Woolfest 2015

Well another Woolfest has been and gone for another year.

The weather turned wet and windy for set-up day but by the second day of the show the weather was lovely and sunny. But we awoke on Sunday morning to very blustery weather with lashing rain, not nice for a long trip down the motorway. As usual there were lots of lovely sheep on display again, here is a sample.

Some of the local Herdwick sheep.

 



  Portlands.

 

And the undoubted stars of the show were these Valais Blacknose sheep which are originally from the Valais region of Switzerland. This breed was introduced with stock imported from Switzerland a couple of years ago and I believe there are now over 400 of them in Britain. I have managed to buy a Valais fleece recently which I will post about sometime soon. Usually the alpacas get all the attention but this year it was these cuties, the pen was constantly surrounded by people and it took several visits before I could get in close enough. And there is always a stack of inspiration! Meet the two "Get Weaving" ladies Sarah and Elisabeth.

 

 

Their range of clothing patterns is really fantastic and I am busy weaving fabric from my hand spun to make the dress that Sarah is wearing (on the left). I also have plans afoot to spin some Cotswold fleece that I am dyeing at the moment to make the weft yarn for a skirt from one of their patterns. I also found time to visit The Saori Shed and meet Kim, the lady I bought my saori loom from.

 

 

So much lovely stuff to inspire you!

 

 

It is always nice to have the chance to chat with the visitors spreading the word about weaving and catching up with our customers who come to our stand and show us the projects they have completed using the yarn they have bought from us. My next show with Helen won't be until September but I shall have plenty of time, I hope, to finish weaving my fabric and maybe even get it sewn up!

 

My Birthday Trip to Cotswold Farm Park

Every birthday I like to do something special but the last couple of years I have been thwarted by the English summer. This year, however, my plans were not dashed as we had another incredibly sunny and hot day for our trip. My companions for the day were my mother, my sister and my niece and we set off on Tuesday morning for the Cotswold Farm Park which is situated halfway between Tewkesbury and Stow-on-the-Wold. I'm afraid this post is going to be very picture heavy today! Anyway these are some of the animals we saw.

Highland Cattle including Eric the bull at the back.

White Park Cattle

Lots of lovely donkeys.

And of course there were some sheep, but because of the hot weather they had tucked themselves into the shade. I didn't manage to get any pictures of the Norfolk Horn sheep out in the fields but there was one lamb in the Touch Barn.

Norfolk Horn lamb
 

Portland Sheep sheltering from the sun

Cotswold Sheep

 

Lydia holding a small chick which is having a quick nap.

Pukaki piglet born on 30th June



We all had a jolly good time - well at least I did! At the end of our visit I managed to buy 5 more fleeces! What a result! Well I had to make the most of the extra hands I had available to carry the stuff to the car! I bought another Portland, two Romney, one Cotswold and another Norfolk Horn. As I write this post the Cotswold fleece is soaking and will soon be ready to dry in the sun. If you get the chance to visit the Cotswold Farm Park I can recommend it especially if you have a small child with you as there is lots for them to do, but make sure the weather is good as it wouldn't be half as nice in the rain. We had a lovely lunch courtesy of Mum and on the way home we stopped off for a super cream tea. The perfect way to end a birthday!

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!