What a weekend!!

It was a busy weekend for me!! Full of good friends and lots of crafty things.

On Saturday I went to the Textile Museum with Coleen. There was a festival going on with many exhibitors and hands on craft projects. There's also a wonderful exhibit going on right now called RED. There was no photography allowed - so go check it out in person! The highlight of the exhibit were these gorgeous long tent bands - all hand woven. They were made by Central Asian ethnic groups, including Turkmen, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Kazakh.

Here are some images from their website - printed with the appropriate credits below...


Tent band (full and detail)
"Eagle"-göl
group I
[Goklen (?)] Turkmen
The Textile Museum 1968.36.4
Gift of Mrs. C.V. Hook from the Estate of Gustave Pabst


Tent band (full and detail)
Saryk (?) Turkmen
The Textile Museum 1968.36.2
Gift of Mrs. C.V. Hook from the Estate of Gustave Pabst


Tent band (full and detail)
Saryk (?) Turkmen
The Textile Museum 1983.55.1
Gift of Gloria Gartz


There was quite a crowd there... many dressed up in beautiful hand made costumes.





We made sure to take an active role in all the exhibits - as you can see - Coleen is trying out a braid making device.





Here, a woman was using cards with holes punched in them to weave this belt. It was amazing - each turn of the cards - created a different pattern.



There was also a felt making booth were you picked up different pieces of wool roving, yarn or felt and rubbed them into a felted piece.



Here's ours....



Another booth had a red stamp activity. We made handkerchiefs!



Mine must have been just irresistable - because it was stolen when I went back to claim in!
I kept looking at all the little kids with their handkercheifs - ready to jump whoever had taken mine. But alas! I never found it...

So here is my first attempt...



And since I never found it - here is my 2nd attempt...



They also had those little silk cocoons that I kept seeing all over at MD Sheep and Wool. I didn't really understand what you did with them - but I found out. Look at all that silk being pulled off!



And what textile exhibit would be complete with a sheep shearing?



The little guys were starving and cold after their haircuts!




There was a stage in the middle of all the activity and we watched some women dancing in beautiful clothes.





Not to be outdone - Coleen practised her pole dancing there too...



Inside the atrium - there were some exhibits by textile artists.

Here is some yarn being woven into a rug...



Some woven articles...



Look at this gorgeous red one - just perfect for project spectrum's new colors!



I loved this exhibit on Batik.



She had dyed the silk brown and was painting on wax so she could dye the fabric again and the areas with the wax on them would stay brown.



Inside were more hands on exhibits. I found a woman doing needle punch. I had never seen this type of needle craft before - but it looked really cool... Here she is making a rug for a dollhouse.



This post is already growing too long - so I'll sign off for now with this little tidbit - a present that I made Sarah for her birthday!



I went over to her place Saturday evening for some sewing time - we made the cutest purses. Go look at hers! I'll post mine soon - I still need to take some pictures.