Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th April 2008

Wonderwool Wales is part of Mid Wales Mouthful,

a Food Festival celebrating local food and drink,

taking place at the same venue (The Royal Welsh Showground

 at Builth Wells) on the same days.

There will be all kinds of wool related activities and products

 and the competition entries for 'The Wonder of Wool'

Competition will also be displayed.

The competition was designed to celebrate the beautiful and

innovative creations that can be made using Welsh wool.

The Theme of the competition was 'Bubbles' and the brief

was to produce a piece of work that is made from a minimum

 of 75% wool from a sheep living in Wales.

 

Mr Darcey's Entry!!!

 Inspiration

 …I began by looking at all kinds of images of bubbles

 …I then decided which aspects of these images would translate

 into yarn

 …the colours ~ blues, pinks, purples, yellows, greens

 …the shapes ~ circles or more irregular shapes?

…the size ~ large through to tiny

 …some were floating free, some were joined, some were bubbles

 within bubbles

 

Design

The next decision was to decide what kind of item to make

which would best illustrate the ideas on the mood boards.

 Immediately it became obvious that a shawl would give a

 wonderful blank canvas on which one could use all kinds of

 interesting yarns to represent the bubbles but still stay within

 the brief that 75% of the wool should be sourced from a sheep

 in Wales.

 

Shawl

 Having just acquired Knitters Magazine book ‘Shawls and

Scarves’, I was fascinated by the section on Faroese shawls,

which are traditionally made with a centre back gore and

subtle shaping at the shoulders to make the shawl sit easily

on the wearer without slipping. They are also usually knitted

in a lace weight yarn to a traditional lace pattern.

I took the basic premise of the shaped shawl and worked out a

pattern to best achieve the look I wanted in the thicker yarn

I wanted to use.

I included a moss stitch border to give the edge definition

but used stocking stitch for the main part to give me a blank

canvas on which to build my ‘bubbles’.

 

Materials

I began by researching the websites suggested in the literature

and quickly decided that Chris King at Garthenor Organic Wool

had lots of choice so would probably have just what I needed.

I had already decided that the bubble colours would be best

shown against a black background but the only black wools

available were Shetland.

I got in touch with Chris and they came to the rescue with a

delivery of Black Welsh Mountain yarn due back from the mill

any day!

With the main part of my piece sorted I then raided my stash

for any and all kinds of threads and yarns which came within

the colour range I needed

– after my initial trawl I then narrowed down my selection

to the most appropriate and they included silks and cottons

as well as fancy yarns but they were all space dyed.

 

Bubbles

I made the bubbles in all sizes and they were roughly spherical,

by crocheting a circle and working round and through that circle

to give a domed effect ~ a technique I have used very

successfully to make my brooches and pins

(Mr Darcey's Debonairs!).

I also found some iridescent and pearl, glass beads and

seed beads to represent the tiny bubbles.

My original idea was to add a picot edge in space dyed yarn

and to embroider along the inner edge of the moss stitch

but once the bubbles were in place it became obvious that this

would make the piece look too fussy.

Once the crocheted bubbles were in place I added

the seed beads and the iridescent beads.

Initially widely scattered but becoming denser as they

neared the top and edges, like bubbles rising to the top

 of a glass of champagne!