The Guild competition

 The day of the bag competition.  Three tables jam packed with handmade bags.  I dread to think how many hours of work was represented there!  There were woven bags, felted, and knitted, of all shapes and sizes.  One thing is for certain, there is alot of talent represented within the guild.  We all were able to vote for our favourite bag, not an easy task by any stretch of the imagination.  But the overall winner was this beautiful felted, appliqued and machine stitched bag by Ruth.

 We then turned our hands to some needle felting.  It is something I have wanted to do for ages, and have even asked for some needles for Christmas, so to get to have a play before hand was a real treat.  I made too little plaques, one abstract...

 ...and one more seasonal.

Needless to say I am "hooked"!! 

A lovely evening, which ended all too soon (a sign of a good time!)  Came away with the programme for next year, which looks to introduce me to even more elements of fibrecraft I have yet to discover!

WarHammer Young Bloods

 Luke has been working on this model for the last few months in preparation for a painting competition at the massive Games Workshop exhibition known as Games Day. The competition he was entering was the Young Bloods competition, for those aged 14 and under.

 (apologies for pictures on their sides, my camera got confused!)  The detail he went into was astounding.  So much better than anything Stuart or I could create.  In fact Stuart reckons he is the best painter in the whole of RedWarSoc.

Can you see the purple gem on the leg below, that is all made to look translucent with shading.  And the diamond tapestry down the side is free hand.  When you think the model is about 2 inches high at the most, that is very fine detail, and one very steady hand!

 The word "courage" was also painted freehand, and is about a couple of millimetres high.

 The cape was pretty hard to do, trying to get the shading right.

With all this hard work that he put into it, you can imagine his disappointment when he didn't get through to the second round.  Out of 100 competitors, only 6 got chosen to go through to the second round, this is what Luke was aiming for.  He was truly deflated.  And I honestly think an injustice was done.  Unfortunately we don't know where out of the whole event came, he may well have been 7th but that will never be known.

How do you pick yourself up from this?  How do you support someone when they feel their best is not good enough?  You talk about experience, what you have learned from doing it, and you plan for next year.  Competition is hard, but entering this has really pushed Luke, and he has produced his best work yet.  He likes a challenge, and his painting will always be a winner as far as I am concerned.

The Guild Competition

Do you remember this wool? I had earmarked it to make myself a cable bag, but then at last months Guild meeting they announced they were going to run a competition to make a bag which had to be using at least one of the processes within their name ie Spinning, Weaving or Dyeing.  I could have continued with my idea for a cable bag, but as the meeting was a show and tell meeting, I had taken this skein along, and lots of people seemed to comment that it would be good for felting.  So this then got me thinking, and after a bit of browsing on ravelry I have found a lovely pattern for a felted satchel.

I have a year to get this done.  It will be a great experiment, and steep learning curve I feel, seeing whether I have enough yarn etc!  I suppose the good thing with bags, is it really doesn't matter how big they are.  The competition will be a bit of fun for me, there is no way I could compete with the talented women there, some who have been spinning etc longer than I have been drawing breath!  I will post progress as and when it happens!