What Have I Been Doing?

Well, quite a lot actually! As well as the usual gardening tasks which have built up over the summer on account of the miserable and rather wet weather, I have been to a couple of fibre shows. The first of these was Bristol Wool Fair and it was held in a different venue to their first show last year. No more cosy marquees but the usual cavernous auction sheds.

 

This year Helen added a demonstration/sales area for Ashford spinning and weaving equipment and David Herring came along to give his support and advice. There was also a couple of attractions outside for those visitors not so interested in wool! I really liked the display by some Viking reenactors who had set up a small living history area and did a few battle skirmishes in the arena.

 

 

 

 

This chap was very impressive!

 

 

 Then at the end of September we went to Yarndale held in the auction mart, Skipton which is on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. I could only stay for one day but I did manage to get a bit of shopping done and catch up with friends before the end of my show season. I wore my new pinafore and Sarah from Get Weaving gave it the thumbs up and took my photo which she has kindly let me post here.

 

 

The pinafore is very comfortable to wear and I'm already planning on making one, probably two, more! Many thanks yet again Sarah for your lovely patterns and it was great catching up with you and Elisabeth at the show.

Meanwhile, now I'm back home I have warped up one of my looms to weave a different pinafore pattern - more later- and I have begun to dye some different colours for another project I have in mind.

 

 

This is a blend of white alpaca fleece from one of my own alpacas and some sheep fleece from dear old Trixie who is a Texel x Icelandic.

 

 

I blended the fleece and alpaca together on a drum carder and then dyed the resulting batts of fibre with Gaywool dyes using the idea of flowers in my garden as inspiration.

 

 

Happy spinning and weaving!

Finished At Last!

Well I have eventually got my sewing project completed and I'm quietly pleased with my efforts. I have a problem with any form of "dressmaking" as I had a "dragon" of a sewing teacher at school who has haunted me ever since! Mention zips/interfacing or any other sewing terminology and I will break into a cold sweat! But I can sew quite a decent quilt, which does involve using a sewing machine.......strange I know.

I shall be wearing it this weekend at Bristol Wool Fair where I shall be helping Helen on her stall. I'll try and get a photo of me in it. I have also been busy spinning some more yarn for the next pinafore-type dress which is another of Sarah Howard's Get Weaving patterns. 


 

 

I found a huge plastic box full of drumcarded batts of some Llanwenog fleece that I had done awhile ago and as I love using this type of fleece I decided to dye it whilst it was still in the batts. I used Landscape and Gaywool dyes choosing some nice bright blues and greens. To spin it I tore a strip off a couple of differently coloured batts and drafted them together. Some pieces were more towards the greens and some a bit more blue and the end result is quite nice I think. I now have quite a few skeins of a softly spun 2-ply yarn which I will use as the weft. I will also be trying this colourway and spinning technique in the future for a knitted jumper of cardigan as it is fun to do. As I sat spinning my mind was filling with loads of ideas for more weaving projects!

Latest Spinning Projects and Wonderwool Wales 2015

Apologies for the lack of posts lately but here is an update...... better late than never!

 

Wonderwool was busy as always and it was lovely to catch up with old friends. We were very busy on the My Fine Weaving Yarn stand as Helen had some new yarn ranges from Brassards of Canada which sold like the proverbial "hot cakes". I shall have to be quicker next time to try and bag some for myself.

 

My Fine Weaving Yarn

 

 

Phillippa and Jan Joad of Wheeldale Woolcrafts

 

 

Beautiful felted sheep portraits by Taylored-Felt

 

 

 

A very busy Saori weaving stand. I did manage to chat with the two ladies briefly and bought a couple of ready made warps but they were so busy I didn't want to keep them too long. There is definitely an increased interest in weaving this year. So many people visiting our stand started the conversation off with the words " I'm new to weaving" or "I'm only a beginner". It is really great to see that people are moving into weaving eventually. The next show is Woolfest!

I've been quite busy at home with a couple of dyeing/spinning projects, trying to work my way through the huge pile of fleeces in the hopes that this years crop will not overwhelm me! The first spinning project is to make a jumper for Graham and I dyed a Clun Forest fleece in Landscape Dyes Night which is a dark blue. I blended it with some Llanwenog which I dyed last year in a variety of lighter blues, mauve and a turquoise. This stopped the darker blue from looking too flat and gives a lovely heathered look to the yarn. Both fleeces have the same qualities and went together well.

