Tour de Fleece day twelve and thirteen.....minimal spinning

 I think these may have to count as rest days, On day twelve, after packing and housework, I finally managed to sit at the wheel for a few minutes. North Country Mule, an easy spin and hopefully I will be able to finish it sometime next week.

Day thirteen and we are back on the road again, heading east for the Bridlington Coble Festival.

 More about the Festival in a few days but again in means minimal spinning but tomorrow I will be out and about dodging rain showers with my nano so will have more to report,

But I did briefly get a spindle out and play with some Shetland so technically I did spin both days even if rather minimal amounts.

By the way, a coble is a type of boat ........................

Cornwall , slightly spinning related.

 Hi

We had been back from Bridlington for a week before we packed our bags and headed down to Cornwall. This time we rented a small cabin on a campsite for five nights then moved in with friends for a couple of extra nights so that we could attend the local pub quiz ( our team won)

Not many photos of Cornwall, weather wet, windy but not too cold. We visited the Tate Gallery at St Ives,

walked down to Marazion

and generally sat and watched the sea.

Eventually we were driven inside Helston Museum of cornish life to shelter and there I encountered some more fibre'y' things.

Starting with spindle whorls

Then a very interesting spinning wheel, I would have loved to get to grips with this one. !!

I would also like to sort out this sorry mess and the labelling.

We are finding that many small museums house community quilts and this was no exception.

we are now back home, washing machine on almost constantly, planning the next couple of trips and prepping fibre (more about that next time)

fresh off the sheep

 Hi

(Wednesday)

I had noticed whilst browsing Facebook that our local inner city farm ( stonebridgecityfarm.com) was having a shearing day today. They only have half a dozen or so sheep so its a primarily a demo for the children.

Since I am now a lady of leisure 😀 I hoped on a bus, did a couple of small errands and headed up to the farm. It was easy to find the shearing, just follow the sound of the sheep!

As I reached the pen they had just finished shearing the first sheep, a nice Jacob with a lovely big fleece. Good length locks, no felting and although there was some straw in the fleece I couldn't see any grass seeds.

I stopped to watch the next shearing and got chatting to the shearer who turned out to also be a spinner. Unsurprisingly I had a drop spindle and spun samples in my bag, one of which was a skein of Jacob which I passed to her so she had something to demonstrate as a possible end product.

Now, remember that first fleece? somehow it jumped into my rucksack and came home with me 😁😁😁

 We have exchanged email adds etc and may hook up next year to do a shear and spin demo.

The fleece is now in 6 mesh bags ready to wash tomorrow and two black bin-liners to be sorted at the weekend.

Thursday,

Not even 8am and 4 bags of fleece on the line, another two in hot soapy water. Hopefully the fleece will get dry today and I will be able to prep tomorrow, not sure whether to comb or card. I love combed fleece but it does take some time to prep and the wastage can be quite high.

Friday

Nearly 100gm ready to spin, still have a full pillow case and will wash some more next week.

I think that I may be gaining a reputation for weirdness, I decided that the best use of my time during a zoom meeting last night was to comb some fibre. This caused some interest from some of the archeology fans haha.

Have a great day xx

Tour de Fleece, and its Over.

Hi,

I stopped spinning on the wheel on Friday and continued on the spindle. So now I'm calling it a day.

1.452 Kilo of yarn, 2561 yards of 2 ply that will replenish my stocks nicely !

TDF spinning 2020 PW = pre washed

Date finished	Breed	PW Weight		Wash weight	Wash length
28.6.20	balwen/texel	105		103	168
28.6.20	Balwen texel	115		113	188
29.6.20	Jacob	109		105	280
30.6.20	Cheviot	110		109	119
02.07.20	Zwartbles	105		104	240
05.07.20	Zwartbles	120		119	239
05.07.20	Zwartbles	116		115	218
06.07.20	BFL/Swaledale	56		55	84
09.07.20	unknown	105		103	160
12.07.20	unknown	107		105	160
12.07.20	Kent Romney	125		120	150
15.07.20	Portland	110		109	280
15.07.20	Manx	53		52	120
16.07.20	Jacob	140		140	155

Total 15 Skeins 1.452 kilo                  2561 yards       1.45mile.

