Saturday 29 May 2010

Stop Press!! Outbreak of spontaneous dancing hits Nottingham

random acts of dancing were confirmed in Nottingham city centre today!!!

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accompanied by music from Wee Willie Harris

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and the Jets

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In spite of the rain!!!

City Pulse and country chill

Hi
It's the start of a holiday weekend here in the UK and we will be spending some time down in the city centre at the City Pulse. For anyone near Nottingham, this is a free music festival spread over 3 days in the city centre with four venues being used, all but one outdoors (the other being in a marquee) Full details can be found here. Bikerted is really looking forward to seeing Dr Feelgood whilst I will be happy to listen and spin to anyone. I suspect the drop spindle will get plenty of use :-)

For a taste of what is in store, check out these posts by Bikerted .reviewing previous city pulse events.

What have I been up to recently? well our bike club (Drake MCC) had our annual summer rally last weekend and for the last ten or so years these have been famous for their bad weather. Thunderstorms and torrential rain are usually the norm for this event seeing soggy bikers sat in the control tent or hiding in the pub. However this year thinks were a little different !!

My creation

My creation

On the fibre front, I was able to do quite a bit of knitting over the weekend and a little spinning whilst hiding in the shade. It was the hottest weekend of the year so far and we all had a great time although I suspect the ride back may have been a little painful for one or two sun burnt bodies!!

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I also had the opportunity recently to catch up with fellow raveller Wikkidknitter for an afternoon of knitting and spinning and drinking coffee!











The weaving attempts continue with a little untidy tablet weaving, some more texture with hand spun silk and one of the spinning wheels has alpaca/merino on it. The other wheel, the sonata, has some Shetland along with a practise bobbin for when I take it out with me.

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Todays tasks are to tidy the house then head out and enjoy the music, umbrella ready in case. After all this IS a British bank holiday, its bound to RAIN!!

Have a great weekend everyone, and thanks for reading, I really appreciate your comments and friendship.

Wednesday 12 May 2010

a little fibre content

as well as admiring beautiful motorcycles, I have been playing with my new spinning wheel and the spears weaving looms. Loom size 2 came out of its box and produced about 5 inch wide piece of woven fabric, the yucky tension is all my fault:-)

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Tried making braids with handspun yarn.

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Loom size 4 is continuing to be used to practise on, the green yarn is all hand spun.

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I also managed to score these two books in a charity shop in Northwich :-)

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I hope you are all having a good week and that it is fine at the weekend as I really need to catch up on the washing and get it out on the line!!!

Tuesday 11 May 2010

Thundersprint 2010

Hi, on Friday Biker Ted, Ian and myself packed our bags and headed over to Northwich to spend the weekend with many other bikers.
Thundersprint Bike show was on the Saturday with trade stands and classic bikes.As usual we all fell in love with some of the bikes and came away with some 'interesting' photos.

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The rest of the day was spent wandering around the town, more about this in the next post.

On Sunday we watched the sprint race practise,

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Had a look round the paddocks,

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found one rider who was so happy to be there that he burst into song!



Met up with fellow bloggers Nikos and Highway Lass prior to the Cavalcade.



and watched the spitfire flypast

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We didn't stay to watch the actual racing as the crowd was so big that we couldn't see anything! still we had had the morning practise to watch and enjoy.

Monday 3 May 2010

and now for something completely different!!

Urban Gypsies

I found these ladies standing in the shadows at the Mayday parade in Nottingham on Saturday. I was so fascinated by their appearance that I sat down and chatted about their outfits. They are the Urban Gypsies Tribal Belly Dancers from Manchester and all their costumes are made from recycled clothes and other bits and pieces including mopheads as tassels. I could easily have worn this sort of thing myself, in fact there is probably enough still hanging in my wardrobe to do this.
Does this make me an aging hippy? going back to an earlier age with the spinning and lacemaking?

Urban Gypsies

Urban Gypsies

Urban Gypsies

Sunday 2 May 2010

Wonderwool Wales

Oh my goodness, I've been back a week and have not posted about Wonderwool!!
Two friends and myself packed a small car with 3 tents, assorted sleeping bags and camping equipment. We were all armed with knitting and drop spindles and heading out of Nottingham by 8am last Saturday. Fortunately it was a good clear day, not too much traffic and we arrived at Royal Welsh Showground, Llanelwedd, Builth Wells,
Purses full, bags empty (except knitting and spindle) shopping trolley (Sally's) at the ready we charged for............the loos......before finding the entance.

Within 10 mins (Pete and Sally reckon it was 5) I had spotted a second hand Kromski Sonata spinning wheel for sale on the Gwent Weavers Spinner and Dyers Guild Stand. Now I had intended to buy a new one either at the show or this week but wanted a trial run just to make sure that this wheel was as I remembered it from last summer when my only experience of spinning was the guild Ashford traditional. Needless to say, I promptly bought it, or rather put a healthy deposit on it until I could get to a cash machine that evening.

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The rest of the day was a hectic round of chatting and buying, chatting and buying, chatting and buying so much that I forgot to take my camera out of my bag.

At the end of the day we met up with friends and headed into town for food, passing this street art on the way.

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To make up for the lack of show photos, I recommend this post from Knitcave and this one from Puddytatpurr, who we met up with at the show.

Sunday morning was spent helping out at the interactive area followed by a quick dash round for a couple of sheepy photos and one of the goat who had kept us awake the previous night.

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We all had a brilliant time and hope to do it again and my final bag of goodies contained........


450gm dorset horn washed fleece
200rm organic merino
200 gm alpace/merino
200gm hand painted shetland fromwheeldale
200gm undyed merino also from wheeldale
100gn green wildfibre blend
orifice hooke
shawl pin
knit pro needle set
and, of course, the wheel!!

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although my workroom is looking seriously in need of yet another sort out!!

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Have a great weekend :-)