Wednesday 30 January 2013

Next Guild meeting; Ann Campbell's workshop

A message from Jenni Frost, with directions to our venue for Sunday 10th. Feb.
 
To confirm I have booked the Sports Pavilion at Betws yn Rhos for Ann’s workshop on Sunday 10th Feb.  for £20
It is booked for 10am – 4pm and I will collect the key on Saturday and open up on Sunday morning.
Here are the directions for members & Ann Campbell.
 
 
We are in the Sports Pavilion NOT the village hall.
Enter Betws yn Rhos from Colwyn Bay direction.  Pass the village hall and school and turn sharp left by white fencing immediately after school. Red hazard tape will be tied to this fence. Go down unmade road towards tennis courts and pavilion is on the right by football field.  You can park outside pavilion, down a slope.
 
Enter from main Abergele to Llanfair TH road (B5381) enter Betws yn Rhos village, go past shop, pub and church (S bend). Turn right immediately after the Wheatsheaf pub – hazard tape on white fence.  Follow as above.
 
(still no word on the re-opening of the LlanfairTH Community Centre)
 AC

Wednesday 16 January 2013

"No news" is "bad news"....

I am afraid the LlanfairTH Community Centre is still in a pitiful state, six weeks after the flooding.  In fact, the damage in the village is still pretty bad - several properties are still full of rubble as their ground floor rooms are stripped out, and the Post Office is still not open. (The village shop is operating from the Post Mistress's front room.).  The road through the village has been resurfaced, and a line of traffic cones has appeared on the main road where the hedges were torn out.  The Environment Agency were doing something mysterious to the grille of Nant Barrog again this afternoon.
I took these photographs in the Community Centre today - no comment necessary, I think.  Industrial heating/drying units have been in operation here for some time now so presumably things must be getting better?


The kitchen.
AC

Monday 14 January 2013

Sunday 13th. Jan: felted bowls

Our first meeting of 2013 was held in the Memorial Hall in Llanfair, as our usual venue is not open after the flooding in December.  Rosie Smith kindly came all the way from her new home in Snowdonia to show us how to make felted woollen vessels.  Using rovings, or very loosely spun yarn, and big knitting needles, Rosie knits h..u..g..e baggy bags and then felts them in the washing machine at 60 degrees (using a pair of trainers to provide friction, and not forgetting to put the knitting in a bag to avoid clogging up the washing machine with fluff).  The shrinkage is remarkable.  Rosie then stretches the felted bowl over a suitably sized pudding basin and leaves it to dry.  She also showed us how to spin a loose, "lofty" yarn using a modified long draw technique.  Some of us made a good start on a bowl, and others took the instructions away with us to try later.
We had a good opportunity to catch up on each other's news; a new home on a National Trust estate; a grandson off to study with Jamie Oliver; a daughter awaiting the publication of her new, contemporary version of the Canterbury Tales.  And of course, lots of chat about spinning and textiles generally.
Our temporary venue was very satisfactory and felt lovely and warm when we arrived.  However, as the temperature dropped and the snow fell outside we began to feel the chill and crawled away to our burrows before 3o'clock!
Bryn has kindly taken some photographs:

AC