Chinchón - the town

Chinchón is a very old and small town located in the SouthEast of providence of Madrid. It is one of the lesser known day trips from Madrid. If you are going from Madrid there is a bus, the 337 that you catch near the Conde de Casal (line 6) metro stop. Just a word of warning (because I wish someone had told me.) you catch the bus on the side of the street. There is no bus station as you might expect for catching a long range bus. The ride takes about an hour winding through little towns and scenic countryside.

You arrive just down the street from this church.

And as you walk up the road towards the heart of the town, plaza mayor, you see this quaint plaza on your right. I think that it was used to gather, the bulls before the fights. Most plaza mayors were used for bull fights here. Maybe this one still is.

See the stone with the square hole? That was used to flatten the fields during sowing season.

That red fence is probably the chute that they used to drive the bulls down and into the plaza. There is only a portion of it left, it does not go all the way to the plaza.

Here I want to the say that the architecture is so very Californian, but I know that the reverse is true.

Small side streets in the sun baked town.

There is a saying that most Spaniards seems to know when you mention Chinchón:

"Chinchón tiene una torre sin iglesia y una iglesia sin torre "

Which means "Chinchón has a tower without a church and a church without a tower"

Here is a quote I stole from the Wikipedia in Spanish and then translated.

"This tower was part of the ancient parish church of Our Lady of Grace, built in the fifteenth century. The tower was restored long after the French destroyed the whole (in 1808), but not the church, which has been completely buried over time. So there is the saying that Chinchon has a tower without a church and a church without a tower as the next and present church of the Assumption lacks it."

I think that is next photo is the church without the tower. The area in front is the plaza.

And here is a view of the famous tower.

Another view from this medieval Plaza above the tents of a small market selling clothes and fruit.

After we left the museum, which will have a post of it's own next, we left the plaza and walked up the hill to see the castle. As you exit the plaza to the South there is a street that goes up the hill, and then to your left you will see steps that will lead to a park with spectacular views of the town and the surrounding countryside.

Then as you turn, you will see the castle.

The castle is, sadly, not open to the public. I am not sure that they are using it for anything. But it IS still a castle, and you can walk around it wondering what life was like back then.

And whether there was once a moat.

Here are views as we walked around the the town. It was a 100F (38C) degree day so the sun was baking the city.

If you go to a small town in Spain, do not forget to look over the doors, there are often images of various saints above them. This one seems to be showing a sore to a dog that doesn't care. (Click to enlarge.)

We wandered down to the plaza, found a restaurant that was not charging too much for lunch ate and then left. There is nothing to do except eat and walk during lunch time (3-5pm) in Chinchón. everything is closed.

Here is one of the reasons Chinchón is famous. It is a anise flavored liquor and you can get either dry, semi, dry or sweet. I have only tried the sweet, and boy is it, but it is good. Try some over ice one warm summers day. 

Next post will be the museum, and all of it's textile history.

Swirl inspiration, needle felt style.

I have been inspired by the many colors and textures that one can get from needle felting with just yarn.

My first thought was that I could take scraps of handspun and create random swirls and colors with various yarns in a recognizable silhouettes. 

Note: Here I am felting on a 100%wool felt background with 100% non-superwash wool.

This was my first piece that I did yesterday. I tried to make the yarn go in unexpected directions, but kept the color changes in, almost, predictable places. I hoped in doing so, that it would catch peoples attention and make them really look at what was going on. Maybe it would cause the observer to stop and think.

Yes that orange really is that bright.

Using different thicknesses of yarn will create a 3D effect.

Just think of how many silhouettes that you could try! I tried this morning one of the most simple shapes, a circle. I choose a yarn that I have had for a while, some Schaefer Eliane. I won this at a knit-in-pubic day in Ithaca. Yes the colors really are that bright.

I started with a simple spiral, then I let the yarn go where it wanted for a while, as long as it stayed with in the confines of the circle. I am stabbing with a single felting needle with my right hand as my left hand guides the yarn. The felting needle is what will 'glue' the yarn onto the felt background.

This is where I cut the first time. All of that was one piece of yarn.

Then I started somewhat randomly filling in the shape. You can cut all you want while needle felting, you just have to make sure that you really secure the ends, as they have a tendency to fray out.

 The resulting piece reminds me of paisley.

The yarn is a thick and thin so there really is a lot of lovely texture.

 I am inspired to try more. What about different shades of the same color all swirled together? What about complementary colors twining around each other? What about combining classic color combinations and silhouettes together? Like a black and white penguin?

