Beddgelert

Where do I even start?!

Having been asked as a guild to demonstrate some spinning for the National Trust, we set off yesterday with a car-full of wheels and headed down into the Welsh mountains.  If you've never been to Beddgelert, I'd advise jumping in the car now, because it's utterly beautiful.

Some of the sheep had already been sheared for us when we got there - so we had this amazing Romney fleece to play with:

Ever eager, a couple of the guild members had already set to work carding by the time we arrived...

...although I think at one point Sherry was spinning from the fleece itself (which had me very impressed indeed!!).  I've never spun in the grease before, so it was a bit of a learning curve to begin with.  I wasn't helped by the fact that my wheel was in a very bad mood indeed!!  After a new drive band, a bit of oil and a change of bobbin (!!), I managed to get going and I wasn't too ashamed of the results

One of my favourite things about the day was that so many youngsters were eager to get involved too...

...either with spinning...

...or shearing (you can just about make out the little hand at the top of the photo there).

I also had a go at shearing - my goodness they make a tough job look easy!  I was so scared of nicking the sheep that I was apparently cutting too far away from the skin.  The farmer took over and showed me the line that indicated new growth compared to last year's fleece.  Fascinating stuff!

"Check out mah new do!"

After lunch, I got talking to a local wood turner who mentioned that he had a dozen drop spindles going spare after someone had cancelled an order a few years ago.  Later, he came back and presented me with this:

This one works as a bottom whorl, which I've never tried before (making it quite embarrassing when I put the 'drop' in 'drop spindle' trying to show how it worked).  I gave him the contact details for the guild - I hope he manages to sell a few of them because they're lovely :)

And then - as if I hadn't already been spoiled enough! - the farmer came round to thank us for our help, and said "there are 5 fleeces round the back - please take them"

Well, a spinner doesn't need telling twice, so off we all toddled!

So I came back with a new spindle and about 500g of raw Romney fleece to play with :D  I'm a very happy chappy indeed!

x

Wheely Good Fun

You know it's bad when I start breaking out the puns...

Check it!  Me and the Llyn Guild's Ashford Traditional, all happy and in love.  But even such love can soon be forgotten - especially  now that I have a wheel that is ALL MY VERY OWN!

Another Ashford, but a tad darker varnished than the Llyn's.  She is an utter BEAUTY!  And last night, after some surreptitious dealings in an undisclosed location (ok, Tesco car park...) she became mine all mine.  :D

The proper drive band still needs attaching, so for the moment she's being held together by crochet cotton, but quite frankly it does the job and she runs spectacularly smoothly.  The only trouble is a really rather impressive squeak that comes from somewhere in the flyer/bobbin area, but a spot of oil will have that sorted in no time!

So in the meantime I've been playing with the Llyn Guild's wheel, making the singles and then plying this green affair.  Look how shockingly overspun that is!  In my defence, all that stuff about plying opposite to the single spin came to nothing when the wheel just downright refused to spin anti-clockwise... try as I might, it just would not ply, or put any spin into the yarn, nor would it draw in the yarn for more than an inch before it started to fight back the other way.  After 10 minutes of wheel-wrestling I gave up and plied it in the same direction as I'd done the singles - hence the epic overspin.  If anyone has any tips on how to solve said issue, I would be forever in their debt!

This morning, I've been spinning some lush merino tops I bought at Wonderwool...

...really I should be getting ready for work, but meh - I'm sure there's time for just a few more grams?

In related news, this Sunday the Llyn Guild will be doing a spinning demo for the National Trust at Beddgelert to coincide with the sheep on their farm being sheared.  If you're in that neck of the woods, do come along and say hi!

Kim x

PS: I haven't forgotten about the Fleece to FO thing, but my goodness! Nobody warned me just how dull picking is!

Fleece to FO: 1 - The Sheep

Welcome to my new very-long-term-indeed project, in which I turn a raw sheep's fleece into something spectacular* (*Spectacularity to be confirmed).

Let me begin at the beginning.

 

Blue Sky knit and natter held a yarn swap.  Before I left, I looked at my stash and sighed.  There was going to be very little I could stand parting with (except for that ludicrous pink acrylic on the mid-left - the one that taught me to allow for differences in computer screen colours when ordering online).

Luckily, the ladies at that group are a marvelous bunch, and practically foisted a load of sock weight on me (pictures to come soon!).  Well I say foisted, but what I really mean is that I claimed them Gollum-"My-Precious" style.  The closer I get to large stacks of yarn, the more deranged I become - it's an illness...

Anyway.

At some point, someone (and I'm not blaming anyone, but I am looking firmly in Rosie's direction) said something like "I've got a fleece at home I don't really want".  And then someone else (and this time I just happen to be looking at Claire) said something like "Oh, Kim's always wanted to work with a raw fleece".  Which I can't deny.

And so, last Sunday I was confronted with this:

 Which on closer inspection turned out to be this:

All of which became a little too much and resulted in this face...

... a face which says, "so, er, all those tutorials I watched on youtube aren't gonna help much then".  It shouldn't be confused with my "wow, that's a spectacularly ripe smell of sheep" face, because that came later (to start with, I couldn't smell anything at all, and then once I'd been lulled into a false sense of security it got me good and proper).

Actually though, once I got stuck in, I had an absolute blast.

