Its still a bit misty over the fields, and grey skies are the backdrop for the giant windmills churning the breeze into power alongside the A12 to The Hague. Its open day at De Spinners with Glynis and Owen Poad (Majacraft) there for the day, I figured there was a pretty good chance that I was not the only one traversing the dutch landscape with a Majacraft wheel strapped into the back seat today. I was pretty much there on time, but there were already some people and wheels that had arrived before me. I am always interested in checking out other peoples wheels, what do they have and what are they spinning?!The first wheel I see is an Aura! The lovely Maria and I were very soon comparing wheels. She had made some really cool felted covers for her treadles! They looked cosy and great protection too. As the day went on more and more people arrived with their Majacraft wheels, there were Roses, Suzies, and our Auras too. All these wheels! This of course kept the Poads very busy for the day, doing some needed maintenance, tweaking to improve the spinning, this was how I saw Owen for most of the day: Well, like that, or taking things apart and putting them back together, better than they were before.. And Glynis was busy with it too, shortening stretched drive bands, tightening screws, AND she gave us some great demos, combing fibers with the hand combs, and she showed us some spinning on the stylus, I got some great tips. There was of course, also a bunch of general chatter! It was great to catch up with Karen, a fellow kiwi who I had met least year at the Jazzturtle workshop, I persuaded her to have a go at the stylus on my wheel. I did some spinning too, I started and finished a new yarn based on my silk hankie wrapping technique. This one is a single coiled yarn, wrapped with silk and including some organic little felted nepps that I just wrapped with the silk fibers. This one I N-plyed, but next time I want to make it a simple two ply and let the nepps spread out more along the yarn. They seem to be pretty well held in place with the silk, what an amazing fiber that is! It was a really fun day, nice to be in the middle of a bunch of kiwis, the accents, the special kiwi-isms.. And I really enjoyed Glynis and Owens company, really lovely people and I am very happy I have been able to spend some time with them during their trip around Europe. And after all their work today...

I love how ideas can start as little precious sparks and, given the right conditions, in a short time can become a blaze.  A little discussion between me, Esther, and Donni, in which we decided to make a nice collaboration and weave each others yarns (yes – way cool right?!) turned into a whole new group on Facebook especially for Majacraft Dynamic Loom owners (or those who have it high on their wishlist!). I mean, why should we be individually hogging all the fun! Shared is always better 🙂 So what do we have? Its our own group space on Facebook, where I hope we can share lots of inspiration and ideas, making the most of the features of the Majacraft loom that make it unique and interesting. Now that I have had mine for a while I am feeling quite comfortable with the warping, and the plain weave possiblities, there are a huge range of reed segment sizes so I know I can use any of my art yarns. Next up is playing with the double heddle potential, which effectively turns it into a three shaft loom, so I can create repeating patterns, but with art yarns! I am visualising very textured lockspuns woven into a twill pattern, for example. I will be sharing progress on the group page! With the wide range of weaving experience of the group members I am sure that I will get some great tips and feedback on the process and will learn a lot. I am also very excited to be sharing the group page admin with Esther Rodgers (Jazzturtle) and Donni Grant (Loom&Arty), both really creative people! I am looking forward to posting about our collaboration project, and we hope to run some fun challenges for group members to get stuck into with us in the near future! So this is where our little sparking idea has taken us so far, who knows where its going to end up?! Maybe we can one day run a Majacraft Loom Play retreat for hands on face to face experiences with group members! Or perhaps we can organise swaps, competitions, even exhibitions, there is always so much potential when you get a bunch of creative people all in one place and the ideas bouncing around 🙂   If you have a Majacraft loom, I’d love it if you join the group too. If you dont have one (yet) but are considering it, come and join...

The good days! You know the ones, the moment you wake up you can already feel the excitement simmering away somewhere deep in your chest. I dont know what it is or where it comes from, its just known to me as a good day feeling, especially when it hits me even before first coffee. I can contrast it with slightly less good days of course. Like. yesterday, it started out with some great moments, but punctuated with a really good slice out of my finger because I havent yet learned not to play with scissors, and a kinda flat feeling all afternoon that I blame on the kinda flat weather. It was ok yesterday. I got some stuff done. I played lego. Partly I slept on the couch 😉 But the important bit? I have noticed that the way I am on the inside, totally affects the way other people are on the outside. Does that sound weird? I have started trying to be more conscious of my effect on the people around me. Its far more profound than I had realised. This is not because I am being egotistical or trying to increase my importance in the lives of the people I spend time with. This is me realising that my own frame of mind and the way I am expressing that, spreads to others and impacts them in ways that I would like to be more conscious of. If I am feeling flat, blah, tired, generally just not present, this is just what I get back from other people too. Its not surprising if I think about it 🙂 However what I notice far more is that when I am feeling joyous, creative, enthusiastic, and basically just happy, this is reflected back to me in multiples. Its the times when I laugh the most, turn the music up loud, geek out with my daughter over.. well geeky things 😉 get loud and dont care, make the most creative things and feel the inner glow growing in my chest just because life rocks. I see very clearly that those people I care about pick up on this and respond in such a positive way. This is a really good reminder to me to be considerate, to work on finding that inner something so I can share it better with the people I care about. In essence, its about seeing this same smile light up my daughters face, ten years on, and keeping it there for the next.. many 🙂 Why is this going on my blog? I am not sure 😉 Its part of my trying to be responsible for how I impact others, writing it, sharing...