A Crowe's Gathering

goZBAY

I don't know if you have heard yet but there is an awesome new auction site out there giving eBay a run for there money. They started off by offering free fees and stores for life to the first 1000 users that sign up and they got national coverage. The response was so great they checked there books and made a huge discussion to up it to the first 2000 users that sign up.

Well this was just an awesome idea and they are leaping up the ladder.

There has been some turmoil in the EBay community and there has been many who has left for one reason or another, but mainly because of the new decision that EBay executives have been making and the small business person feels they have been pushed by the way side and EBay doesn't care what happens to them.

Well this has opened the door for many new auction sites, and many will fall but there will be a few who will succeed, and what I have seen so far this one is well on it's way to succeeding. They are very in tuned with what both the buyer and sellers are  interested in and they are willing to try or put it on the table and figure it out. They are having new product added by the hour and the sellers are very motivated to sell.  This is also a time to do the auctions and get great deals for there are not that many bidders right now so you can get some great deals.

Most of the sellers take pay-pal, Google, visa, master card and some have other options that are new, so pop on over and check out the site and remember this gives you an alternative to EBay and maybe some great deals.

Click on this image and it take you to my store

A Crowe's Gathering

But from there you will be able to shop around and check it out, and I'm proud to be in on the ground floor of this new organization, so Check it out.

Site URL is:

http://www.gozbay.com

this is clickable too!!!!

The history of Needle Felting

About Needle Felting

Background 

Felting is the process of tangling fibers. It is on of the oldest fiber crafts, dating back as far as 6300 BC. Felt making predates spinning, weaving or knitting, and for centuries this non-woven fabric has provided for basic human needs, such as yurts (felt tents), rugs, hats and footwear. Wool Felt has the ability to protect against heat and insulate against cold. It absorbs and holds moisture, and felt can be cut without fraying or unraveling.

Traditional felting methods require suitable animal fibers e.g. wool or alpaca, wet-ted with a soapy solution, and lost of mechanical action. Originally the natural grease of the raw fiber provide the necessary lubrication, but today we need to use soap, because we are working with washed fiber. Although modern friction-creating equipment and techniques, such as bubble wrap, bamboo blinds, and washing machines are now used to speed up the process, the basic principles of wet felting remain much the same as those practiced by our ancestors.

Needle Felting

The felting needle was invented for industrial use; to enhance and expand the felting process so that synthetic and plant fibers could be felted.  The first needle loom produced on a commercial basis came from the Bi-Water company of Leeds, England about 1866, but not until the late 1950's did the needle punching industry start to expand with companies utilizing fibrous waste.  Needle punches non-wovens were first used as spring insulators in the mattress and furniture industry and later as car carpet.  The needle punching industry increasingly uses the felting needle to texture woven and knitted fabrics.

In the early 1980's David and Eleanor Stanwood used a barbed needle from an industrial felting factory to develop needle felting as a handcraft.  They taught Ayala Talpai, who continues to promote the technique. Needle felting has progressively gained popularity amongst handcrafts, doll makers, bear artists, and artisans.

While wet felting remains the preferred method for handcrafters to create firm felt and even sheets of flat felt, needle felting offers an effective means of shaping and enhancing felted surfaces and sculpturing fine detail. Initially securing areas of colour or fiber embellishments with the felting needle greatly reduces the rise of designs moving during the wet felting process.  Other handcraft uses for felting needles vary widely, including strengthening yarn joins, blending felt pieces together instead of sewing seams, thickening thin areas, and mending will allow you to explore new techniques and ideas.

Needle Felting Characteristics

Felting needles are made from carbon steel and are either 3 or 3 1/2 inches long.  The L-shaped hooks fit into industrial equipment or in our case is the end we hold; the sharp point at the other end facilitates penetration.  The "working zone" ( about one third of the needle) is typically triangular in cross section, having three edges with a series of barbs cut into one or more of these edges with a series of barbs catch and move the fibers as the needle is repeatedly jabbed into a fiber mass.  The number, spacing, depth and angle of the barbs ( and the needle gauge) dictate how the needle works, and hence what it is best used for. Wizpick has develped a comprehensive globally recongized colour code system enabling handcrafters to choose the right felting needle for every task.

