Pillow Lace

Morning,
Nice and sunny here today and it's a bank holiday which means I will be in the garden in the next few mins. First a quick update on whats on my lace pillow.....



Ongoing, easy project, good for demos :-)

Bobbins on the pillow............





Not my best set of bobbins but interesting enough for anyone who wants to look at them.

I recently acquired a bag of bobbins and a pillow to sell for charity, the more durable ones have been put on one side and I will make up a kit to sell to a new lace maker in the new couple of weeks, some will enter my own collection for use at demos and teaching ( I'm going to treat myself to them using my birthday pennies)

Some of the bobbins were totally dried out, the spangles (wire and beads) fell off as I lifted them out of the bag.



So they are being treated to some Teak oil to try and breath a bit of like back onto them.



Starting to see a difference last night...........and this morning after two applications.



Definitely looking more usable, I suspect I may be shipping for beads later today :-)

Have a great day x

Bridges

I like bridges, they take you to the other side or even another country. My favourite is Oresundsforindelson between Denmark and Sweden but yesteday it was out of England and into Wales.









One bridge to drive over and one to look at!! The Severn River Crossings.

spinning update

yes, I've managed to pull in a bit of spinning and now I have two bobbins of undyed romney ready to ply and I still have some left. I had forgotten about the bag of fibre in my spinning wheel bag so once I've plyed these two I will see how much I have. The first bobbin was spun a couple of weeks ago but the second one is pretty variable in its twist as it was something of an anger/comfort spin to separate me from things happening in the real world...Spinning is my destress, zone out bolt hole at times.....anyone else find they feel like this?

Anyway, here we are, waiting to be plyed.

I went looking for the Sun

.........and found it!!!

Have a great day x

Street Art

In case you are wondering, I made a small donation and had a conversation with the artist about using pastels in damp conditions as it was one of those days when it felt like it was going to rain at any moment.

Hidden away

We were looking for a tea shop and followed the signs to this alleyway. The tea shop was full so I will report back at a later date but I did discover a different type of shop on the way there.







Loake, a very exclusive shoe shop :-)

Fleecy goodness

Hi
There was a parcel waiting for me when I got home on Friday but I was in a mad rush to get changed and back into town to meet a couple of friends so we could have a few drinks whilst my man was at a bike rally in Devon with the rest of Drake MCC. So the parcel remained on the cooker top until this morning ( Sunday)

Although I did give it a poke and a prod just to see what it looked like, not often that I have fleece delivered to me in clear plastic bags :-)

This was an e-bay purchase, I had seen the half fleece listed a week or so ago and it didn't sell but the other half of it did so I checked the feedback for it and other fleeces from the same source. It then occurred to me that I had bought a Jacob from the same seller last year which was good so I clicked the button.

One half Lleyn cross shearling....nice looking fleece

Too be honest, I've never tried this breed before so pulled off a small wash, spin and knit just too see what I had bought.

Washed up beautifully! very white, feels a bit like a down breed so maybe that's what its crossed with. I've now washed half of it and need to have a think whether to dye it before I spin anymore.

I must say that it is rather nice!!

Flying Horses

 

Flying Horse Arcade, Nottingham 

Morning...

Everything is slightly blurry today, bit of a late night yesterday.....so today's post is short and sweet :-)

about 250 gm of romney ready to spin, hoping to get around 350gm prepped in total. This will be my Uke festival spin this year. The fibre is slightly bluer than in this pic but due to a flat camera battery, I'm using my phone today.

I'm now off to grab one of these and hopefully get my act together!!

Have a great weekend everyone x

Meanwhile.....

The Stanton Triple Expansion engine is coming back to life at Papplewick Pumping Station

slightly confused

....in our local DIY shop you can get fires that dont need an electic supply.........

But you still need somewhere to plug it in.... 

to the electricity supply!!

Dye Job

I am still trying to sort out my stash, get rid of the real rubbish fibre and spin up some of the nice stuff, so here is the remaining Romney, about 500gm in all. Yesterday it went in the dye box, steamer and out on the line. It is now ready for combing and is coming out as a pale blue/lilac colour...very pretty.

I think this may be the one to spin at the Ukulele Festival next month :-)

Forgot to show you my Daffs

Thanks Karen :-)

Honeycomb Alley

Spotted in Nottingham recently , looks like .futago-treasures are responsible for this :-)