Shows

The calendar for 2013 is looking pretty full. Nearly every month for this year I'll be heading off to various parts of the country for a show or event. The full list of where I'll be is here.

The first show is Unravel in just 3 days time, things are pretty much ready, all the fibre is dyed and carded, and ready to be packed in the van. This has meant the shop has been a bit neglected recently, but when I get back I'm planning on spending a bit of time restocking the shelves.

Not too much time though, because in 2 months time (April) I'll be off to my local show, Wonderwool Wales, probably my favourite of all the fibre festivals. I've got a bigger stand this year, so I've moved along an aisle from where I was last time, still in roughly the same part of the building though.

After that comes the grandaddy of British wool shows at the end of June, Woolfest was the original UK fibre festival, this year I'm hoping for slightly better weather! I'll be in exactly the same spot as last year, hopefully minus the leaky roof.

One month later in July I'll be at FibreEast in Bedford. I went as a visitor last year on a very muddy Sunday, but this year they've moved to a brand new indoor venue.

In August the Association of Guilds of Weaver, Spinners and Dyers Summer School is being held just down the road from me in Carmarthen. At the end of the week they hold a trade fair for local suppliers, and on Saturday 10th August the fair is open to the general public.

In September I'll be at a brand new event, Yarndale in Skipton, Yorkshire. There are already lots of great suppliers signed up to attend, so it looks like being a fabulous weekend.

October is looking like being a busy month, the start of October is the All Wales Guild event, this is in Llanidloes at the Minerva Centre. And finally, we twisted Antje's arm and there's going to be a Glasgow School of Yarn this year. No more details about that one, but keep an eye out for further announcements, there's usually a stellar cast of teachers (Amy Singer from Knitty, Woolly Wormhead, and Liz Lovik last year) offering workshops, and I'm sure this year will be no exception!

I love going to shows, both as a purchaser and an exhibitor. If you've never made it along to an event I really recommend it, there's something happening nearly everywhere in the country now. There's usually a corner where people are sitting creating, sharing skills and enabling others. Some of the big shows like Wonderwool and Woolfest have a designated interactive area where you can try drum carding, hackling, and generally ask for help on any particular skill. There's also nothing like seeing things in person. I always have a huge range of colours and fibres with me at shows, far more than is listed in the shop at any one point in time, and there are a few fantastic suppliers who don't have web shops.
If you do come along to a show, please stop by and say hello, I love meeting internet people in the flesh.

P.S. You're not too late to leave me a comment here, and win yourself a copy of Yarnmaker.

PPS. 20/2/13 Just picked the winner of the copy of Yarnmaker, I gave all the comments except mine a number and used a random number generator, which picked comment number 2, which is Joanne. Joanne, an email should be in your inbox.

Fit for a Queen

Meet Brenhines, my new pattern, designed for handspun, in the latest edition of Yarnmaker magazine. Brenhines means Queen in Welsh.

It's a short cape, designed to keep the chill off your shoulders. I designed it with tailspun art yarn in mind, I'm always being told "these look pretty but how do you use them?", and now I have an example of how you can. 

It's worked in alternate rows with a plain grey Shetland, so it's not overwhelmingly full of locks. 

Here's a close up of the back so you can see what I mean. The locks themselves will stay pretty much intact as you wash and wear the cape, they come off the sheep like that, and sheep aren't know for being gentle with their hair do. 

Of course, if art yarns aren't your thing it also works in a plain yarn. This was worked using some Shetland fleece. 

If you want to spin your own tailspun I can recommend Spin Art by Jacey Boggs, or if you don't fancy spinning your own there are plenty of spinners out there on Etsy. 

If you would like to knit this, for now the pattern is only available in Edition 13 of Yarnmaker. I have 1 copy left in the shop, but have more on their way to me, or it will be available as a download when the rights revert to me. The Ravelry pattern page is here if you want to favourite it, or add it to your queue. 

Meanwhile, I'm giving away my contributors copy, just leave me a comment below, and I'll pick a winner on the 20th February. 

