I'm in love with this shop... Ewe Felty Thing

I don't often post about yarn stores, mainly because, as a spinner, I use my own yarn and my personal restriction of only spinning British breeds ( I have Saxon Merino and Bowmont but both sourced as fleece in the UK ) and always spinning from fleece means that my shop purchases tend to be knitting needles.

However, I will often have a look inside when the colours call my name, I came across this lovely place last month whilst we were wandering slowly around Shropshire and North Wales.

Nestled in the the old town of Conwy I spotted a sign outside one of the old buildings.

                                                                  Ewe Felty Thing

With this view from the door step, how could I resisit ? The colours called out but to be honest, the spinning wheels shouted to me as well.

 I had a lovely warm welcome from Andy who was looking after the shop and he was happy to show me the spinning wheel collection, even making sure that I didn't miss the one in the vault. I will add here that having worked in a bank for 42 years I am always amazed how many times I walk into coffee shops etc and recognise the signs of its former use, most of the ones that I have worked at have been reborn as coffee shops over the years.

The shop sells yarn, needles, felting supplies, looms and wheels however the antique wheels are not for sale and they are being retained as a complete collection. They are beautiful.

There are over 20 wheels in all, different shapes, sizes , from different countries around the world.

However, I do think that we have an interloper, I may be wrong but the next one looks more like a bobbin lace bobbin winder.

I found this on Pinterest to show what I mean

there are a couple of winders in the picture.

unboxing Saxony merino

 I spotted an advert on a friends Facebook page, she was destashing some Saxony merino. half a fleece and a few oddments totalling around 1.5 k

Now I know that I'm on a fibre diet and really shouldn't be adding to the stack of fleece to be washed but I couldn't resist the chance to play with this and I also justified it by needing fine fibres to spin on the Nano.

The parcel has arrived, nice and squidgy

Did I mention that Sarah is a fibre artist? some of the fibres had been washed, and some had been dyed beautiful colours.

Some of the locks had been sorted ready for washing and the rest of the fleece is intact.

Plenty for me to play with over winter if not before.

Tour de fleece 2024

 Am I taking part?   Yes

My Goals  ? spin down the stash

What's in the stash?  well, that's the problem, not a lot really. I have around 2 / kilo of Shetland to wash, one Jacob fleece to inspect, one Hebridean fleece that I may or may not spin and some oddments .

I have around 300 gm of lleyn cross processed and  a bag of washed oddments and that's about it.

My usual hoard of fleece was whittled down last year and I've not really replaced it. One Romney is on the way along with some a small amount of Bowmont but that's about i at the moment.

Three fleeces are destined for my friends allotment and even though I have a bag of alpaca, it will probably be some time before I can face washing the dust out of it

later....

Bowmont and Romney have arrived

Squishy... I'm thinking lace shawl with this.

Maybe even overdye this one?

I'm also going to look for a white ryeland.

Since I composed this post, I've been offered free fleece, border leicester cross so I'll see whether it stays with me or goes down to the allotments.

Monogamous crafting, is it even a thing ?

 A few years ago I watched a short you-tube video about a lady who had no crafting stash whatsoever. She simply bought all she needed to make an item, made the item and disposed of any oddments that were left. 

Is this really a thing? do people do this? 

After all, life would be a lot simpler, no storage issues for multiple crafts, no storage issues for even one craft although having the right equipment would still be a thing.

I've been thinking about this since I bought another lace pillow from a local charity shop. The new pillow fills a gap in my collection as it has a wider roller than my other pillows, has a built in stand and looks like it will be easier to use when making sample strips which I spend most of my time working on.

If lace making was my only hobby, you would think that storage would be easy but looking round my room from where I am sitting I can see six lace pillow of various sizes and types !! plus two boxes of bobbins, and threads, two shelves of books and files of patterns. I'm already in the realms of needing a cupboard for just one hobby.

This is the same for every craft that I do, cross stitch materials fill a large box and I have several ongoing projects.

Spinning wheels , I have three at the moment but countless fleeces both raw and washed waiting to be spun all the equipment to prep the fleece and countless spindles etc.. Inkle looms numbered four at the last count along with small looms and a Kromski rigid heddle that has sat in a bag since before covid.

Yarn, knitting needles, tatting shuttles , you name it and I have it and not to forget the four or five sewing machines lurking in the next room.

Sketch books, paints, books on assorted crafts and techniques that survived last years cull now fill shelves and cupboards.

Back to the question, does anyone only do one craft, only have one project on the go or do we all flit from one thing to the other? My current ongoing projects are a bobbin lace strip, two knitting projects, narrow band on the inkle loom for bracelets and a couple of cross stitch and embroidery pieces. Ooh and two latch hook cushion on the go.