The spindle currently has 7gm on it and I will continue with this a s a summer project.

Its been fun but I now need my time to concentrate on other things and the house needs sorting, I still have the lace to finish!! So I'm packing my wheel away for a few days, the spindle will still be around, and will return with the mixed weekly blog next weekend.

Stay safe everyone xx

did I say no more fleece?

Hi, I had decided that I had enough fleece fot the time being but fate had other ideas. Firstly my mate Pete popped round with a Kent Romney that he had been storing for himself but has now decided that he won't get round to spinning it due to having so many other good fleeces. Then I won £25 in fleece vouchers from my usual supplier so I'm waiting for a nice coloured ryeland to be shorn and finally I spotted manx Loughton fleece for sale and couldn't resist the colour :-)

Whilst I'm waiting on the Manx, I've made a start on the Romney. It really doesn't look very promising in the bag, blue marker on it, needs a bit more skirting and the lanolin looks like it may have set. I will post washed pics once it's out of the bucket.

Edited to add post wash pic

certainly an improvement.

I've finished the Shetland, about 60 gm or so, it's on the line at the moment having had a soak earlier.

                         edit, now washed and dry, also in pic is BFL/Swaledale.

Going through the fleece stash, I found a bag of Shetland x Romney which has been hanging around for a while. Nice fleece but the natural rise means that you have to pull off the last inch or so of each lock which makes processing a fiddly job. However, I had a play with one of my spindles and it does spin up nicely so I may keep it as a spindle project to chip away at over the summer.

That's about it for this week, housework and baking took up the rest of my time :-) Next week looks like it will be mask making, we have some disposable ones but I will make a few more washable ones so we have a good supply as it looks like they will be needed more over the next few months especially as we now need them on public transport etc. It would be good to have a few extra just in case anyone gets desperate for one.

Take care, safe soon, more chat next weekend xx

TDF day 7,8,9

Hi

I always knew that this would be a minimal spinning weekend as we had arranged to take the van over to a campsite near Leyburn, Yorkshire Dales so we could meet up with some friends who were attending a motorcycle rally there.

I will start with a photo of the amount I spun over the three days....

Now this is the first time that I've really got to grips with this little Turkish spindle and I think I may take it on holiday later in the year as I found that I can spin on it whilst travelling in the van.

Anyway, back to the trip. We booked a couple of nights on the campsite and walked from there up into leyburn on Friday night for a pint. I still have problems with my foot/ankle /leg so the 3 mile round trip was a challenge but I made it although I was pretty sore by the time we got back.

I had a rude awakening at around 4am by what sounded like a peacock!! well I really thought I had dreamt it until a young girl walked past later waving a peacock feather around.

Started the day with some spinning, breakfast and a look round the site.

The site itself is located in a former quarry, a little bit weird as you have to go up a hill to get in then slowly work your way down the different levels looking for a pitch. We ended up at the bottom alongside the Wensleydale railway which, unfortunately, wasn't running steam this weekend.

There is still evidence of the limestone quarry as the remains of the kilns are still standing.

This campsite also has more wildlife that any other visited so far, ducks, moorhens, bats , rabbits, squirrels, hedgehogs and YES the peacock!

It was back into leyburn later on the Saturday ( on crutches this time) to catch up with the gossip after a brief stop off at the railway.

and before we left this morning, Ian found a present from the peacock.

All together it was a really good weekend, a little warm but we shouldn't really complain about that ! Just a little sad that we had to head back home so soon.

TDF day 5...sorting out the portable version

Up to now I'm spinning everyday on my wheel/wheels which is good for me and keeps the yarn production going.

But I need spinning that is portable as I will be away on Saturday without a wheel so a spindle would be good.

I had a quick practise last night so I guess this spinning is day 4 :-) combed southdown which is actually destined for the wheel. I still can't make up my mind on which spindle to use. Definitely not the big one as I'm washing some Shetland that is quite fine. Maybe the smaller one which is 17 gram or I may raid the collection for something sized a bit in-between these two.

I have a couple of Russian spindles that I would like to master to use in the van, maybe I'll dig them out as well,

The Shetland washed up well and I'm playing with it on the small spindle.

I also spun maybe 3/4  of a bag of Jacob this afternoon.

more tomorrow x