Weekend spinning retreat at Greenhills in Canberra.

Leaving home on Friday, 5 am, we drove through the beautiful country side of South Gippsland in Victoria, to attend a most wonderful spinning retreat in Canberra, the capital of our great land, Austalia. My friend who accompanied me, spent the weekend with her grand-daughter, who lives in Canberra.
After lots of stops and cuppas along the way, we travelled through beautiful country side, into NSW and the Capital territory and to Greenhills.
My dear friends Anne, Miriam and Jacqui had already arrived and lots of die-hards were already spinning away to their hearts content. I shared a room with Anne in bunk style rooms. We were spoiled with delicious food, snacks and drinks throughout the weekend, as we spun away at our wheels. There was a fashion parade on the Saturday morning and a raffle on the Sunday and I was blessed to win 200g of the most gorgeous dark brown, fine fleece which I shall enjoy spinning into yarn.

Alison, an Australian woman, and married to a Macedonian gentleman is showing a photo of her Macedonian wedding outfit. The red vest she is holding is worn over the undervest and under the apron, as on the dressed mannequin  you see in the photo at left, which is a 19th century day outfit for Macedonian women. Unfortunatly it did not fit the mannequin, and thus she is holding it here.

This exquisite home spun mohair capelet was modelled and made by Ulli, one of the women modelling the garments.

 

Our rug hooking friends Miriam and Anne 

Anne, Jacqui and Maggie chatting away

More gorgeous handspun garment modelled by some of the ladies. 

 After a wonderful three days of yapping, spinning, eating, drinking and making new friends, each went back to their own corner of the world to continue their daily lives. God willing to meet up again next year, same time, same place. Cheers- Chris

Unusual Rug Making Hooks

I recently had contact with a delightful lady called Peggy from the USA who is a rug hooker and collector of beautiful hooks that she gathers along the way and also has specially made for her.

I asked her if I could see them and she generously emailed them to me. They are so beautiful that I thought others who are passionate about rug hooking and collecting beautiful things would love to see them as well. She allowed me to post the photos and quote her words on both the Yarra Valley Rug Makers Blog and my ‘Rug Making Hooks’ facebook page, which you will find HERE.

Peggy said about her hooks:

“I'm as much a collector of hooks as I am a "user" of hooks. I had Tom Ingalls from Missouri, USA to make several hooks for me using some gorgeous burls that I bought directly from a man who lives in Australia and harvests them from old gold fields near his home. Tom does such beautiful work. I had so much fun gathering all of my materials and designing my hooks with Tom. He was amazing to work with. Such gorgeous exotic woods. In designing my hooks, Tom used antique figural silver and picture buttons on them that I had collected from England, Ireland and Scotland. He hand-turned the Australian burls on a lathe to make the handles. I take them out often just to look at them. I love to share them with others and I think that Tom's artistry deserves to be appreciated.

The first two photos above show the Australian burls with buttons and silver that I sent Tom.

 This last picture shows the five finished hooks that he made for me. 

I love my hooks, but I do get a bit carried away with my collecting.” 

Thanks for sharing them with the rug hooking world Peggy, especially here is Australia, your hooks are truly a work of art. Credit to you and Tom.