From Field to Fashion, Derby Museum of Making

 

I've had it in mind for a while to hop on a train to Derby and visit the Museum of Making which features many, many different items that were made locally from motorbikes to ceramics and the fact that this exhibition was on made it a possibility. Honestly, anything with a sheep in the picture will make me glance twice.

Fortunately the museum is a pleasant walk from the train station with a footpath/cyclepath hugging the River Derwent and even at my slow pace only took twenty minutes or so.

The museum is housed in an old silk mill sat by the side of the river and easy to spot. The mural of Falcons by the entrance was commissioned by Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and design and painted by Sarah Yates in 2022

The exhibition is on the third floor with its own shop showcasing local fibre crafts, craft kits, handspun yarn etc.

The exhibits aim to show different uses for wool ranging from clothing to seating along with reusing and recycling. 

I particularly liked the signage at the beginning giving details of the characteristics of different breed and the explanation of words that I use regularly but probably confound many people. There were also several sacks of raw fleece, labelled with the breed, that you could dive you hands into ( and the all important notice also there to wash hands ) along with examples of processed fleece so that you could feel the difference between washed, carded and and combed fibres.

I could happily taken this grey mule fleece home with me, it would soon be on the wheel !

As usual, put accessible fleece near almost anyone and they will instinctively rub it on their cheek to check the softness and a surreptitious glance across the room a couple of times confirmed that this is still the case.

A rainbow of hand dyed yarns by Carrie Warr on Bleatingbecka Derbyshire Gritstone yarn. This is one breed that I have yet to spin, it's on the list in case I spot a fleece being sold.

From the traditional use of fleece to the more obscure, I hadn't envisaged furniture being on display but if you mix fleece and bio resin then this is what happens.

Black and white welsh mountain fleece , chair by Solid Wool and Roger Oates Design.

 

The art of Felting wool was represented by several pieces by Valerie Wartelle which reminded me of a cross between Turner and Monet.

Amongst other exhibits I spotted this community project

and these amazing lightshades by Janie knitted textiles.

All in all , worth a visit and the exhibition is on until 4 October and a quick look at the website shows a number of workshops also relating to fibre and thread. In fact there is one in October on Sashiko embroidery which is tempting me.

The main museum also holds examples of textiles etc so look out for another post from myself soon and I nearly forgot, there is a cafe so I had a coffee and ciabatta, both very good !!

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.

Stash spin down update

Some of you may remember that I wrote a post at the end of February listing all my raw fleece that needed to be washed or tossed. 

Its now one month later so I thought that I would give you a quick update. Spinning in the last month has amounted to nearly a kilo and I did take a photo before popping it into the 'waiting to wash bag' which has unfortunately disappeared into the ether.

The weather suddenly turned warm so I took the opportunity to wash all my recent handspun from this year together with some knitwear and get it all out onto the line.

I have more fibre prepped and ready to spin .

The stock list currently looks like this, I'm really pleased with the progress so far.

Raw fleece (whole) 1 of each.

white highlander

hebridian

shetland

Ryeland

unknown white (galway ?)

Raw fleece small amounts ( at least 500gm)

black cheviot

unknown white x 4 3 2

brown/grey ryeland

light grey ryeland

mystery fleece ( possibly very sun bleached black cheviot )

white cheviot

Balwen

I o s jacob

I also spun a little of the fleece that was already washed as well as majority of the ones crossed off.

The goal is still to clear the backlog completely to make way for any fresh fleece this year,

NB today it is snowing !!

Time for a fibre stock take

Its nearly the end of February and hopefully we will get some warmer, drier weather soon. With this in mind I decided to take a quick stock take of my raw fleece waiting to be washed. Some of this fleece has been hanging around for a while and its quite possible that it will not all make it as far as the spinning wheel,

Raw fleece (whole) 1 of each.

white highlander

hebridian

shetland

ryeland 

unknown white

Raw fleece small amounts ( at least 500gm)

black cheviot

unknown white x 4

brown/grey ryeland

light grey ryeland

mystery fleece ( possibly very sun bleached black cheviot )

white cheviot

jacob .

