Today Johanna, the Textile Centre’s director, toured us around Blonduos.  Johanna is also the inspiration behind the Vatndaela Tapestry, a 48 metre long tapestry telling the story of this region. You can see a picture of people working on the tapestry and read more about it here.

http://textilsetur.com/about/vatndaela-tapestry/

The tapestry sure is impressive, there are 12 metres completed and Johanna figures it will take 10 to 12 years to complete.  When she comes with an idea it is a big idea.

The town is divided by the River Blanda, a glacier fed river that flows past our bedroom windows.  It looks lovely but being fed by glaciers means it is always cold.  On the South side of the river is the old town with the post office, police station and town office, hotel, guests houses and some homes. On the North side of the river where we are has the schools, supermarket (with wool yarn), more homes and most of the businesses in town.  You can read more about the town on this website.

http://www.northwest.is/1blonduos.asp

We met an American from Alaska who is working on a sustainable fishing project, I am sure I will find out more about that as the month progresses.  Still some other people to meet who were not in today especially the woman who I corresponded with about the residency.

Felting wise I worked on this hollow coral piece that I really like.

And I finished this little guy, he is fun!

I felted another sea urchin and have another ready to wet felt so a pretty good days work and I started another complicated piece that needs to have felt cords made then sewn into another piece of felt and then wet felted. Many steps so that one probably will not be done tomorrow, felt cords take a while to make.

9:30 and the sun is still brightly shining, Amanda went for a before bed walk and I am enjoying the view of some snow-covered mountains.  That’s it for tonight.

Another sunny but cool day in Blonduos, went for a walk after lunch, I strayed off towards the ocean but the wind was blowing pretty swiftly and I rather quickly changed my plans, I will go check out what has blown in to shore another day. I went to the grocery store to pick up some wool yarn. Yes, it is true what you may have heard all grocery stores in Iceland have a good supply of yarn. It is hard to imagine but true.  I needed some black yarn as I have made a two sea urchin and needed black to accent their “eyes”. Plus some mauve jumped into my hand. I also wanted to buy some tuna but not sure if it is packed in water or oil, I guess I will find out when I open the tin.

I cut open the marble piece today and it looks pretty good and here are the starfish.  I am not sure if they will make the final cut for my submission but they have got me rolling on ideas  I completed 1 spiky sea urchin today, he is still drying, I have 2 more covered but not wet felted and three more on the design table waiting for a design plan.  One is going to have lots of spikes but not sure what the other two want to be when they grow up.  I also got started on some hollow coral tubes, I would like to get 10 done, I have 5 done and grew bored so will get 5 more made tomorrow.

Tomorrow we will get to meet all of the staff of the Textile Centre and get a tour around town.  It was a national holiday when we arrived and so far we have met a couple of people but don’t really have the big picture of how this building is run and who fits in where.  There is a Textile Museum next door that does not open until June and I am hoping that we can get a chance for a tour it before we go.

That’s it for me tonight, thanks for reading.

Today I did nothing but felt and nap and lots more felting than napping. I finished the starfish that I started yesterday and then did another starfish and then we started to have some visitors. The building that we are in used to be a girls school and the last number of years they taught home economics here. Occasionally the girls come back to visit and today 16 from a class of 20 from the 1970 -1971 class came and looked around and had lots of laughs. Most of them just poked their heads in the studio where I work but they were all friendly and all spoke English.

The last head mistress for the school lives in town and when groups come to visit she comes to give them a tour of the exhibit rooms that are set up and after they left Amanda and I got to have a tour.  They have the parlour furniture from the first headmistress and it is set up very nicely in one of the old bedrooms. They have a room set up as the head mistresses office with gifts that the girls gave to many of the mistresses over the years and the last room had hand work that the girls had done. There was weaving, knitting, embroidery, smoking and some other stuff that I have forgotten. It was very impressive and wonderful to see and to find out the history of the school.

It iwas then back to felting and at the end of the day I finished some parts for my coral reef, a piece with marbles is drying overnight and I should be able to cut the marbles out in the morning and I got started on a stylized sea urchin. I will take pictures tomorrow when the light is better. It is 10:00 p.m here and time for bed so I can get up and go at it again tomorrow.

I successfully got the correct bus to Blonduos this morning and for a while I wondered if we would ever get here as we stopped at every small town and places where there were no towns but arrive we did.  These are pictures taken from the bus on the way here.