 

 

 

The actual colour is a bit deeper - like a nice blue ink colour - the sun was a bit bright when I took the photo. My next project is to weave some fabric to make this....

 

 

.... a pinafore dress from a pattern by Get Weaving. I met Sarah and Elisabeth at Wonderwool and got some brilliant advice on what to do with some fabric I had made. They had an example of this outfit there and I just have to try and make one myself. So I have dyed a stack of Kerry Hill fleece in a range of autumn colours and I shall blend them roughly together so that I get areas of solid colour and some where it is a mixture.

 

 

So far I'm pleased with how it looks.

 

 





Bristol Wool Fair

Well I have just about recovered from another busy weekend helping my good friend Helen at the very first Bristol Wool Fair. What a great time we had too! The weather was sunny and quite warm with only one heavy shower of rain on Saturday morning, but that didn't spoil things one little bit. We met some of our fellow stallholders we see at the others shows we do and met lots of new friends as well.

 

Helen had an Ashford Sample It loom warped up and demonstrated weaving on it which attracted a lot of attention. The men (and one boy!) were fascinated by the mechanics of weaving whilst the ladies/girls liked the colours and sparkly bits! All we were keen to do was pass on the message to give weaving a try!

 

 

Of course I had to make a few purchases while I had the chance. Here are just a few choice items....

 

 

Pirkka-lanka yarn from Finland to knit a shawl with and some Lithuanian linen from Midwinter Yarns.

 

Some merino/silk fibre and some dyed carrier rods from Wheeldale Woolcrafts. I also bought some wool blanket bundles for rug making from Phillipa too.

 

 

And a selection of wool rovings from Adelaide Walker. As I said at the top of this post I had a great time and look forward to next years event. I'm off on my travels again this weekend as I'm heading north into Yorkshire for the Reeth Rug Retreat. This a new thing for me especially as we are staying in a Youth Hostel. I'm sure I'll have lots to say in my next post. Until then....Happy Crafting.

Fibre East 2014 .....another busy weekend!

The last weekend of July ( crikey where has the year gone too?) saw me motoring down the M1 to attend Fibre East with Helen from My Fine Weaving Yarns. I haven't been to this particular show before but I believe this was the third time for Helen. Friday was set-up day and we managed to do a pretty good display despite the heat and had it all sorted by late afternoon.

 

This weekend was going to be special for me as I wasn't going to be helping on the stall all of the time......I was doing a couple of workshops. I must admit to being rather excited about this as the ladies in question were from America, Sara Lamb and Sarah Anderson, and I have been looking forward to this weekend since Helen booked them at last years show! Also attending Fibre East was Deb Robson and Abby Franquemont! I managed to visit their classrooms before the start on Saturday and get them to sign my copies of their books. I would have loved to take their classes but I couldn't be in four rooms at once! I was particularly excited to meet Deb Robson as her Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook is a constant reference for me when I am deciding what way to spin a given fleece and also what fleeces I would like to try next. I should have got someone to take a photo of me with her but it was a bit of a rush and I didn't want to get in the way.

The first class I did was a full day with Sara Lamb on spinning to weave and she had most of the samples on show that she made for her book of the same name.

 

 

I came away with my head buzzing with all the ideas for projects that I could spin and weave this coming autumn/winter. Needless to say I got Sara to sign my copy of her book and you can probably tell from this photo how chuffed I was!

 

 

On Sunday I did a morning workshop with Sarah Anderson on making a bubble crepe yarn. This is one of the many fancy yarns she has created for her book The Spinner's Book of Yarn Design. I could have spent a lot longer with Sarah as she had been doing other classes over the weekend on yarns such as spirals, coils and slubs, a morning wasn't really long enough but it was really fun!

 

 

 

As you may have guessed I had my picture taken with Sarah too! I really had a great time in both the classes and would love to do more. "What no stash?" I hear you cry........don't be silly of course I bought something! Fortunately I managed to grab a few things before the classes started and I also sent Helen out with a shopping list. So I got a few bundles of dyed woollen blanket for rug hooking (more on this in a future post)......

