Its only a cough...

 said several people to me last week , assuring me that they were not contagious. Well, I suspect that one of them was as I've been full of cold since Sunday.

However, before any symptom's showed, I was at our local guild meeting where we had a stash sale and a very good lunch of homemade soup and bread.

This beautiful wheel was in the silent auction, I didn't bid as I simply do not have room for another one.

Also there were several other tables full of goodies. I was very restrained and came home with a small (ish)bag of washed fleece.

Most people bought projects to work on, spinning , weaving, knitting, there was some patchwork in progress as well

We even had a yarn winding session in progress using an antique squirrel cage swift.

We all had a good day catching up with the fibre talk. Whether I will make the next few meetings is in question as our diary is rapidly filling up with trips and events.

Goodbye November

 I set out to blog every day in November.................Fail

I set out to document tidying my work room.........Fail, well, ongoing

November ended with the AGM at our Guild of Weavers, Spinner and Dyers. Shortest AGM ever haha, then we chatted and admired each others work. We now seem to have a few more men joining us which is good and there are also nearly 50 of us, quite a healthy number .

Whenever we go out as a group to do a demonstration, we take various pieces of equipment including the Saori loom which we encourage people to have a go on.

A new member from Latvia bought in her knitted mittens

Many members are skilled at way more than one or two crafts,

Plait making with a difference

I'm not going to promise daily blogs for December  but back to at least once a week as I work through my stash and generally continue to slowly tidy up.

Tour de fleece 2024, I survived day one !

 So here we are, day one of TDF 2024. I started the day with breakfast and coffee in town.

I did manage to spin before catching my bus to guild, I also had three requests for details about the guild and one request from a fashion student for my social media ( If you are reading this, I didn't catch your name, sorry x )

Most of the remainder of the day was spent at guild, a lot of chatting, not so much spinning.

Then half an hour or so at home to finish the second bobbin.

Day one, two bobbins of ryeland, approx 100gm, not a bad start :-) I'm now going to settle down and knit x

Guild weaving day

 Last Saturday was guild weaving day although for me it was a bit of a struggle first thing. I woke up, checked the time with Ian who told me it was twenty to seven on the heating clock ( which is 10 min slow) No panic then until I picked up my phone and found out that it was actually 10 to eight !!

It appears that the heating clock had switched to daylight saving time a day early. The next hour was a mad rush to get up, shower, sort my stuff, realise that my inkle loom will no longer fit in the bus luggage compartments on the new bus, grab knitting and e- spinner instead and catch the bus into town.

Why so early? well, my Guild day starts with coffee and breakfast in town as my treat.

Anyway, I forgot to pick up my ear buds and thought I had forgotten my wallet so had to detour to the bank to pick up some cash for the charity sale table,

Nottingham seems to be torn between getting ready for Christmas and Halloween.

After breakfast ( I do like to sit and look out of the window ), I got stuck in a traffic jam, stuck at the rail crossing, and diverted from the normal bus route,

 I eventually arrived at the Guild meeting a little late.
Most people had already set up and there were plenty of looms to have a look at and have a go on.

I may have acquired a new to me loom as well but more about that in another post.

Speak soon x

the weekend

So, its the weekend again! Pete aka Wikkidknitter and myself decided to visit the local guild of weavers , spinners and dyers as its over three years since we were members attending every month. I must admit that we were a little unsure as to whether we would know many people but found a very warn welcome from the members we already knew and many of the others. As it was the January meeting, members were able to have sales tables to sell off any excess equipment. We noticed several ball winders and carders amongst the books and other bits and pieces.

One of the members was destashing due to moving and I took the opportunity to purchase some more lace bobbins. Some to join my best pillow, and some plain ones for when I take my lacemaking out with me.

a couple of books also jumped into my bag, 5000 years of textiles has been on my wish list since c&g days so the chance to pick up the paperback copy for 50p was irresistible.

The art of embroidery is one of those beautiful inspirational embroidery books and will join the other two volumes that I already have on knitting and felt making.

I now need to get rid of several books to make space for them!!

during the week, a Shetland fleece turned up that I ordered before Christmas so all in all my plans of not spending money on books or fibre etc in January went straight out of the window! I now declare February the new January and will try, very hard not to increase my stash, in fact I will be trying to downsize it yet again.

as for the latest fishermans kep, there has been some progress and here is a rare shot of my trying it on to check how it looks, please excuse the red face but it was rather warm wearing it with the heating on!!

Fibre dabble day

Hi

At our recent Guild ( Guild of weavers, spinners and dyers) meeting we had a Dabble Day and were joined by members of the Ashfield and Hallam Guilds. Mini workshops were set up around the room for people to try out new techniques and crafts.  My camera battery decided to fade away but not until I had grabbed one or two shots of the work produced.

On offer as workshops were Tunisian Crochet

 woven baskets

 felted vessels

 tablet weaving sheep

 Japanese bag tying..Furoshiki.

 felted bangles

 Dorset buttons

and scrumbles in knitting and crochet but at that point my camera was playing up so huge appologies to that group.