woolly wednesday

Ok, this has come around far too soon!! Not really a huge amount to show for the last few weeks as I have been busy with other thing as my previous few posts will show

So I'm just off for a much needed coffee break whilst I think about what I have been up to

 Remember this Shetland cross from the last woolly Wednesday?

 Here it is spun up

and this is how it is knitting up.

At the moment I'm trying to sort out and ball up some yarn to display/sell and a forthcoming charity night to raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust, we are having a bit of a dabble night and generally seeing if anyone would be interested in short workshops/demos to raise funds. I'm going to put together a few spindle kits and will be attending with my wheel as it's usually quite a show stopper. 

Not a lot of gossip for you, have a good day :-)

Woolly Wednesday

Hi, I was going to write this last night but decided that I needed to restring the banjo, over an hour later, 3 new strings on and in tune, two broken nails I decided to quit. Never know such a stupid set up, hooks and looped wires which are barely big enough. Still, it sounds a little better, hasn't improved my playing hehe.......I've only had it for just over a week so its taking up a lot of my time at the moment and you know where this conversation is going...................

I've not done so much spinning in the last month but the green Romney is on its way to a new home to say thank you for a gift I received recently, also I've made a note not to dye that colour again as it really doesn't suit me and much as I enjoy spinning it, I really don't think I could knit with it. I did once and my niece now has a lovely green shawlette ! Anyway, at 500+yards and gradient spun from light to medium green I suspect that someone is going to have a lot of fun with this.
The Jacob has been plied and is ready to be washed at the weekend and I have spun a bobbin and a half of brown bond with quite a bit more to go!. The monthly guild meeting saw a Great Wheel turn up and a snowy trip to the Peak District resulted in some retail therapy. The book on Linen spinning was an absolute bargain, untouched with dust cover for...........£2.49 in the Oxfam bookshop in Glossop.
The latest copy of Yarnmaker dropped through the door and I treated myself to a copy of the Spinners book of Yarn Designs :-)

At the Guild meeting I was handed a small bag on Shetland x Berrichon du Cher, at least I think that is what it is !! the fleece had been washed but was still greasy so I gave it a good hot wash and popped it into the dye pot...........more truthfully, I put it in the cat litter tray ( no cats here, just a good deep tray) splashed some dye on it and chucked in into the steamer. Once cooled I rinsed it well, gave it a quick spin and left by the radiator to dry. I mixed up the colours and blended them on my combs ending up with various shades of a sort of crushed berry colour. This yarn, if nice enough, is destined to be a shawlette to be either auctioned or raffled off in aid of Teen Cancer Trust which is this years workplace fund raising challenge. In fact the crafty folks at work are hoping to put together a series of craft nights with demos and mini workshops to raise funds.
I have spun one bobbin and am now working on the next one.

My plan not to buy more fleece has failed as a small amount of Jacob/Polwarth came through the door last Saturday, very soft but very short staple, mostly less than 2 inch so this will be a challenge for the future. In the meantime it has been washed and popped into a pillow case for storage. I took a photo and then found out that, taking a picture of white and grey fleece on a grey background is not necessarily the best idea! So here is a slightly better one.

So, I will leave you now and have a wander round the other Woolly Wednesday posts to see what you have all been up to then I will carry on with my spinning.

 Have a great month everyone xx

                            

woolly wednesday

So, what have I been up to since last woolly Wednesday?

Jan 5/6 spun and plied two full bobbins of Oxford down!!

Jan 4 broke promise to self not to spend money..bought trindle spindle and a mountain of fibre

170grm natural and 56gm blue oxford on the way to Italy

3/4 Jacob fleece washed and part processed

50 gm merino/bamboo/soy mix spun

200 gm ish oxford dyed red and knitted into fingerless mittens

2k romney fleece ordered ...ooops          see here for more

another 100 gm oxford ready to spin....getting bored of this now, it may have to go back in the cupboard

oohh and blue/green fleece combed and purple merino blended......been busy :-)

Looking back, I'm really quite surprised how much I've managed to do inspite of having a full time day job and enjoying surfing the net etc. For February I hope to do some more dyeing, spin up a storm with the Romney as I live the sample spun up just a few hours ago and maybe even get to see some lambs. Will fill you all in on the next woolly Wednesday post x

Woolly Wednesday

And a Happy New Year to one and all.

