Spinning at last

Well I have now joined my local Spinning, Weaving and Dyeing group and what a talented group they are, truly inspiring and just what I needed. They were so welcoming and friendly and I thoroughly enjoyed myself; I have been loaned an Ashford Traditional , a drum carder etc to try out and I love it, so much quicker and easier than spinning with a drop spindle . Admittedly my first attempt was a bit nobly but I am getting better at it and its so relaxing. Even DH has taken to it and we have had such relaxing evenings carding and spinning, well actually arguing on whose turn it is to spin ; Tony reckons we will be a two wheel family at this rate. So we are on the hunt for a wheel but I have been advised to try before I buy and to be wary of buying a wheel unless I have seen it which makes sense. Most of the folks at my group reckon you can't go wrong with an Ashford and I would like to try the Traveler as it is smaller and maybe more portable .Of course as soon as I told Kath that I had a wheel she came scooting over with Emily and had a go and she took to it so quickly.
Here she is concentrating ( Picture added with daughters consent !! )



She brought over the fleeces she had bought so we have carded them and she is now trying to get it all spun before she leaves.

We are off on Thursday for a holiday in our motorhome; no idea as to where as yet. So it doesn't look like I am going to get much time for spinning before I go :(
We might be going Cumbria way and I will take Winghams telephone number with me as they sell wheels . Also via my group I have contacted a lady who lives locally and is selling her two wheels and she is getting back to me before we go with a price . Watch this space ..........

Blue frogs and fluffy white wool !!!

Well I have gone one step forward and two steps back this last week or so.It doesn't help that I have been under the weather so my brain is fugged !!
I completed the cardigan and curly whirly scarf with yarn from my stash like a good girl and what did I say in my last post .......I was going to make it a larger size , but did I ? NO, came to the end and then found another ball and remembered it was there to make the larger size . The outcome ........Kath came by today as they were out for the day and called in on their way home, so she has had a new cardi . She had also bought the same yarn and not used it so she gave me her yarn instead, back to square one!!. I am doomed to never getting my stash down ; plus she bought me yet more yarn bargains YIKES .
Still here she is modeling my FO





I also make a hat for my nieces birthday and it is being modeled yet again by my daft,adorable daughter.





So ,back to my stash I went and got out some more of the Colinette . I am making 'Asrai' in Giotto, in the shade 'Jay' which I love. I just hope this one works out as I have come to the conclusion I am not having much luck with the items I have knitted in blue !!! This last week I have frogged two other blue items , that loopy jumper disaster I made a few months ago and a shrug I made last year in Sirdar Tuscany which doubled in size after wearing a few times . I also frogged a shrug called 'Ffion' in Colinette yarns which was awful and that was in shades of blue and purple. So fingers crossed on this one,pretty please, no more 'blue frogs' I love the colour blue.




On a completely different angle....... for all of you purist, romantic's out there who rave and swoon about the sheer beauty, softness and sheen of pure wool all I can say is, buy raw fleece and all your fantasies vanish. I have bought two raw / unclean fleeces off E-bay , dirt cheap and I mean dirt. Now I don't mind the hedgerow bits,the pooey bits even but the dead ticks, oh yuck. One fleece was covered in them ; I know its been an especially bad year for ticks as we have two dogs and have had our fair share of keeping them at bay and I am normally not squeamish but this turned my already sensitive stomach .Plus I kept thinking about how uncomfortable the poor sheep must have been . Oh and I forgot , the smell was overpowering.
BUT I am not one to be beaten,so I carefully washed them so that I won't lose too much of the lanolin and raked through them so they are now clean and they smell better and are ready to be spun or be felted . So all in all I would say its worth it but I think its pot luck buying fleece unseen and hopefully I will make some yummy things out of them and know its all my own work , with the help of the sheep of course. Oh and I nearly forgot, I also got 100gm of baby alpaca fleece for 99p and it was totally clean and I am going to make some felted slippers for Emily out of that.
So I am hoping that the next time I post I will have a FO for me that I am pleased with.

How to catch a photo of a FO ?

IMPOSSIBLE when it's on Emily; she is always on the go , so this is the best I could do!!. She looks adorable in it , although I was not totally pleased with the pattern , I often find this with some of the Colinette patterns I am afraid . Still , as I said its cute and it will be warm as its in Tagliatelli which is merino wool.





Kath was up visiting with Emily for what was supposed to be one night. We went to Trefriw Woolen Mills which is on our doorstep and there is a resident spinner there for the summer months. Well, there are two in fact and the lady we saw was lovely and so informative re dyeing and spinning ; it was truly inspirational. I loved the felted items they had made, so bought some of their dyed fleeces to do some things ,sorry forgot to take piccies but will take some of the FO I make out of them.. She was using an Ashford Traditional wheel and it looked a very simple wheel which I liked so again we had a long chat re the pros and cons of various wheels. She very kindly gave me her card so I can contact her again if I need more info etc. The more folks I talk to re wheels before buying one the better I think and of course I am going to my local Guild for the first time next Thursday but as they are having a course that day on weaving I don't think I will get much of chance re spinning.




On the knitting front I am being really good and have gone searching into my stash and dug out a Bergere de France project, a simple edge to edge cardigan and curly whirly matching scarf, which I bought nearly year ago !! But never got around to as ....well I was making other things!! It's just as well really as I am now going to make it a larger size than I had planned. I have Crohns disease and one of the problems I have is my size changes enormously and this time last year I was a size 10 and now I am a size 14 . It gets me down at times as I am always needing new clothes; I have bags of clothes in the attic ranging from size 8 to size 18 depending on my state of health and the medication I am on, so frustrating. Ah well my DH always says its like having a new woman every now and again LOL.
As I said earlier Kath was only supposed to be staying one night and on Thursday afternoon after she had loaded the car in the pouring rain , yes you've guessed it, it would not start; so after trying all she and DH could do the car was taken to our local garage. Thankfully it was just a case of it being so wet and a set of new leads were needed and she went back home yesterday , so we had an extra night of knit'n'knatter.