All this leads to another question, when do hobbies split into two, for example, is collecting cross stitch patterns almost a separate hobby to stitching them?

And, dare I say it, when does it switch from hobby stash to hoarding?

Any thoughts on this?

Ona lighter note, the robins are nesting just outside the kitchen window :-)

Spinning update and a day out in my home town.

 Hi,

I mentioned a few posts ago that Nottingham Castle has reopened and you can now purchase a ticket that is valid for the year. Another part of the castle complex is Brewhouse yard, a museum that is slowly being renovated and is now open to the public on weekends, school holidays and bank holidays.

You can see the roofs of the building from the castle as you look across Nottingham.

Inside has now been stripped back to represent a textile workers cottage with information about spinning, knitting and lace. The back of the cottage has been opened up so that you can enter the caves which would have been used as storage. There are caves under a lot of the city centre, people once lived and worked in them and many of the older buildings have caves systems under them. The building I used to work in had tunnels and rooms used for storage .

Not surprisingly, I had a conversation with the volunteers about the idea of live fibre events or hands on workshops so watch this space.

On the spinning front, some of the TDF yarn finally made it to the dye pot and I washed the bits and pieces of knitting from July and realised just how busy I had been. I've kept back some of the undyed yarn for future dyeing and knitting and started on the prep for the next big spinning session.

Thats about it for now, life is back to some sort of normal but I'm still hobbling more than usual haha.

Speak soon xx

Jacob and other fluff

 Hi

A quick update on the Jacob project, one of my original skeins is now a hat :-) although it is a little rustic but warm.

More has been spun and the collection so far looks like this

The two cakes and the dark skein will be my van knit for our next trip, hopefully hats and mitts.

I have still to separate the shades in the other two bags and will probably blend on my drum carder ready for spinning.

I also had chance to pop some yarn in the dye pot over the last few days, 

Now banded up ready to be sent away.

Thats about it for now, I'm taking a few days to stitch and make lace then its back to the spinning wheel.

Forgot to add, finished the projects on the Louet spinning wheel, i small skein jacob and one skein dorset x shetland.

Why Jacob?

 I mentioned in my previous fibre based post that I was currently spinning Jacob Fleece, so why Jacob?

It's easy to spin

I can divide up the colours and blend more natural shades for my knitting

You can spin a decent gradient yarn as well.

As I will be spinning in public a lot over the next few weeks, it makes sense to concentrate on one breed as its easier to answer the questions et.

I can easily over dye the yarn ( especially the white)

Its good for hats, mitts etc

I now have around 6/700gm combed pedigree Jacob which I will blend and bag up in 60gm bags ( I like my skeins to be a minimum of 100 gm and always seem to end up discarding small bits as I spin.) and 4 skeins ready to knit.

There is a definite difference between the skeins spun from the pedigree Jacob compared to the washed fleece picked up at the guild, the pedigree fleece is softer.

I also ordered a fleece from Doreen in Aberdeen, I love her fleeces as they are always well skirted, clean and come packed in their own cotton bag.

The latest is now on the line , taking advantage of a windy sunny day even if it is a little cool.

I will pack my e-spinner bag with a book on spinning wheels to show where you could prick your finger on the great wheel etc, a picture of a Jacob sheep and probably my British Breeds T-towel.

edited 

First two skeins from the Jacob from Aberdeen.

I now have possibly enough fibre to spin and yarn to knit on my travels.

Cross stitch, spinning update for December

 At the beginning of December I said that I was done with knitting because I needed to spin some more yarn. I am am slowly making inroads into the fleece stash and the wash bag is filling up ready for a sunny, breezy day when I can get all the skeins on the line.

some of these will go in the dye pot but again I will be waiting on the weather.

I may have lied about the knitting 😁 I have occasionally had my needles to hand, especially when visiting the local cafe.

One thing I am up to date on is the Cliffside stitches tiles SAL, we are on week 14 and I have just finished stitching week 14. 

You may remember that I was thinking about condemning the Blackwork SAL to the bin after the first square, I'm still not sure but have done a little work on it.

Three projects that I would like to finish in 2023 are the big red thing, mainly because I can't start another really big project until this one is done.

The black sampler that I started for Black Sampler November 2021

And this small Quaker sampler which is languishing because I'm not too keen on the colours, I'm even wandering if it would be better as a monochrome ?

There is lace on my pillows but as yet nothing on any of my looms so this is about it at the moment.

There are a few very old projects lurking and I'll will probably leave them exactly where they are !!

As usual I have a lot of fleece to deal with over the next couple of months and the spinning and knitting are very much my main focus at the moment however I will keep you update.

In case you missed it in my last post, the charity shop haul was amazing  and I may use some

 of it to make up small kits for friends.

So, have a great New Year and we will speak soon xx