What do you think? Have I inspired you to try this? 

Catching up

I have so many ideas and photos from I have visited to show you. I still have more Áviala and this last weekend I went to Chincón for the very first time. I also have some new ideas on the crafting front to share, and I have done a lot of spinning for the Tour De Fleece (a fun international spinning activity). 

But today I am going to share some photos I took during my morning run and the thoughts I had during it. It is very hot in Madrid right now and it was already getting warm around 9:30 when I was out. The heat wave has no end in sight, and in a city where a/c is optional (even in homes) it can be a struggle to get through the hot afternoon. The best times of the day are early morning and late evening. At those times anyone who can is going to be in the park.

My thoughts this morning were that I still remember those times when I would google street viewed a European city to pretend that I lived there. I remember looking at photos of different European monuments and looking past the glorious buildings to the background, looking at the street, the traffic, the people to see what life was like. I wanted to see if I could pretend that I lived there.

Now that I have lived here over two years, the times when I look something here and experience its foreignness come less and less often. OK when I am on a medieval wall, that is a different story, but the commonplace scenes from my neighborhood, are just that now, common.

the playground fence in most Spanish playgrounds.

However, to this day, I still do not go through a park without that little thrill of knowing that I am in a foreign land.

Wide walkways with plenty of benches

Even the park right in front of my house. The park that I walk through, most times, to get to the metro station. The park where I go walking or jogging.

I call this "ode to the olive tree" (in the center ring)

I do not know why this is. Maybe it is because the plants are different, and the arrangement of them if different from American parks. Maybe it is because the parks are always full of people. I feel like parks are more used here.

Behold, the almighty olive!

Can you tell me the difference?

New shop and Needle felting kits

Now that it is July, I am done with my teaching job and have officially opened my own store!

The idea of the store began with the fact that Spain does not have as many fiber related craft stores as I would like it to.  So seeing this as an opportunity I thought about what I would do or make to fill this gap. I thought about dyeing wool and making batts to sell to the future spinners of Spain. And while I am learning the ways of the dye pot and I hope to sell hand dyed fiber soon, I was really excited about an idea that came to me one day in February.

One of my, not so secret, passions is needle felting. One of my favorite ways to needle felt is by "painting" with the fiber on a flat surface. When I first started needle felting I really liked the idea of a fiber painting for my wall. A piece of art that showcases both my skill and my love of wool. I am a completely self-taught needle-felter so when I first started painting with fiber I did not really know what I was doing. I found out that the flat technique takes less wool than sculpting with wool does, and it is easy to move and change position and thickness of the wool, i.e. it is hard to make mistakes that are not easily fixed.  One day (May 2010) it occurred to me that I could felt with yarn too. From there it was only a matter of time before I thought of using black yarn between brilliant patches of brightly colored felt and making something that seemed like stained glass or a mosaic.

I made this:

Fast forward to February 2013 where I am thinking what products to sell in my future shop. What would people want? Maybe there is a kit that I could offer that no one else has?

I  got out a Sharpie and some colored pencils and I set to work making three designs:

I pulled out my drumcarder and set to work creating the colors. All of the colors include lowlight, a highlight and, maybe, an unexpected complementary to really make the colors glow. I needed to capture the glowing/streaked look of stained glass.

I did the first test piece to make sure that the colors complemented each other, and the whole design really came through. 

Iris

Maybe you had noticed from the color pencil mock-up of the Poinsettia above that the original colors I chose for the "frame" did not work. It is the dark blue-brown that I chose for the frame here that really makes the red of the flower "pop".

Poinsettia 

Next came the instruction booklet. I wrote it up and sent it to some lovely testers, some of whom had never needle felted before. I had great feedback. The instructions have been tested, tech edited and is also available in Spanish!

Robin on a Branch

The next part was sourcing my materials for the kit. All of the materials for the painting are 100% wool. The background felt I was even able to source here in Madrid. The creation of the kit took some time and creativity. The hardest part was figuring how to stencil my design on the background! Also black non-superwash wool is surprisingly hard to find in Europe.

Finally my boxes arrived and the kits are ready to go.

One of my testers had a ton of ideas for more designs, and I recently finished two more based on her suggestions.

Bunny

Sunflowers

If you want to, you can follow my new store on Facebook where I share my process as well as other needle felting tips I find.

I have not forgotten about more pictures form Ávila, those will come soon.