Stash spin down update

Some of you may remember that I wrote a post at the end of February listing all my raw fleece that needed to be washed or tossed. 

Its now one month later so I thought that I would give you a quick update. Spinning in the last month has amounted to nearly a kilo and I did take a photo before popping it into the 'waiting to wash bag' which has unfortunately disappeared into the ether.

The weather suddenly turned warm so I took the opportunity to wash all my recent handspun from this year together with some knitwear and get it all out onto the line.

I have more fibre prepped and ready to spin .

The stock list currently looks like this, I'm really pleased with the progress so far.

Raw fleece (whole) 1 of each.

white highlander

hebridian

shetland

Ryeland

unknown white (galway ?)

Raw fleece small amounts ( at least 500gm)

black cheviot

unknown white x 4 3 2

brown/grey ryeland

light grey ryeland

mystery fleece ( possibly very sun bleached black cheviot )

white cheviot

Balwen

I o s jacob

I also spun a little of the fleece that was already washed as well as majority of the ones crossed off.

The goal is still to clear the backlog completely to make way for any fresh fleece this year,

NB today it is snowing !!

I'm back, shaking the sand from my shoes.

 Hi,

Sorry for being a little more quiet than usual but I've been up to my neck in wool and yarn (separate spinning post coming soon ) and we took advantage of the recent unusually warm weather and grabbed a few days away in the van.

We headed out to the east coast, Skegness to be precise. Not our usual choice of seaside place but we found a campsite just a little out of the town and a few yards from the beach. The beach was pretty deserted and the local amenities amounted to a bar, cafe, amusement arcade and in the other direction, a spar shop so it suited us nicely.

As the summer season hasn't yet started, the two attractions we had hoped to see were closed, one  only operating in school holidays  and the other closed due to covid.

The Village, a farm museum in Skegness looks really interesting but as covid had caught up with the staff we marked it down as somewhere to have a look round next time.

The Lincolnshire coast railway, narrow gauge diesel and steam line only open in the summer but the volunteers were more than happy for us to have a look round.

In the airfield next door it looked like a restoration project underway on the Lightning aircraft parked up to one side.

We spent a few hours in Skegness, wandering round the shops but staying out of the arcades that had opened up to take advantage of the warm weather, 

Hot chocolate and Lincolnshire sausage rolls made a a rather unhealthy but very tasty lunch break

On Saturday we walked over to the railway then on to Ingoldmells to see if the market was on as we are looking for some new throws to go on the seats in the van.

The coasters were just starting up as we walked along. We scoured the market but couldn't find what we were looking for but Ian did spot this sign, replica weapons and educational toys??

We returned to our quiet beach and got the kites out for a while then I managed to win yet another small model campervan to add to the ever growing collection on the penny falls and surprisingly it took less than 50 p in 2ps to rescue it from the machine.

The campsite was pretty full but very friendly, possibly because most people were from our part of the country. Facilities immaculate as you would expect from a Caravan Club affiliated site,

All too soon we had to go from this

To this,,,,

 and make our way home. (new rugs have been added )

Speak soon, xx

Just a quick update !

 Busy, busy, busy

First spinning demo for two years later this morning, I was going to just sit and spin but we've thrown it open as a demo / have a go session so I've been grabbing fibre and spindles etc ready. I also carded some squishy batts of Jacob and Texel.

We have the van back from the furnishings company, yippee !!

Before photos, this is the original furnishing, 14 years of wear and tear has left the foam almost completely broken down, more so in the five year that we have had it.

After.......

It's looking like new van !! and the curtains are practical rather than about a foot wide and decorative.

Other than that, its been a round of fleece washing and prep whenever the weather has looked good and grabbing a few minutes to work on the big red thing.

That's about it for, I have to dash for the bus so will update further in the next post x

Start of spring ?

 It was cold and frosty this morning but the sky was clear so three bags of fleece are blowing around on the line.

I took myself off into town for a wander round and a coffee, first stop was the train station to see if there was any new art in installations in the foyer,

This is a memorial to people who have lost their lives to prostate cancer.

