We recently spent a weekend in Cheltenham for a music festival which will be covered in a later post. Each day travelling to and from the campsite, we would see people busy with spray cans in the underpass. As this was in the day time, we assumed that it was all above board as opposed to random graffiti so on the last trip we got off the bus a stop early to see what was happening.
Cheltenham Paint Festival is an annual event producing some amazing artwork around the town, examples of previous years work can be found here
Thursday saw me heading down to the local inner city farm with my camera seeking breakfast. Toast and jam and a mug of tea :-)
A wander round then another cup of tea whilst spinning for half an hour or so.
Todays (Friday day 21) jobs will be to ply the lleyn, ply the bowmont, sew in ends and block shawlette and hat ( yep, I knitted a hat ) and dye the Ryeland that I spun a few days ago.
Hi, I've been busy over the last couple of days, some spinning has occurred on both days.
The bowmont on the Nano yesterday and some more LLeyn on the Ashford today.
Have you ever been asked for handspun yarn that looks handspun? Yep, apparently mine can be too consistant for people looking for 'proper' hand spun . So I'm spinning a couple of hundred grams at lightning speed as a result.
I find I can spin thick , thin, whatever but being asked to leave in the lumps, bumps and vegetation really stumps me.
I have also been washing fleece and even picking up random fleece from doorsteps. long story, but one of the two looks really nice.
larger bag is ryeland, the other is north country mule
As the sun briefly made an appearance I decided to get all the TDF spinning washed and on the line, three of the skeins had a detour via the dyepot.
Once dry I bought them in and here they are showing just how much difference washing yarn can make to the original yardage. They are all hanging from a pole across a bookcase and all the skeins were made on my Amish style swift on the same settings.
The blue skeins are LLeyn, the green is NCM, the four cream ones are Ryeland, the white one is bowmont and the black at the end is the wensleydale cross. You can see a very dramatic difference in length between the green and the cream ones.
This is the Shetland that I'm not sure whether to rescue, It was purchased by a friend in 2019 and passed on to me around 2021 as he felt that he wasn't going to bother with it. I've washed some of it, it looks like it has a natural break/rise in places and may need another wash depending on how sticky it is.
After washing, look at those curls, I think that this may take some time to process :-)
I'm going to comb some then spin a sample to see what I think.
Verdict, spins up soft but a lot of effort for a little fibre, one for the 'life's too short' pile I'm afraid.
I would usually describe my spinning as pretty consistent, I generally know what weight I'm aiming for and and what I will do with it. If I'm knitting fair isle I don't want too many lumps and bumps, if its for a plain hat then variation will add texture.
Day 14 spins show that. The thick spin is NCM spun very quickly, softly, lumpy bumpy included. AAs it hasn't been washed I'm expecting a chunky from this one. It was good to get away from my usual ordered method.
In contrast, the first skein off the Nano for TDF is nice and consistent as I would like to try Shetland lace knitting at some point and I was looking for a practise yarn, not too fine but useable.
Photos taken with my phone so not the best but hopefully you can see what I mean.
Yep, met friends for coffee, took my Nano and my coffee mug was as big as my wheel, not often that happens haha
We all used to work together many years ago and still get to see each other maybe once a month. They turned up shortly after I took the photo, honest :-)
This was the only spinning for day 13 although I have cast off the shawlette, its needs a few ends sewing in, a good wash and gentle block but its nice and soft and brings the shetland project total up to two shawlettes and six pairs of fingerless mitts.
skeins labelled so I can tell which white ones are which check
It seems that all the local summer fetes and festivals are this weekend coming, I'm hoping to get to a couple of them on Saturday and fingers crossed for a steam punk event on Sunday. Of course this will only work if it stops RAINNING !!!
I spent most of Monday, day 10 , asleep so it was a well timed rest day. My cold seems to be just that, a summer cold., fortunately as I'm feeling a lot better and actually felt like spinning on Tuesday.
I 've now got four bobbins of Lleyn lined up ready to ply.
I'm also making a start on the remnants of the Wensleydale x Zwartbles that I found in the washed fleece bag. Just 100gm of this but it makes a change.
Plans for today, day 12? probably just to ply the lleyn but we will see what happens.
I didn't spin much yesterday, just finished the bobbin of Lleyn that I had started the previous day. As a result I've decided to take a rest day ( today day 10)
My morning has already been busy, gammon joit in the over to serve cold with salad this week, holiday cakes also in the oven.
What are holiday cakes, In this case they are cakes associated with places we visited on our last trip.
Lost Gardens of Heligan pineapple cake... we love the campsite next to the gardens which gives us the chance to pop in and out whenever we choose plus, as usual, I love taking photos there.
The other bake is flapjack using muesli milled by the water mill at Dunster Castle.
I woke up yesterday with a sore throat, not what I wanted but not too unusual as a combination of chronic cough along with hayfever sometimes plays havoc this time of year. The good thing was that Ian is away from the weekend so I didn't need to speak to anyone at all :-)
I had planned to go to knit group but cancelled and played a game of "if you tidy a room and mop the floor then you can spin" you can see from the amount of spinning that three floors were mopped haha.
In the evening I added a few more rows to the shawl and combed out some more Shetland.
As for today, day nine, I'll see how I feel after doing the weekly shop. I may venture out with the Nano depending on the weather.
Quickie post today, yesterday (day 7) was a spinning day, the last of the prepared Ryeland is now spun making the Ryeland total so far 400gm ish.
I took my Nano to knit and natter and finished the 25 ish gm of Bowmont. I have another knitting group later today which I rarely get chance to show my face at and will take either the Nano or my knitting. Depends on how I feel and if its raining I may not bother fighting my way into town.
Last night I settled down with the scrappy shawl, this is all oddments of Shetland spun on the Nano and left over from other projects.
last night I sorted through the bag of the Lleyn cross, this is the last of the fleece from last year. Again around 400 gm to spin.
Today was a little different as I had to renew my museums friends membership at the Ruddington Framework Knitters Museum which is just outside Nottingham. The website link is here and this video explains things a lot better than I could.
As it was a quiet day in the museum, after a cup of coffee I was able to wander around the machine shop on my own and take photos.
and one of the machines so you can see the whole thing.
I also popped over the road to the village museum as it is only open two hours a week ! like many small museums, its an old school house containing artifacts rescued from various buildings.
The chip shop caught my eye, abandoned when the owner went to war in 1941 it was rediscovered in 1985. the owner had lived a recluse since returning and after his death, family members were astounded to find the cip shop still in the parlour exactly as he left it in 1941, fat still in the fryers, money in the till and his coat hanging up. The fryer, counter and all the other implements ar now in the museum.
The pharmacy cupboards etc were rescued from being destroyed when the chemist was refitted so they form an interesting corner.
The museum is very hands on, things are passed down off the shelf to you, children have mole hunt map ( looking for the stuffed toys)
Looking through an assortment of pegs, dolly pegs, gypsy peg with the tin bindings, I found these. Anyone know why they have a hole in them?
A very small amount of spinning was done over coffee at the museum