Barb number:

The total of barbs per needle influences the speed of the felting process; fewer barbs allow for more precision.

Star needles have a high number of barbs, but are designed to penetrate firm felt easily, working fast and resulting in more tensile strength.

Working Edge:

Most felting needles are triangular with three working edges, except Star needles which are a new innovation with four edges.

You will find that needles with only one or two working edges will penetrate denser felt more easily.  A needle on which the barbs are situated on one edge in a row right behind each other will move fiber reliably and can also be used sideways, parallel to the surface of the felting project.

Barb Spacing and Form:

Needles on which the barbs are spiraled evenly up the working blade will accomplish an even needling effect over more depth.  To produce a smooth felted surface the barbs should be situated close to the tip of the needle.

Deeper barbs and more barb angle will transport more fiber but also be more aggressive.

Gauge:

The gauge ( diameter) of the working zone for wool needles ranges from 32 (coarse) to 42 (super fine). In general, start your project with a coarser needle and work to a finer needle for finishing.  Choose thicker needle to felt coarse fibers and finer needles when working with finer fibers.    Even Merino wools will easily embrace sculptural detail.  Silk can be needle felted although it is quite a challenge to retain the attractive properties of the silk, especially the luster.

Getting Started

To start needle felting you will need a handful or more of clean, carded wool and some felting needles.

Holding the hook end of a needle between thumb and forefinger, jab the working zone into the fiber mass so that all motion is parallel to the length of the needle.  Placing the middle finger farther forward just above the working blade will stabilize the needle and give you more control in you work.  Sideways pressure or pricing is the principle reason needles break.  The two main needling techniques are:

1.     Stabbing ~ in which the working zone of the needle is fully

        withdrawn each time the needle is jabbed into the fiber mass.

2.     Jiggling ~ where the working zone is jabbed into the fiber

         mass and jiggled up and down several times before being

         withdrawn.

Jiggling is a more efficient use of energy and tends to felt faster, but is also creates more pronounced holes.  Vigorous stabbing works fibers over a greater depth and gentle stabbing tends to make smaller puncture marks resulting in a smoother surface.  Felting needles on which the barbs are situated close to the tip are considered surface felters and produce a smoother, more closed surface or skin.

We encourage you to experiment to see which needles work best for you in different situations.  While different needles have been designed for particular uses and situations, there is also a degree of personal preference involved when selecting the beet needle for what you want to do.  for instance, some people prefer working with longer needles when firming or hardening the felt, while other people prefer the shorter ones.

This information came from Wizpick.com

about needle felting

The history of the Russian PunchNeedle

Colonial Sugar Cones

Colonial Sugar Cones

Here is a little back ground history on the Colonial Sugar Cones, of how and why they were used.

From Medieval times to the 19th century, refined sugar was sold in solid form, often in cones, blocks or loaves.  The standard unit of measure in the United States and United Kingdom (also used in recipes) was the pound and increments thereof.

"Sugar finally came to the 16th and 17th century consumer in blocks or cones, in varying degrees of refinement. This accounts for the elaborate directions for clarifying sugar, and the reiterated instructions to searce (sift) or powder it. (Powdered sugar was only finely sifted sugar, not confectioners' sugar). Block sugar also accounts for the strewing of scraped sugar that made for a charming textural and taste contrast that we have all but forgotten. The presence of sugar in so many of our meat recipes, almost in conjunction with fruits and spices...is part of our heritage from medieval cooking, which, in turn, had come from the Arabs. It is virtually impossible to give precise amounts of sugar It is virtually impossible to give precise amounts of sugar required...."

