Great Big Wheel

It started off as a general guild meeting with a talk on spinning wheel maintenance followed by a session on using hand carders then a session on long draw. Interesting  but I'm really not a huge fan of hand carders and I seem to spin woollen with a sort of modified long draw when I need to. Still , chance to take my wheel and have a gossip with everyone.
We were told about ratios and oiling your wheel although you could probably guess that I oil mine from the colour of it!! poor sonata, used and abused. There was laughter when someone asking to borrow the oil from the demo to oil the hall doors.
All was good until we realised that Dora had not bought her usual wheel, in fact she needed a couple of pairs of hands to get the new wheel into the hall!

It's about as tall as me!! and a real sleeping beauty type wheel, yes it has a spindle with which to prick your finger. Several of us had a play, I enjoyed spinning on it but suspect that hubby wouldn't be too keen if I bought one home.

As usual, Pete made it look really easy............

I came home with a small bag of Shetland x something.....watch this space.

Bargain of the week

Hi
I'm just popping by to show off my bargain. I own 50% of a ball winder with Wikkidknitter owning the other part but we have to decide in advance who is going to take custody of the poor thing! So when we spotted another one for £5.00 we jumped on it. Now I have the red one and he has the blue one hehe.
It's old and a bit battered but it works so that's good enough for me, in fact I've been putting it to good use emptying some of my spinning wheel bobbins of half forgotten projects. I have 20 bobbins somewhere in this house so this is roundup time.

Woolly Wednesday

So here we are again with a round up of all things fiberey :-) Its been a bit of a busy month so normal blog posts have been a bit hit and miss but I have a few in mind and hopefully by the time you read this ( I'm writing slightly in advance as I have a free hour to play with) there will have been a little more activity.
So, what have I been up to over the last month? well do you remember this?

 well this the progress so far....need to wash some more now

just short of 350gm spun so far, nice easy spin, sort of aran weight

We had the opportunity to attend the Ashfield Guild Hospitality Day with other members of our Guild and the spinnotts team and I almost came away without buying anything but succumbed to 3 balls of blue crochet cotton from the bargain table to use on my inkle loom.

 Pete (aka Wikkidknitter) gave a helping hand and advice to two new spinners.

and Tabs gave us a quick demonstration of how to spin and make it look easy :-)

I sort of fell in love with a couple if wheels which I'm going to blog about separately with plenty of pictures.

Back on the wheel has been some of last years Bond, one full bobbin and hopefully enough left to fill another later this week. I'm supposed to be doing a demo next weekend ( last weekend was a 1940's weekend so I pitched up with my spinning wheel as hubby was playing with the uke orchestra) and have decided that rather than revert to spinning tops I would start to prep the Shetland fleece that has been stashed away for the last few months.

 some vegetation but most should shake out

 nice fleece, well sheared but oh my! look at these tips!!

this is going to be a challenge!

 thankfully looks better after a good wash

So this is now my ongoing challenge for the next month!!

So, what have you all been up to??

saturday chillin

just in case you wonder how I generally spend my Saturdays afternoons, the answer is having fun where ever we end up! today it was at Fade and the hard to find cafe in Nottingham, a pint of cider, a mug of coffee, what more do you need. erm, yes, an Inkle loom :-)

guerrilla spinners are now guerrilla weavers !!

Geting Crafty

So the day for the craft show dawned and after a quick meeting in the coffee shop we made our way down to the pub where the fair was to be held.
To be honest there were not many visitors to the fair but having previously experienced standing behind the shop stall at a craft fair in the freezing cold for a whole day and not taking a penny we felt that things could not be any worse. We had our toys, a inkle loom and a spinning wheel to play with, so we were quite happy and giggly.

So we didn't make our fortunes but we did sell some items and the verdict from Wikkidknitter was that we will do it all again!!

Introducing......Wikkidknitter

My young friend Pete is about to step into the world of craft fairs with his fibre dyeing and spinning . Also he is looking into weaving small items for sale like friendship bands, keyrings etc incorporating handspun yarns.

Pete (aka wikkidknitter) dyeing.

Pete will be documenting his journey into fibre and fluff on his blog Wikkidknitter

He will be attending local craft fairs and also selling through Etsy in due course and you will probably find me around helping out. Looks like my life is going to get a little busier!!

Here he is demonstrating with the spinnotts team with a Navajo Spindle.