 

 

 

 A Schacht niddy noddy, another spindle and a vintage rug proddy.

 

 

The spindle is by Turned On The Cut and is made from Sandalwood weighing 30g. Who could resist? All in all it was a brilliant weekend that whizzed by too quickly. At home the hay was cut and it has all been baled and now sits in the hay store ready for the winter, we just need to sell the surplus.

Guild Summer School Trade Fair

Last Saturday I headed in a south- westerly direction and across the hills of Mid-Wales to the Guild Summer School at Carmarthen where I joined up with Helen of My Fine Weaving Yarn. This meant a really early start in order to be with Helen before the Trade Fair opened up for business at 9 am sharp. The roads were clear of holiday traffic thank goodness and I had a trouble free trip over the cloud covered hills and came down the other side into sunshine. Business had been good the day before as the students on the various courses had the opportunity to buy from the Trade Fair before members of the public had the chance to buy on Saturday, so we were hoping for another busy day. It was lovely to meet some of our customers from Woolfest who had bought yarn from us specifically for the courses they were doing here. We had a great time chatting with them about their time at Summer School and Helen managed to visit a few of the classes later that day to see some of their work. I did a little bit of shopping too!

 

I bought one of the new Zoom Looms that Schacht make from The Threshing Barn along with some more Gaywool dyes and some wool roving with dyed nepps. As you can see once I got home I had to have a play with the Zoom Loom and I must say it has great potential!

 

 

I also couldn't resist buying a couple more spindles from my favourite spindle maker IST Crafts. The one on the left of the picture is a Tibetan spindle made from Ebony on Sycamore with an African Blackwood shaft with a matching bowl. The spindle on the right is a bottom whorl made from Birds Eye Maple with an Ash shaft. I'm having such fun using my other spindles that I can't believe I haven't spindled before!

Our next outing with My Fine Weaving yarn will be at the end of September when we go to Skipton in Yorkshire and the new show called Yarndale. Before then I will be off to another steam rally and then we are off across the Chanel to Germany in our Mk II Jaguar on the MSA Euroclassic - more about that later!

My Tour de Fleece and Woolfest swag!

As you may be aware I do a lot of spinning whilst watching cycling on Eurosport and at the moment the major event is the Tour de France. I enjoy the racing and have a few favourite riders who I watch closely but also the scenery is spectacular. The first three days were in Corsica, not an island I know very much about, but wow what a great place for a holiday. I never knew it had such craggy mountains and with snow! I know that there are lots of groups out in blogland who join up for the Tour de Fleece and try to spin as much as they can whilst watching the Tour DF. Well I always spin while watching the tour and at the moment I have a huge box full of lovely Portland fleece that I am working my way through. So far over the first four stages of the TDF I have managed to spin two full bobbins. I have also done a couple of knitted swatches to decide what thickness of yarn feels right for the project I want to knit with it.

 

I have spun a 2 ply and a 3 ply sample and I think I am going to opt for the 2 ply as it matches the gauge I will need to knit this pattern. Its from one of my favourite books "A Fine Fleece" by Lisa Lloyd and I have knitted other things from here with great success.

 

 

I bought the Portland fleece - I'm combining 2 fleeces by the way- from Jane and Jeremy Dunstan who I found on the Rare Breeds Survival Trust website in 2011. It seems that fleece need to "gestate" in my workroom store for awhile before I know what to make with them! They have a flock of these lovely sheep down in Cornwall where they also have holiday cottages - methinks I may need to go there for a break! If you would like to visit them and see their lovely Portland sheep their website is www.highercarthewfarm.co.uk . I am enjoying spinning this wonderful fleece so much that I have bought two more from this years shearing. If you would like to find out more about the Portland breed please visit the Portland Sheep Breeders Group where you can find out more about this lovely breeds history. Hopefully I may get to meet some Portland sheep later this summer. Jane was kind enough to send me some of her photos of her sheep for me to show you here.

Portland lamb.