I then headed down to the canal and this time headed off in the opposite direction to normal, the difference in canalside buildings is well marked.

Tradional

Modern

   The canal side is a hive of building activity which means more hoarding screens for the graffiti artists.

Next time I will follow the towpath further but for now this is as far as I went as the steps to rejoin the path are temporary on the other side and I may wait until there is something more solid or my poor old legs feel up to it (random ligament problems at present )

I left the canal at this point and circled back to Hopkinsons which is an antique shop/cafe /haunted museum near the railway station.

A mocha was very welcome as inspite of the sun the wind had been quite bitter down on the towpath, I sat inside shaded by the shutters , quietly knitting and listening to another x files audio book..

Even my stitching has a spring feeling about it, spot the yellow rabbit :-)

Speak soon xx

Busy weekend

 Its Sunday so its baking time although I'm beginning to suspect that it may be cheaper to just buy a cake and a packet of biscuits !

Ginger cake, ginger oat biscuits and Scottish oatcakes to keep us going this week. At least I know what's in them.

The van has been dropped off for the new upholstery and foam to be fitted, the Suzuki has been serviced and Mot'd so I will soon become a bike widow again as the Round Britain challenge starts in a few weeks.

The Black Welsh Mountain has been spun and plied and three bobbins of the grey Ryeland have been spun ( 60gm ish on each) ready for the fourth to be spun tomorrow.

The forecast for this week is reasonable so the very last of the grey Ryeland should be on the line tomorrow together with whatever is in the next bag that I pull out, Great start to 'spin down the stash '

Now I've found my missing cross stitch project, I've added a few more stitches.

That's about it for now, speak soon xx

A bit of this and a bit of that

 Thursday morning saw me in my usual spot a Cafe Sobar with my lace pillow, I am currently working through some old patterns  as I've found that I have forgotten quite a bit over the years, 

Concentrating on Bucks point, I am working my way through Geraldine Stott visual guide to Bucks point lace (again)

I'm currently on lesson three, I know I have left the pins in the temporary starting holes and the thread is thicker than required but I'm using up oddments in my thread stash.

At the moment its more about making sure that my fingers remember this style of lace and don't revert back to Torchon lace.

I managed a small amount of spinning which I hope to finish today (Friday)

Its raining again so no fleece washing but I have started to process the Ryeland.

In other news, we had a phone call last night from the company who are due to refurbish the van in June saying that they have had a cancellation and would we like to drop it off on Saturday so our weekend plans have been totally turned around. This also means that the campsite that we had booked for an auto event in June, that we cancelled two nights ago when we realised we wouldn't have a van has been hastily rebooked !

Speak soon x

and today it rained

 No fleece washing today, its dull, dismal and wet outside and I'm just grabbing a cuppa whilst I work out how many layers to put on !

Today is parcel day, DPS are due to pick one up and another carrier are dropping one off. so no wearing of headphones until I know the drop off times....... ok, the motorcycle parts were dropped off at 8.45 am!!

First job today is to spin some of this fleece, a friend dropped it off as he wasn't going to get chance to do anything with it and he couldn't remember if it was Ryeland or black welsh mountain. My first thought was Ryeland but now its washed and partly spun I'm thinking its BWM.

The fleece is actually a bit darker than these photos show, I'm spinning 65gm onto each bobbin.

                                        

Bobbin no 1 now complete so its time to look at the Ryeland that I washed yesterday and decide how to process it. My preference is to spin combed fleece but I think that these locks may be a little on the short side.

I really don't like using hand carders or spinning from rolags so the choice is really combs or drum carder,

On further inspection, the longest locks are 2 inch, there are still dirty tips and quite a few second cuts so I've decided to comb in spite of the waste produced, This way I won't be picking out so much rubbish as I spin and I'll be happy with a couple or so skeins as it a nice colour.

That's as far as I got with the fluff, the garden people came to give us a quote for the fence that we lost in the storms, the other half (bless him) came home early afternoon and we spent the rest of the day together looking at more campsites.

The plan for tomorrow is to spin the other bobbin then coffee with friends and maybe a bit of fleece combing in the afternoon.

Speak soon xx