---Martha Washington;s Book of Cookery and Book of Sweetmeats, Transcribed by Karen Hess [Columbia University Press:New York)1995

"Large and prosperous households bought their white sugar in tall, conical loaves, from which pieces were broken off with special iron sugar-cutters. Shaped something like very large heavy pliers with sharp blades attached to the cutting sides, these cutters had to be strong and tough, because the loaves were large, about 14 inches in diameter at the base, and 3 feet high [15th century]...In those days, sugar was used with great care, and one loaf lasted a long time. The weight would probably  have been about 30 lb.s. Later, the weight of a loaf varied from 5 lb. to 35 lb., according to the moulds used by any one refinery. A common size was 14 lb., but the finest sugar Madeira came in small loaves of only 3 or 4 lbs in weight...Up till late Victorian times household Sugar remained very little changed and sugar loaves were still common and continued so until well into the twentieth century..."

---English Bread and Yeast Cookery, Elizabeth David[Penguin:Middlesex]1977

"Conical molded cakes of granulated sugar, wrapped in blue paper and tied, as customary for maybe centuries in Europe, & in US in 18th - early 19th Century. This one is from Belgium, but form is the same. About 10"H x 4 3/4" diam...The blue paper wrapped around sugar loafs was re-used to dye small linens a medium indigo blue...Sugar nippers were necessary because sugar came in hard molded cones, with a heavy string or cord up through the long axis like a wick, but there so that the sugar should be conveniently hung up, always wrapped in blue paper...Conical sugar molds of pottery or wood were used by pouring hot sugar syrup into them and cooling them until solid. They range from about 8"high to 16" high. These molds are very rare, especially those with soe intaglio decoration inside to make a pattern on the cone...Loaf or broken sugar - A bill of sale form Daniel E Baily, a grocer of Lynchberg,VA,dated 1836, lists two types of sugar sold to John G Merme(?)."Loaf Sugar" and "Broken Sugar," the latter cost has as much...Loaf was 20 cents a pound, and broken it was only 11 cents a pound. For cooking, the broken would have been more convenient by far...Perhaps the fear of adulteration...made people want the loaf."

---300 Years of Kitchen Collectibles, Linda Campbell Franklin, 5th edition[Krause Publications:Wisconsin]2003

[NOTE: other sources say blue paper was employed because it made the sugar appear whitest/most pure.]

"Various kinds of sugar were available in the 18th century, with names indicating either the extent of the processing which they had undergone or the manner of presentation for sale. It normally came in a loaf, of a conical shape...Some of these terms are self-explanatory, while others are readily understood in the light of early methods of refining sugar. There were succinctly described by the great Swedish naturalist Linnaeus[1741]...Here the coarse and unrefined raw sugar was pulverized and boiled in water, diluted with lime-water, mixed with ox blood or egg white, skimmed and poured into inverted cone-shaped moulds, perforated at the tip; from these a syrup trickled down into a bottle; this was repeated, and then the mould was covered with a white, dough-like French Clay in Sweden, but it has to be imported.' What Linnaeus witnessed was sugar refining...Lump sugar was lumps broken off the loaf, whereas powdered sugar had been grated from the loaf."

---the Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Hannah Glasse, facsimile first edition, Introductory Essays by Jennifer Stead and Priscilla Bain, glossary by Alan Davidson [Prospect Books:Devon]1995

Greeting on my new Blogg

Welcome to my new blog.

I have a web site called  A Crowe's Gathering and we specialize in Primitive and Country Home Decor that is handmade by myself.

I enjoy all areas of crafting and I like to learn new techniques and mixing the different mediums, I'm not limited to only what a pattern says, I like to experiment and see what happens if ( the key word,"if"). Working outside the box is not a stranger to me, I enjoy the challenge most of the time.

Now I'm working on a Marketplace and it will open and running hopefully very soon and will be called "A Crowe's Gathering Marketplace". This will be featuring Primitive and Country Home Decor shoppe's that are both  retail and wholesale, and I have plans to promote the site by offering great prices, sales, incentives for both the  buyer and sellers. We want to be the best and have everyone want to advertise with us, and look to us for all of there shopping needs.

I also have a small Shoppe that is A Crowe's Memories and the easiest way to access this on is to go to A Crowe's Gathering and click on the button to A Crowe's Memories on the bottom of the Home Page. This site is dedicated to Doodle Patterns that are my designs and I just have all kinds of fun designing and they are priced very reasonable and I try to design so that design can be used in many different mediums. So Check them out make a purchase and have fun.