When I got off the bus I met Amanda from Toronto who is also here for the month of May, she is a weaver and is going to do lots of sampling and some summer/winter (two sided weaving).

A lady from the Textile Centre and her two kids, today is a national holiday so the kids are out of school, brought us to the Centre and gave us a 5 minute tour. We both unpacked and looked around, we are fortunate that the grocery store was open today so we both picked up supplies for a couple of days. It was a bit of a challenge to try and figure out what some things are, it works if there are pictures on the front but could not figure out what some other things are.

We we came back, unpacked the groceries and it was time to do some felting. I have not used the wool that was waiting for me here, I ordered it online a couple of weeks ago, so I did a sample to see how it felted and how much it shrinks.  It does not felt a quickly as merino and it is hairier and it comes in batts so not what I am accustomed to working with but I will figure it out.

After supper I started on a starfish to see how working with a resist using this wool is, I have rolled 800 times and still need to roll more but that can wait until tomorrow, at this point merino would be ready for the resist to come out but not this Icelandic wool.

This is the view from the studio, isn’t it inspiring?

 

Off to to bed I go so I can felt up a storm tomorrow and see some more of the town.

I arrived at Keflavik airport this morning about 6:30 a.m.  By the time I first went through a security screening, which was a bit odd as we had been through the usual one in Edmonton, had our passports stamped, picked up our bags and made it to the bus to downtown it was about 8:00 a.m.  Keflavik is a 45 minute bus ride from Reyjkavik and Icelandair makes it easy to use the bus service as they sell the tickets on the flight over and you can be dropped off right at your hotel for a slight additional fee.

My first thought when I saw the scenery was this is like Siberia, no trees and moss and some grasses.  This time of year the snow is all gone but the grass is still yellowy, waiting for some warmer weather to green up. The land is lumpy volcanic rock, I took this picture from the bus, not great quality but it gives you an idea of the terrain.

I booked into the Best Western in downtown Reyjkavik and was very fortunate that my room was ready for my arrival.  I went to their breakfast room and had some great toast and then to bed for 4 hours thinking that if I slept any longer I would have trouble sleeping tonight. I took a walk along the main shopping street, looked in a few stores, had a yummy croissant and saw lots of teenagers dressed as teen age mutant ninga turtles and other creatures. I have no idea what that was about, hopefully the front desk reception will be able to tell me. I visited the penis museum, it would have been a lot more fun if I was with someone else and we could have giggled at the size of some of the penises, they did have a human one there but mostly whale penises.  I came back to the room and had another nap and I will soon go to supper. There is a 6 hour time change I want to try and get on this time as quickly as I can

I take a bus first thing in the morning to Blondous, it will take me 4 hours to get there and someone is supposed to meet me at the N1 gas station. So my adventure continues and hopefully later tomorrow I will make a bit of felt although it is a National holiday and there may be some activities to partake in.

Came back from Pilot Mound yesterday where we buried my mum. It was so nice to have cousins attend from Wisconsin, Saskatchewan and across Manitoba. Lots of mum’s friends were also able to attend.  We were very fortunate to have the run of Gayle McKay’s bed and breakfast so that meant we could entertain and it was wonderful to have family and friends for drinks and meals.

I leave for Iceland this evening to start my residency at the Icelandic Textile Centre on the 1st of May. I have one day in Reyjkavik and then take the bus to Blonduos in Northern Iceland. I am spending today in Edmonton just chilling and hanging out.

The next post will be from Iceland so stay tuned.

Thursday, April 23rd, I leave Yellowknife to go to mum’s funeral on the 27th in Pilot Mound.  Mum died on January 30th and we held off having her funeral until Marg and Bonnie were home from the South and I am on my way to Iceland.  I leave Edmonton for a direct flight to Iceland on April 29th, a direct flight that takes 6 hours, leave Edmonton at 6:00 p.m and arrive in Reyjkavik at 6:00 a.m.

I have ordered wool roving that will be at the Icelandic Textile Centre waiting for my arrival so I can get to work right away.  I am looking forward to creating new creatures and sightseeing in the North West of Iceland.

More soon.

I am starting this blog to record my fibre adventures.  I am going to Iceland in May for a one month fibre residency and really looking forward to time to create and see the Icelandic countryside.

Thanks for reading.