Another busy day.....

Most of today has been taken up with learning how to card fleece properly for the wool spinning process. It makes a huge difference to the outcome when you are working with a correctly-prepared rolag. The rest of the time was spent trying to get a smoothly-spun wool yarn and, in my case trying to get to get used to my Lace Flyer.......

.....it turns so much faster than the standard one and it took a lot of setting up as well. I will now be able to spin lace-weight yarn (in theory) but in practice, it's going to mean an lots of time spent trying to get the technique right....

Tomorrow will be devoted to worsted preparation and spinning, sorting the rest of my fleeces and being shown how to warp up my Handknitter's Loom.

 

Addenda

I can't seem to get this right; now I have two images of the canal and no church again.......

Try this again....
 

End of day one

Have spent an interesting and productive day with Fiona Nesbit (http://shropshireweavers.co.uk/) and another student, Dawn. We examined a couple of my fleeces and learned about the mechanics and care of our spinning wheels and did some worsted spinning and some plying, as well as getting in a bit of practice with drop spindles. After Dawn left, Fiona and I sorted my Teeswater fleece but decided the Balwen was too felted to be any use, so that'll end up on her compost heap.

When I got back to Audlem, I walked a short way along the canal to the supermarket.

This board was displayed at the side of the towpath:

It was raining heavily, so I didn't hang around........

My photo of Audlem church failed to materialise in my last post, so Iam trying again.......

 
 

 

On the road again...

This week, I am in Cheshire, staying in a town called Audlem but spending my days about 5 miles away at the studio of a textile person where I hope to improve my hand spinning by learning some more about the preparation of fleeces and better hand spinning techniques: I expect to work very hard for the next three days.....

I managed to get all of my important equipment, including 2 spinning wheels (one is folding for travelling about, the other better staying in one place) into my car, with difficulty. I have brought 5 large bags of fleece and one very large and I can't say for sure how many fleeces they contain but it has to be at least 10. Sorting them out will give me lots of practice under supervision and then I might finally be on the road to better outcomes. Hand spinning yarn is not easy or quick in any way, although once you have the knack, it does become easier and that's when you begin to realise that the end result lacks polish: that's where I am at. My ambition is to make most of my own yarns but I am quite a way off that yet, especially in terms of quality and reliability of what comes off the wheel.

I hope to be able to write about my week as it goes along but, as usual, access to the Net is at best unreliable, so I may not manage too much unless I go and have my tea in the same pub as I went to tonight (the ...............), where they have free WiFi and don't ask for all your information in return.

Audlem has a very striking church. It is on a mound in the centre of the town placed in such a way that I feel someone made a mistake and really meant to make it a castle; even the architecture is rather majestic. The Shropshire Union canal runs through the town but I haven't managed to find a way of accessing it by car: I am hoping to do so sometime but it will depend upon the weather because as much as I enjoy walking tow paths, I don't relish getting soaked.

Today is my first day of spinning and as the sun is out for the moment, I am looking forward to the trip to Fiona's studio. I will try and post more later if I can get the facilities to do so.

Some knitting

On Thursday, I went to Salisbury to visit a person in her wool shop. The idea was to get a few bits of information that I felt my knitting might benefit from.

The person is Heather Drage and her shop, Born to Knit (http://www.borntoknit.co.uk/) is in Fisherton Mill, a craft centre near the middle of the city. It is a bijou establishment, filled with lots of colourful yarns and patterns. Heather runs workshops as well as helping people out with their knitting problems. We looked at one or two things I wasn't sure about and then got on with Entrelec, a pattern of stitches that looks like basket work. I didn't get too many rows done but it was enough to begin to get the hang of the way it worked....

It's a kind of hybrid knitting, not exactly modular but not totally constructed in one piece, either. The outcome is interesting and pleasing, I think. 

In order to get a bit of practice in, I investigated my yarn store and came up with some thick Shetland yarn and some mohair, used double; both a creamy colour, so there is a lot,of texture set against a very plain colour.

I think I have enough yarn to make a scarf. The only drawback is that it represents yet another knitting project on the go. However, I am beginning to realise that having more than one piece of knitting to work on does mean that if I don't feel like doing one, I will pick up another and it is always worth having something simple on the go to socialise with.

Bits left out.......

Having looked at my published entry, I find an image missing. I am beginning to think that the App I am using struggles when it has a number of images. I will have to publish more frequently to, presumably, counteract this. I had noticed that the typing became sluggish when several images were uploaded.

Herewith, the 'missing' image.....