 

Portland ewe and her lamb

 

Now for the goodies I bought at Woolfest! I did manage to find the time to make a couple of quick shopping raids during the few quiet times we had. I bought four - yes four! - drop spindles from IST Crafts. I am a latecomer to drop spindling as I was taught to spin on a wheel and have never really got on with drop spindles. I think this comes about because until fairly recently most drop spindles you saw were very clunky and big. I got quite frustrated spinning with this spindles as they always fell on the floor and as a result I didn't want to own one let alone four. A couple of years ago when I was asked to teach spinning I thought I ought to do the right thing and do a bit of drop spindling just to show people what was involved and then to swiftly move onto the wheel! The spindle wasn't too heavy, I forget where I got it from, and I played around with it for a week or two and then put it away again. However, before Woolfest I watched an Interweave dvd by Maggie Casey on drop spindling where she explained the "park and draft" method and I found that I could spin with a spindle and that it didn't keep clattering on the floor. So in order to practice a bit more and because I have to keep busy of an evening I took said spindle to Woolfest so that I had something to play with. Lo! and behold! not far from our stand was IST Crafts selling lots and lots of lovely spindles! Of course I had to buy a couple. So I bought a 70mm square drop spindle made from Tulipwood on Sycamore with a walnut shaft and it has little brass weights on the corners. Then I got a round 70mm spindle made from Olivewood on sycamore with a walnut shaft, both are top whorl spindles. I had a lovely time playing with them that night and I rushed back the next morning and bought two lovely little Turkish spindles, one made from Snakewood and the other from Striped Ebony.

 

I think my favourite one so far is the square spindle.

 

 

I got these postcards to add to my "sheepy" collection.

 

 

Helen gave me these sock knitting books so that I could make samples with the Tofutsies sock yarn she now stocks. It's made from superwash wool, soysilk, cotton and chitin which is a fibre made from crab shells! I look forward to trying it out. The difficult thing was choosing the colours! I also bought two cones of alpaca yarn for weaving into scarves and hopefully sell. Not bad for two days!

 

Woolfest 2013

What an exciting three days that was! I haven't really come down to earth yet and I feel almost jet lagged. I have been helping my friend Helen again on her stall My Fine Weaving Yarn at Woolfest which is held every year in Cockermouth, Cumbria. After a four hour drive up the M6 I was in time to help Helen and her husband John set the stall up ready for the start of proceedings the next day. This is what the stall looked like early on the Friday morning.

 

As you can see we had a small demonstration area this year with four rigid heddle looms warped with a variety of fine yarns. This proved very popular and Helen makes a very good and patient teacher.

 

There were lots and lots of interesting things to buy and lots of interesting people to meet. Both days were very busy and we had difficulty finding the time to walk around the other stalls to see what was on offer. Here are a few photos to give you a flavour of what I saw.

Teeswater sheep.

 

 

This is Ziggy Rytka playing his hurdy-gurdy to entertain the crowds as well as selling his lucets which you can find here.

 

 

 

Wensleydale sheep

"I think this is my best profile"

These are Herdwick sheep which are local to the Lake District and play an important roll in creating the spectacular landscape beloved of walkers.

These people had come all the way from Estonia and Sweden to showcase the breeds of sheep native to the Baltics. I couldn't get to photo the lovely knitted mittens and socks at the far end of the table as it was a sea of interested visitors! But I did manage to get a closer look at the weaving hanging at the back.

I think I shall have to try something similar to this with my handspun wool in the future.

 

I was fortunate to have the chance to meet Owen Poad of Majacraft who was demonstrating his spinning wheels on the Hedgehog Equipment stand opposite ours. I had a nice chat with him and discovered that all the wheels they make are signed by whoever made that particular wheel. I wasn't aware of that fact even though I have had the wheel for quite a while. So when I got home I had to have a quick look underneath and found the signature of Glynis, Owen's wife, who was also at Woolfest but was not around when I was chatting to him. It made my day!

There were lots of other interesting people, some had come from far away just for the show, and we met a lovely American couple who now live in Provence, a couple of ladies who had flown in from Austria, and a Finnish lady who has lived over here for a very long while and weaves the most gorgeous wall hangings. I also bumped into Dorothy Stewart who's blog I follow. What a nice lady! It was lovely to meet and have a chat with her and see some of her lovely woven shawls. It goes with out saying I managed to buy lots of lovely things which I will post about later.

Even though the weather was horrible - cloudy, wet and cold - and it was extremely exhausting being on your feet for three days I can't wait until the next Woolfest and will be keeping my fingers crossed that we get the chance to go with our stall again.