Any woolly resolutions??  I have thought about trying to keep a record of how much I spin and how much fibre I buy !! have now realised just how scary that may be  :-)

Anyway, first up on my round up of things woolly since last time is this. Yes, I finished the fingerless mitts for my friend just before the really cold weather set in before Christmas.

I  bought about 120gm of sari waste from a friend at guild ( unwanted and unloved)

So I now have some sari yarn to play with on my small loom at some point.

The last of the Jacob singles..........this means I have spun my first whole fleece ! whoo whoo!! I've also managed a skein of Shetland and skein of what may be the last of the polworth, not sure until I do a stock take of my stash.

On the needles.....not a lot, on the wheel at the moment it is back to the oxford fleece and I'm on bobbin 3 since Christmas due to having treated myself to some wool combs two weeks ago and being desperate to play with them.

 After a major hunt around my workroom I've managed to most of my bobbins and empty off any scraps of spinning so I'm now all set for the next month.

 I hope you all had a great Christmas and have a wonderful New Year xx

woolly wednesday again

 Woolly Wednesday

well, what have I been up to since last month? well I taught a Drop Spindle workshop  at Knit Nottingham, usually we have 4 maybe 5 beginners but just two this time. The shop is really small ( we need somewhere bigger ) and rather full of yarn so 5 newbies, 2 spinners 2 wheels and countless spindles can be rather interesting to say the least :-) So to have just the three of us made a pleasant change, more relaxed and more space to play with things.. We chatted about fleece, processing, texture, all the usual topics and touched on dyeing so I suspect that at some point I may have a kitchen full of fleece and dyes so that one of the participants can have a bash at it.

Angela and myself did a spinning demo at The Framework Knitters Museum, more about this in this post.

The oxford fleece from last months post is rapidly becoming fingerless mittens, confession here....I generally knit shawls so this is my first attempt at thumbs!! or any real shaping etc

but I'm loving the rustic feel to these and they are thick, very warm and remind me of knitted garments when I was little.

The shawl is slowly growing still and  another pair of mitts are on the needles for a friend.

umm....I seem to have acquired this to add to my winter spin collection....please note that I am not stating which winter!!

which reminds me that I was gifted a Jacob earlier in the year and have been slowly, very slowly spinning it up over the last few months between other projects.

 ok not my best photos ! White, light grey, medium gray, dark brown and a gradient skein.

I'm busy sorting out the remainder to spin at a demo on Saturday to show how many different shades can come from one sheep.
Well, I'm going to be really busy today as I was given a large bag of fibre last night which I need to sort through and I have some Swedish fleece samples to have a good look at. Will update through the month and hope to see you all for the next Woolly Wednesday next year!!

Woolly Wednesday

So here we are again with a round up of all things fiberey :-) Its been a bit of a busy month so normal blog posts have been a bit hit and miss but I have a few in mind and hopefully by the time you read this ( I'm writing slightly in advance as I have a free hour to play with) there will have been a little more activity.
So, what have I been up to over the last month? well do you remember this?

 well this the progress so far....need to wash some more now

just short of 350gm spun so far, nice easy spin, sort of aran weight

We had the opportunity to attend the Ashfield Guild Hospitality Day with other members of our Guild and the spinnotts team and I almost came away without buying anything but succumbed to 3 balls of blue crochet cotton from the bargain table to use on my inkle loom.

 Pete (aka Wikkidknitter) gave a helping hand and advice to two new spinners.

and Tabs gave us a quick demonstration of how to spin and make it look easy :-)

I sort of fell in love with a couple if wheels which I'm going to blog about separately with plenty of pictures.

Back on the wheel has been some of last years Bond, one full bobbin and hopefully enough left to fill another later this week. I'm supposed to be doing a demo next weekend ( last weekend was a 1940's weekend so I pitched up with my spinning wheel as hubby was playing with the uke orchestra) and have decided that rather than revert to spinning tops I would start to prep the Shetland fleece that has been stashed away for the last few months.

 some vegetation but most should shake out

 nice fleece, well sheared but oh my! look at these tips!!

this is going to be a challenge!

 thankfully looks better after a good wash

So this is now my ongoing challenge for the next month!!

So, what have you all been up to??