The mother of invention...

I know quite a few American fibre artists, they keep making me jealous with their motorised drum carders. There are a multitude of drum carders that come with motors,  available over in the US, all of which would cost me a small fortune to import.
I spend hours at my carder so the idea of a motor to do the turning is quite appealing...

I'm off to try out a Louet motorised carder (the only sort I can buy in the UK) tomorrow, in the meantime however, I had an idea.

We picked up an old Singer sewing machine base at our local auction. Once I'd removed the machine (very old, worn and pretty useless), it's going to provide the power for my Minty drum carder. The main issue is making sure the treadle turns the licker in slowly enough, which is why the handle has been removed, and a wooden disc bolted on in its place. This acts as a gear so reduces the number of rotations on the main drum for every treadle. So far it seems to work, I've just ordered  new drive belt, as the old one was worn out, and the Pony bead poly-band I use on my wheels was too thin and stretchy, so there was a lot of slippage. 

If it doesn't work, well I can just unscrew the disc, and screw the handle back on.

Little birds, big personalities

One of the nice things about Wonderwool was chatting to people who read here. It would seem that my slightly mad little chickens have their very own fan club so I thought I'd better share a few more pictures of them.

They spend most of their time rampaging through the sheep field behind the house. They gave the sheep a few scares at first, but they seem to get along fine now. Give them a call though, and they scuttle back through the fence at great speed. They can pick up a fair pace if they use a bit of wing assistance. For such little birds they eat a huge amount, and every time they see you they expect a treat of some sort!

Boyo the cockerel does a great job at keeping them all in order. He takes great delight in finding something yummy and calling his favourites over. He doesn't really crow that much, but the noise the girls make more than compensates. For such little chickens they are incredibly loud, and they talk to each other almost constantly. 

The weather here has been dreadful for the past few days so they spent lots of time hiding in their house. We set it up with the door facing away from the prevailing wind, but of course, this week, the wind had blown down the valley, not up, so they've had rather a lot of rain blowing in. A wet and bedraggled bantam is capable of looking very miserable!

Wonderwool

A massive thank you to everyone who came and squeezed themselves in to my stall at Wonderwool. I seemed to spend most of Saturday stood out in the middle of the aisle, and it was great to see so many people oohing and ahhing over 3 months worth of hard work. Neext year I will see about getting a bigger stall so I can fit a few more of you in! I put my heart and soul in to HilltopCloud, and it was the first time I'd had feedback from people in person, I still have a happy little glow when I think about it! If you braved the weather on Sunday, then thank you for your patience, by lunchtime I was really getting chilly, and thinking longingly of a hot bath, and a warm bed. Now I just need to get ready to do it all again up at the Lake District and Woolfest at the end of June.

Wonderwool

I'm about to start packing up the van to take to Wonderwool Wales.
The shop is off-line over the weekend but I'll be back on Monday and hope to be able to add some new things for you (thought hopefully not too many!)

Cleaning Up

I'm having a day off today, everything is ready for Wonderwool, so I decided that a little time to relax probably wasn't a bad thing.
We've also had the building inspector here to sign off on the barn, so I escaped in to the sunshine to walk with the dogs. Once we got back I pulled out all the spinning wheels for their annual spring clean. The Traveller is hopefully going to a new home at Wonderwool so I wanted to give it a good clean and make sure it was spinning nicely for it's new owner. Over the winter it's easy not to notice the layer of dust and grime that develops in the nooks and crannies, but in the spring sunshine they were all looking rather grubby. They all had a wipe down, all the old oil has been wiped off, and they've had a fresh coat of Danish Oil to help stop the wood from drying out. They all look so much better for a bit of tlc, and will probably spin more smoothly as well.

I hope to see some of you at Wonderwool, and for everyone else, the shop will be updated when I get back and unpack.

PS. New postage prices come in to effect next week, this particularly affects European customers so if there's something you have your eye on then now might be a good time.

April Frost Showers

It's been a strange spring. March was stupidly hot, and April seems to have decided to take it's place. We've had snow, and quite a few very hard frosts. The seedlings that were safe in the polytunnel didn't take too kindly to the cold weather, and quite a few have been killed by the frost.
The other day I woke up to see my windows completely covered in beautiful patterns.

I wonder what May will bring?

Country Living

Warning, not a post for the squeamish....


Mum is the gardener round here, I dabble, and can wield a spade as well as the next person, but the garden is Mum's domain. Spring is coming round here so there's been lots of digging and planting.
Two days ago she was setting up her Asparagus bed, and had emptied out the compost heap to add in to the soil as they were planted.

Rats and other vermin are a fact of life round here. We live next to the main road, and the rats come out of the drains and up in to our garden. They like to eat the spilt bird food, and live in our compost heaps. We generally know where a current nest is because our dog Gwen sniffs them out.  If we are not to end up with a plague of rats we have to do something about them. The something usually involves traps, and poison bait.

We knew there were rats in this compost bin because Gwen had been trying to dig them out for a couple of weeks. Mum got half way through digging the bin out and found these.

Twelve baby rats... who won't grow up in to adult rats, their Mum would have abandoned them, and their warm nest was destroyed. In the open air they will die of cold very quickly. They went over the hedge and nature took it's course. By now they'll be food for a hungry predator. 

What to do about the rabbit warren that seems to be appearing in the back garden is not quite so simple. At the moment we're blocking off the holes with rocks, but they don't seem to be getting the hint... A more drastic solution may be required :(