January 1st, 2018

Today has been filled with destruction and creation - all inside in the air-conditioning, of course! It took several hours to turn Aoetearoa, my rejected 2016 WOW entry, from this

into this.

Metres of plastic tubing, a pile of LED light strips, a bag of sequins, 4 wire structures, a pile of silk and sequin fabric, and disturbingly, 13 pins! I've never de-constructed one of my pieces before. It wasn't too sad - I think because it was largely made from scrap satin and tulle, the fabric loss didn't break my heart - I just won't think about the hours. I was impressed with my construction - some firm stitching there, and the tubing joins were excellent! I had put it up as our Christmas decoration, the first time I had touched it since it returned, but was saddened to find that none of the lighting worked. There was a stripped wire, a missing connection - it was a mess. Matt couldn't get one bit to light up. So I'm guessing that's the reason it didn't make it on stage in 2016 - I just wish they'd have said.
The rest of the day was spent working on some iron age leather shoes for Matt's next  visit to the Abbey Medieval Fair in June. Thanks to a brilliant 'Instructable', it was pretty simple, and the sample was successful.

 Every New Years Day I felt a new cover for my diary - I laid out this one yesterday whilst Jenelle was researching our Bunneh Adventure for the year. No textile workshop options appeal to us this year, so we're just going to have a holiday! In the Dandenongs!! We'll miss catching up with our textile friends, but I'm sure we'll be back - until then, we'll keep in touch on Facebook. This 'cracked earth' technique was featured in the latest FELT magazine, in an article by Dawn Edwards.

I'm very happy with the result, and it was great to be playing with wool again. There are some ideas bubbling away, and over Christmas I ordered some delicious English Leicester fleece - 3kg in fact - so there's a great reason to re-connect with wool. Just got to get through the next 3 months of WOW creation first!