 

Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits.....and things

I have just been gazing out of the kitchen window...the sun is shining and it is chilly. It is obviously Springtime because, where there was - a few days ago - only one baby rabbit feeding on the lawn in the kitchen garden, there were three.....Many people view rabbits as cute little 'bunnies' and at one time, I did so too but that was before I saw so much of them and realised they eat everything in sight - not just the weeds and grass. Now I view them much as I view pigeons: they are vermin and I am quite happy to see them shot. The babies pottering about this morning had an element of cuteness as most young animals do but they have this unerring habit of growing into adults.....In reality, adult rabbits aren't remotely attractive, in my view. They have become mythologised as pretty, fluffy creatures: they are not. Once, whilst cycling along a path locally we came upon a really tiny rabbit, which I only just missed flattening. We stopped, as nether of us had seen such a small one before and felt it should be moved off the path. It would have fitted on the palm of my (quite small) hand but when we went to pick it up it was capable of defending itself out of all proportion to its size. Forced to grab it quickly by the scruff of the neck to avoid being bitten, we set it down in the grass away from the track. Quite a salutary and enlightening experience.....

The creatures we have hereabout that are both beautiful and exciting to watch are Hares. We don't see them nearly so often as the rabbits, sadly but when they are around, they are worth stopping to watch. Unfortunately, I have never been able to capture one in a photo; they move very fast when startled and rapidly disappear. I've never seen one in our garden, only out in the fields.

Having got together the 'hardware' for my hand-spinning this week, my next job is to get out all of my fleeces and see if I can find a way to fit them in my car. It would be wonderful to have them sorted and I know Fiona will do this quickly with me, thus saving me ages at home: she will also be able to tell me if any are only suitable for the compost heap, which will be another clear out job achieved. However, it does depend how many I can shoe-horn into my car. All, thankfully, are wrapped in sheets and zipped inside smell-proof (I hope) bags. 

I see, now I've had a look at my last entry that the birds have been uploaded twice.....not sure how that  happened but I am still in learning mode, I suppose. I shall have to stop using smiley faces too, as they look a lot less meaningful when rendered as blank mini squares :/

Out on a walk earlier, in the sunshine but Arctic winds........

Cowslips - one of my favourite wild flowers.....

Hawthorn looks very pretty when it is in bed and flower.

Also, one of the most anticipated fruits of the year has just become available from the garden:

...beautiful, first Rhubarb!
 
 
 
 

Back again briefly.......

Unfortunately, other things have come between me and my Blog since my last entry: I was afraid this would happen.....but, onwards and upwards! 😊

According to the authors, my mobile App should now function as it was meant to.....I am about to find out, with the image that upset everything last time:

So.......it does 😊 However, it's rather out of date now as it's over a week since I spotted this pair of Swallows and earlier on, over the BH weekend, lots could be seen and heard swooping over our garden.

Back to Portmeirion and my holiday in North Wales - which seems a long time ago now.

 

These two images were taken from the hotel frontage looking south over the Dwyryd estuary. The view make you want to just stand and look and look......

The two above were taken on the coastal walk from the village.

The walk leads you through woodlands as well as along the coast....

........and on the way, you come across tree stumps studded with coins. We found them elsewhere outside Portmeirion and haven't discovered what they are about yet.....any suggestions, anyone?

 

I have many other images of the villages which I may return to in time. Meanwhile.....

This week I am off to Shropshire on Monday to do three days of hand-spinning with Fiona Nesbit. This will hopefully see my collection of fleeces sorted, my understanding improve of how a spinning wheel works and generally result in an improvement of my technique and skills level. The immediate consequence of this is that I need to go and sort a great deal of stuff out and see how much of it will fit into my car, together with two spinning wheels, of course.

I attended my first Board meeting as a Director of the Knitting and Crochet Guild on Wednesday, so now I have lots of documents to not lose, so it's time to clear space in the filing cabinet......

There is more I could write about but I will leave it for now and get on with the above for a bit, hoping I get back before too long has elapsed.......

 
 
 
 
 

Going a-Grandma-ing

Owing to a mixture of the app not working properly and my being away from home with no computer, this entry will be without images - unless BlogGo's update comes along in the meantime, that is.

The sun is shining again - remark-worthy, I feel, as it's so rare. I have just been looking at a website of a young Japanese knitting designer:

 http://cottonandcloud.com/index.php

and am thinking or ordering two of her patterns for bolero-style cardigans for children and adults made from Shetland wool. Expect I will have to find something easier to look after than that for child's version, though.

I am staying near to Birmingham, UK for now and enjoying the fact that there is a good shopping area nearby, for a change, which is where I am off to soon. Then I will indulge myself with some knitting (haven't done any for ages) and perhaps a walk in sun before fetching granddaughter in the early afternoon: after that I can't say for sure what I will be doing! 😊

Hopefully, I will be able to go back to my North Wales holiday and pictures soon........