Spinning and Dyeing

I dyed some merino roving in greens, and oranges and tawny colours to compliment the multicoloured roving at the bottom of the photo. The skein you can see on the left is some of the multi roving which I spun on my drop spindle and plied. I think I can finally call myself a dyer and spinner now. Just the weaving to learn and I'm there!!! Unless you consider knitting to be a form of weaving?

Solitude........

I am nearly half-way through the school holidays as my sons school closed on the 6th July and re-opens on the 6th Sept. I am begining to wonder how I am going to survive the rest of this break. I love my son (he is 12 years old) and he is fun to be with and has a very well developed sense of humour, is polite and generally interesting. Its just that I dont think I can take many more converstions and activities centred around Star Wars and Lego.

I am a person who cherishes being alone. I could be a hermit and speak to no-one for weeks on end given the chance. Silence is golden to me. I need it, lots of it. I wasnt always like this. I come from a large family in a small house and shared a bedroom with 4 sisters. As for my noisy, smelly teasing brothers, least said the better.

But now I am older, quieter, more reflective, and solitude is my goal. If you hear on the news of a crazy red-head who has moved into a cave somewhere and refuses to come out - thats me!!!

Branching into Nostepinnes

So many people have seen and asked for the nostepinne that DH made me that we have decided to branch out and add them to our reportoire of spinning equiptment. The ones above are made from Beech and are destined for two of my spinning guild members. If you are interested in buying one, please email me: Moorec648ATaol.com replacing the AT with @.

They are £13 each including p&p for the UK or £15 each inc p&p for International customers.

Coventry Spinning Guild and Jacob Fleece

I am a member of the Coventry Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers. We had our monthly meeting yesterday and so I thought I would take a few photos of the members - with their permission, of course!

The young lady who is weaving is our youngest member. She is 12 years old and comes with her grandmother the lady on the left of her). The yarn the young lady is weaving with was carded and spun by her too on her grandmothers spinning wheel. I am sooooo impressed!!

This photo is of some Jacobs fleece we have been given. The church hall where we meet is having its 50th anniversary next year, so we are spinning and weaving this fleece into a kneeler as a 'thankyou' to the church for the use of their hall.

Our Allotment Post-Flooding

The potatoes and onions survived the flooding, but the carrots and leeks didnt.

The chard and radishes lovingly grown by dear son survived - but the rest of his crop of lettuce and cabbage didnt.

The runner beans flagged for a while but are making a comeback. The pea plants are very leafy and green - but no pods yet!!

And the cabbages and cauli are a disaster. On the whole, I think we survived better than we hoped considering the allotment was under water 2 weeks ago and we were thinking of turning them into paddy fields LOL.

Spindle Bag and Pencil Rovings

This is my latest effort in using my drop spindle. The ropey yarn on the left of the shaft is where I began. By this morning I had progressed to the finer yarn on the right. I had never used pencil rovings before and found draftinging it quite difficult at first. Natalie at www.theyarnyard.co.uk has put an excellent tutorial on her blog about how to draft it. Thankyou Natalie.



I also made a bag for my spindle. As DH made this spindle especially for me, with a shorter shaft and a notch on the side, I thought it deserved its own bag. You may notice that I used the pencil roving to knit with !!!! It knitted up beautifully on 9mm needles and is 100% organic merino. I am using the leftover caramel and variagated rovings to spin with too. Watch this space LOL