The plan is to wash and hopefully spin all of these by the end of the year. Its quite possible that I may acquire some more but I do need to clear the back log. Some of the small bags are simply oddments that may not actually worth spinning so I will sort these as I go.

I have been prepping and spinning this week and the wash bag now contains over 1 kilo of spun yarn ready for a nice sunny day.

I have two bags of yarn for my personal use, a few bags of clean fleece ready to process and a bag of knitted items waiting to be washed and blocked.

Latest knitting has been fingerless mitts ( again)

In other news, I have found the missing cross stitch project and put in a few more stitches and I am also working on the big red thing again as it is stitched on 28 count so easier on the eyes when stitching in the evenings,

As I had to make some repairs to someones work trousers 😀😂 I took the opportunity to quickly turn the crows gather cross stitch into a small 'pillow' to go with the others. I'm slowly filling a basket with them.

That's about it for now, I'm going to try and get some spinning in later today and wash the grey ryeland fleece tomorrow if it looks like the weather will stay dry.

Speak soon xx

'

Still having a fluffy time

 When I spin, the resulting skeins are generally around 110gm as I prefer to be on the generous side for yardage .As a result I often have combed fibres left over, just 20 or 30 gram, which go into a bag until I get the drumcarder out.

I then blend these together to make batts, the mix of breeds varies each time but this ensures that I get the most from my fleece.

These are spun up as a fairly rustic yarn.

The resulting skeins will have to wait for a dry day when I can wash and then dye them ready for knitting.

Anyway back to my knitting, will update again in a few days xx

Its that time of year again

 I don't want to be all baa humbug but you will not see a great deal about Christmas festivities on this blog. we gave up celebrating it a few years ago mainly because of the over commercialisation, the debt people find themselves in afterwards ( I used to work in finance) and not being of the Christian faith. ( I was bought up in the church but left many years ago)

We will hopefully get away over the break, walk on the beach and fly the kites. In the past we have been on various campsites, getting out for a walk and spending time reading books.

In the meantime, the city centre has a Christmas Market, although smaller than usual but it brightens things up especially as it was cancelled last year. I was actually in town to meet friends for coffee and catch up on the gossip as I hadn't seen two of them for several years.

It also appears that one of our car parks has had a revamp recently,

and since Nottingham is know as the lace city, the wet weather was showing off the lace design in the concrete of the Contemporary Art Gallery.

Speaking of lace, the mini workshop on Saturday was great fun, both student showed an aptitude for it probably as they both came from a machine knitting / weaving based background. I must confess that I totally forgot to take any photos until the very end, so here is one of the lace pillow ( the other student had already left)

Since then I have been mainly stitching on the big red thing, knitted another hat  

(the celtic knotwork one ) which is now soaking with the previous two.

I've been flu jabbed, baked several batches of cakes and biscuits, spun up some black cheviot. packed up more boxes for the charity shops and this afternoon I will settle down to cast on some more mittens. My crafty space is the warmest room in the house and has become my comfy retreat now the colder days are here.

have a great weekend, speak soon xx

back to the woolly stuff

 The house is now warm which means that the radiators are strewn with yarn and knitting, the heating works a little differently to before so it will take a while to find the proper temperature setting for us.

I have managed to give the mittens a soak and they are nearly dry (having radiators that now work really helps)

.My destash continues, this time I've donated several books on quilting and bag making to a close spinning buddy and in return I received two packages of fleece. The first ( we think ) is black welsh mountain and looks lovely. I do like spinning this breed so I will probably wash in small amounts and get to grips with it over the next few weeks.

The other is a faun/cream brown Shetland, looks quite fine, very crimpy

The fair isle hat is finished and washed. I'm thinking about getting a mannequin head to both block and photo my hats.

The plain hat is also finished and washed.

Texel and Jacob skeins are also washed and ready to be measured and weighed, Jacob x Dorset now on the wheel.

The house is still a tip as we can't put anything back in place until we are sure that the boiler is working properly as the installer had a lot of problem adding it to out existing heating system. 

I'm now off to town to post out the mitts and a birthday card, may even grab a coffee as well.

Speak soon xx