Long Draw

I spent Saturday learning how to do English style long draw at my spinning guild. I'd already taught myself to do American long draw, and until Saturday had presumed the difference would be pretty minimal and I'd just be able to swap between the 2 styles. Half an hour of muttering and swearing later, it quickly became apparent that the 2 styles have rather different nuances of technique, but by the afternoon I'd got there.

The middle skein is from my first attempt, the fleece I was using wasn;t idea, it was a bit too long, and a bit too sticky from some lanolin that had been left in from the washing process. I switched to baby camel (the back skein) which was a bit easier while I taught my hands what to do, and the front skein is the original fleece, but spun once I'd grasped the technique. 

The resulting skeins are beautifully bouncy, really plump and well rounded, they'd be perfect for colour work, and anything where you want warmth. 

Amanda Hannaford ran our workshop, and it was a really excellent day, thoroughly recommended if you get the chance to do one of her workshops.

If you don't live close enough to do a workshop then this video by Amanda is excellent.

A find!

Earlier this week I had a trip to Ikea, we live far enough away that it's a full on day out, usually we're out for 12 hours, so it's pretty exhausting.
While we were looking at fabrics I spotted a cushion, I'd ben looking at cushions all day, but I have a plan that involves weaving some of my own, so hadn't quite seen anything that was "just right".
This one however was perfect!

My very own sheepy cushion, and it was the very last one!

It's not made of wool, but when we got it home and gave it a quick iron it was discovered that it was made of Ramie. Ramie is one of my favourite things for adding to blends at the moment. It's made in the same way as linen, but from nettle stems. It gives a really similar effect to linen, the same drape, with shine, and feel. Works great in wool blends as well. 

As for the sheep they're mostly a mystery. I can definitely spot a Merino, and a Texel,

A Badger Faced

 and a Swaledale

The rest though, are a bit more of a challenge!

Any suggestions, leave them in the comments!

Estuary part 2

Back in December I shared the transformation from batts to yarn in this post. 
The batts in question were a muted brown with flecks of blue, inspired by the colours of the Mawddach estuary. When you spun them, the blue became a little more obvious, creating a subtle, shimmery yarn.

I've since turned the skein of yarn in to a sample shawl for using on the stall at shows, it's also part of my talk that I dod for guilds and spinning groups about combining colours. 

From a distance the subtleness of the blend is apparent

Get a bit closer, and the flecks you saw in the yarn become more obvious. The white bits are partly some of the seacell, partly snow, I photographed this last week trying to do it today would lead to me chasing the shawl half way to England, it's a bit windy out there!

The pattern is Pipers Journey by Paula Emmons-Fuessle,  I think it's great for handspun, I love how garter stitch looks using handspun yarn. This took a smidge over 100g, but I know other people have done it using 100g of fibre, you could always use handspun for the garter stitch, and then do the border in a complementary colour. I love this shape of shawl as well, I end to wear shawls backwards, with the  point at the front, and then the 2 ends wrapped round my neck, and that works best if you have a crescent shape rather than a pure triangle. 

Before The Thaw

The thaw is starting, a warm front in coming in, and rain has started to fall, the snow will all be gone by the morning.
There was still time for one last trip out in the snow though, this time up to some local quarries to look at the icicles. We headed out just as the band of rain was coming in, and it was still just cold enough to be falling as snow.

A ice prison, formed across the entrance to one of the mines.

Snow sticking to the tiny ledges on the rock face

An ice tree in front of a wall of ice

And a last chance to roll in the snow, tomorrow it's back to splashing around in the mud.

Sledging

Final snowy post for a while, the weather is warming up at the end of this week. However, we're making the most of it while it lasts and enjoying the snow.  Apologies for the video quality, it has a certain 1970's cine camera feel to it for some unknown reason!

This is in the field behind our house, the dogs are in long leads because there are sheep in the field, and being rescue dogs they are not to be trusted when it comes to sheep. What you don't see at the end of the video is that Meg had run down the field and managed to pole axe me with her lead!

Who knows what Gwen did in the past when it snowed, but as soon as the sledge came out she immediately wanted to play with it, going in a straight line is rather hard when you have a dog trying to claim the sledge for herself.