Leamington Spa Uke Festival

Last weekend we travelled down to Leamington Spa as The Nottingham Ukulele Orchestra were playing as part of Leamington Spa's first Ukulele Festival. My man took his ukes and I took my toys, this time it was an inkle loom and a drop spindle :-)

Fortunately the weather was good and somewhat cooler than it has been recently and the whole event was well organised, My only comment would be that many of the Uke groups there were playing the same selection of tunes and when we reached the fourth rendition of you are my sunshine etc my patience began to get a little stretched. Fortunately the Nottingham Uke guys have a different set list and attracted quite a bit of attention

Photos of this event by myself are a bit limited as I was busy trying to weave some wrist bands for next weekend but here we go...

However this made us all smile.....

We stayed over night locally and took some time out the next morning to have a wander round the town before heading home.

 Bell/flower hanging over the river Leam

 The Spa water which the town is famous for

 The Gardens

 Garden wildlife

 Window featuring self portraits by local school children

 An enjoyable short break for both of us :-)

TDF week 2 update

Hi I seemed to have found myself very busy doing everything except spin!! so my small bossie has been in my bag with the polworth that I have had on the go for a while.



and the last bobbin of Romney spun today means that I can start plying tomorrow night depending on what time I get back from the pub :-)

Spinning round the windmill

Today's spinning destination was Greens Windmill with the Woolly Outlaws spinning group, the day started out misty and cool compared with the last week or so.





The windmill is one of Nottinghams greatest secrets in spite of the fact that you can see it from several areas round the city centre.

They kindly put the bunting out, well I suspect they would have put it out anyway but it is  on a slightly larger scale than that belonging to the spinning group.





 

We climbed up the inside of the wheel



and looked out the window as the sails went past





we eventually settled down to spin, chat, eat cake etc





and a good day was had by all inspite of playing hunt the shade on a very hot day!!

One for the boys

OK, warning, warning, warning.......photo heavy post!! we spent last Sunday at the Lincolnshire Aviation Heritage Centre so I took my camera and played....not a spinning wheel or sheep in sight...just a big plane ( and one slightly smaller one)

Here we go





















Full photo link here It was a lovely sunny day and a little bit surreal seeing the Lancaster parked next to the picnic tables !!

TDF- end of week one

Hi

The challenge was to find time to spin a little every day which I have but one day it was only 5 mins on a spindle!!

the results so far.....

Romney (bobbins 2 & and 3)

Wensleydale x Ryland

 Portland (thin) Lleyn x (thick) samples of latest fleeces

 The wensleydale x before and after washing !!!

 The Portland fresh out of the bag and really quite clean !!

 Portland before washing

After washing.

The sun is shinning here and it is getting quite warm...I hope you all have a wonderful weekend xx

TDF......It's that time of year again........

So the wheels of the bikes are turning around France as the Tour de France enters its 3rd day, which means that spinners around the world are following and taking part in their own challenge ,the Tour de Fleece. This is really a personal challenge, learn a new technique, spin everyday, learn to use a drop spindle etc. The spinners teams are based on Ravelry and the entrants post their progress daily. I use this as a chance to spin a little each day, work on my techniques and use up some of the fleece that I have stashed away.
The big event started on Saturday, most spinners watch the racing as they spin but not me, no TV in the household so I just spin where ever I am. So the start of the race saw me at East Bridgford show, a Small village show outside Nottingham with my friend Nina and her family and her sheep.

Yep, that's my place, surrounded by fleece, yarn and sheep!! BBC TV had shown a programme about shepherding in Peru the previous night which became the main topic of conversation for the day. Apart from the lady who told her grandchildren that I was knitting ! most people sort of knew what I was doing but said that they had never seen anyone do it in real life.

We occasional breaks to wander round and we popped into the produce tent where Nina's husband had won first prize for his eggs.

The last photo is from the categories for floating flower heads in water? The flowers were beautiful and many of the displays very original.

AS it was also Armed Forces Day we were lucky enough to see a selection of planes fly past. I missed the large formation on its way back from flying over the celebrations in Nottingham, wasn't expecting to see It so didn't have the camera handy, but I did catch a couple of others later.

So for anyone following the TDF for spinners....day one spinning

Romney fleece on the wheel :-)