I started by yanking out anything that was too matted, too dirty or too too scratchy to be of use, and put this aside for composting.  Then I picked out most of the big bits of straw/grass/vegetable matter (seriously, this sheeps only hobby was rolling around in hedges)

That took quite a while, and quite frankly I started getting bored, so I just shoved it all in a big bucket of hot water mixed with shampoo and let it soak for a bit.  My thinking was that it would get rid of some of the dirt, as well as start to break down a bit of the lanolin - I was quite surprised at how greasy the fleece started off (which incidently provided me with an answer to a question which has haunted me for years: why don't sheep felt in the rain?)

Look how happy I look!  No wonder my flatmate was laughing at me!

So after working about a third of the fleece, I left what I'd washed out in the sun to dry, and then put it back into the bucket.  Being crazy-busy with work and moving house, I've no time or energy to work on it during the week, but I've now decided that Sundays will be dedicated to working on this mammoth project, one chunk at a time :)  You'll be able to follow me here once a week to see how it's coming along.

Kim :)

Spinning an Ocean

 Yowzers!  It's been a busy old time recently and this week I'll be moving house too.  With everything else that needs seeing to during the day, it can be hard to find even the brainpower to craft, let alone the time!  I think that's probably why I've found myself turning to projects which rely almost completely on muscle-memory and require the absolute minimum levels of thought or concentration.

For me, spinning definitely comes under this category.  I adore the way you can get some really fantastic results without having to invest massive amounts of love and devotion, and the fact that it can be very very forgiving.

I currently have 4 spinning projects on the go, but mainly this week I've been working on this:

 I dyed some white merino and overdyed some grey/blue using blue and green food colourings, making sure I dyed them fairly unevenly so that when I span it, it would all pull out and blend at random.

Aren't the colours just glorious?!  They really sing to me somehow.  Expect many more tales of hand-dyeing in the future ;)

I think this also might be some of my best spinning yet!  I've managed to avoid some of the problems I've been having with overspin, and this skein is a lot better balanced than my previous have been.  This was actually spun using a supported spindle - my first time using anything other than a top-whorl drop - and it certainly took some getting used to!  The conventional wisdom is that the yarn on a supported spindle is less prone to breaking since it doesn't have to support the weight as it twists.  As usual, I'm going against the grain - this was snapping all over the shop (something that's never happened to me on the drop spindle), and continued to snap as I skeined it.  That'll be something to focus on as I spin the rest of the fluff in this batch!

A note on the spindle: it is BRILLIANT!  It was made for me by the lovely MintyWeaver, who has been experimenting with making her own spindles from old dpns and various bits and bobs from B&Q.  They spin magnificently, and the weighting is just sooooo comfortable.  How long d'you reckon before I'm glueing stuff to other stuff and attempting to twist fluff with it?!!

Kim x

Holy Wonderwool, Batman!

Wonderwool.  When asked about it, I can still only say things like "nnnngggghhh", or stare vaguely into the distance while my conversational partner backs away slowly.  I'll let the photos do the talking :)

 

 I started spinning as soon as I got home.  Some gorgeous merino went from this:

 

To this:

To this:

Veeeeeeeery quickly indeed!  And I have PLANS for it.  Oh yes, I have PLANS!  :D

If you were at Wonderwool, share your pics!  I'd love to see what you got! :) 

Your Knitting Or Crochet Hero

... or KCBWDAY3 (I'm catching up, ever so slowly!)

*

"Oh bother," Pooh Bear said.

Indeed.

There are just so many nominations for this one.

For starters, there's Lucy at attic24 who has A LOT going for her.  She's great - check out the link if you've not already visited her blog.

There are also all of the lovely ladies on my Rav friends list (who you can wave at from here).  They're my heroes not only because they're awesome crafters in their own rights, but also because they're also there with tons of moral support and encouragement when things like lacework have driven me to the brink of unnescessary frogging!

And then there's all of the brill stuff I find when playing "Rav Roulette" (if you've never played this: start a project search, and then mess with the search parameters at random, you will almost certainly find something breathtaking to look at).  To date, the absolute winner of this game has GOT to be this:



holofernes' "Journey to the Other End of My Stash"
PLEASE DO NOT REPOST THIS IMAGE WITHOUT HOLOFERNES' PERMISSION!!

 But, hard as it might be to pick a single one out of the 100s of talented folks out there, my actual craft hero is a properly easy choice.

I know a 9 year old who knits, crochets, dyes and plies like a pro.  When I last saw her, she completely blew my mind with her mad skills on the spinning wheel.  I figured she must have had loads of practice, but when I asked:

"Oh, I started about a week ago..."

PICK ME UP OFF THE FLOOR!

She is my real wool hero - an incredibly talented young lady, with a wonderful knack for ignoring the scarier parts of learning something new in favour of simply just enjoying it.  A lesson for us all I think!

[Also, if you want to check out some pics of her spinning - have a look on the Llyn Guild's blog - just prepare to be gobsmacked! :P]

Photograph Challenge

...or 3KCBWDAY2

YES: it is blog week!  I'm slightly behind schedule (ahem), so I'm not sure whether this will count as an entry for the competitions going on or not, but I figured I'd post it anyway :)

You possibly already know that I live in the Wilderness (well, Anglesey), and that the field directly outside my house is populated by lovely lovely sheep.  I was out trying to juxtapose the sheep with some handspun merino (and failing, mostly because sheep refuse to pose for the camera) when I spotted something UNBELIEVABLE!  Honestly, when this goes live, I fully expect Attenborough to be on the phone.

Well, maybe Chris Packham at least.

A real life Mini-Merino IN THE WILD!  Golly!