fingerless mittens - my first experience with Two Sisters Stringworks fibre (and it was good)

In my somewhat occasional 'shout out' series may I introduce my next victim - Two Sisters Stringworks.

Two Sisters is the local business of artisan, Kirsten aka Yummy Yarn as you may already know her. She is a passionate handcrafter, producing the most adorable hand dyed and spun yarns from her 'in, around and in spite of the family' home business.

Her work is available online thru her Etsy store, as well as locally at Black Sheep Yarns and Baaad Anna's (where she also teaches). Students in my wire and fibre classes will know how good her product is first hand, as will visitors to the Roots exhibitions. A lot of my wire and fibre oddities contain Kirsten's hand dyed fibre as felted roving embroidery amidst the beads and eyelash.

wire and fibre dragonfly
wire dragonflies with felted wings for the Roots exhibition

Recently I've started working with her felting packs, small tufts of unspun fibre for crafting, in preparation for my upcoming exhibition. I'm using a technique called needlefelting to anchor the wool to a wire crochet framework before wet felting to set the project. It's a bit tricky but the results are quite beautiful - it's like watercolour painting with fibre.

My acorn!
yes, the iconic acorn is stuffed with Kirsten's fibre

wire and fibre hearts
wire and fibre hearts for "home is where the heart is"
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