A quick woolly interruption

 Wednesday 1 June was shearing day at our local inner city farm and when I saw their advertisement on Facebook I contacted them to check that they had some Guild spinners attending. As it turned out, they did not have any spinners that were free so I offered my services as I had met the shearer last year.

I just grabbed a few photos ( and a fleece) and spent the next four hours explaining to very small children and a good few adults what I was doing with the (washed fleece) on the spinning wheel.

As they only have eight sheep the shearing was spread out during the morning with time for explanations about how and why the sheep are sheared.

This is Frances? the Jacob  meeting the clippers and below is the fleece that will be my challenge next week.

Fingers crossed for dry sunny weather next week so I can get this out on the line.

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

Inner City Farm

Hi, I needed to get out of the house for a while today so headed down to Stonebridge Farm, usually I spend my time looking at the small fluffy creatures that live in the barn, bunnies, guinea pigs , that sort of thing. However the barn was closed for cleaning so I had to content myself with slightly larger creatures.
Just a few photos :-)

some pretty flowers around as well...

speak soon xx

Stonebridge Inner City Farm

Yesterday I popped down to the Farm for the first time this year so I thought I would share some photos.















Yes, its begining to look like spring has finally arrived.

Down on the farm.... I spy with my little eye

a viking fighting

a girl with a very long bow

a metal bird

a chic scarecrow

chickens hiding from the sun

a man with an owl

some strange slow motion martial arts

all down at Stonebridge City Farm Grand Open Day

stonebridge city farm

I'm always up for finding new places to spin so on Sunday I hopped off the bus a couple of stops early and found myself at Nottinghams Stonebridge city farm where there are rumoured to be sheep and goats.

The rumours are true there are goats

sheep

cows

donkeys with hair nets

ponies, pigs, ducks, hens, rabbits and a tortoise

and flowers

 

add to that a decent cup of tea and a cheese roll, money well spent!!