Feet up

A few days ago I showed you some pictures of the length of cloth I wove using some handspun.
It's now been transformed in to a new cover for my footstool.

The different fibres didn't shrink in at all the way I was expecting, normally Gotland felts very readily, but instead the BFL/Silk blend has shrunk the most. I do love it though. Most evenings I sit in my chair, in front of the fire. quite often if I'm spinning I'll have one foot on the footstool and the other on the treadle, definitely lazy style spinning!

Lambs

The unseasonal snow arrived at just the wrong time for hill farmer and their lambs. Round here and in most hill farms the rams go in with the ewes around Bonfire Night (November 5th) with the aim to get lambs on April 1st, which is of course this weekend. There's a bit of variation in these dates, but unlike the lowland flocks lambs don't tend to be born until the back end of March when we might get a patch of snow, but the worst of the winter weather should be over.
Of course Mother Nature has ways of messing up the best laid plans. Hill ewes are tough, and excellent mothers, but even they struggle in several feet of snow, and sub zero temperatures for days on end.

These were taken on our walk today, still plenty of snow up on the tops of the hills, and the thaw has been underway for several days. 

Most farmers have got their flocks in lower fields though, and with some extra feed they seem to be doing ok, even if the lambs regard the feeding troughs as a convenient place to have a rest!

Walking back down the valley we came across this, the water form the stream has frozen over the twigs, making a beautiful ice sculpture. 

This tree also caught my eye, the valleys round us have the feeling of being incredibly ancient. Not many people live here, so the ancient woodland still exists.

Tying up the loose ends

Quite literally in the case of this project

It's a proper length of handwoven fabric. Not a simple scarf like I usually dabble in. I have a little Cricket loom which I use for my weaving. It's nothing fancy, just a simple rigid heddle, if I set to, I can usually warp and weave a scarf in an evening should I so desire. For this however, I had a plan, and it required a slightly bigger loom. I'd got some beautifully dyed Gotland from the Wildcraft fibre club, and knew I wanted to weave it, but also knew I didn't just want a scarf from it. 

I have a footstool in my living room, just a basic Ikea chipboard cube, with some foam on top and a grey cover, nothing fancy but it works. I came up with the plan of using the Gotland, but knew I'd need lots more yarn. 

When I go to shows I often spindle spin for most of the day, nothing fancy, just ransom scraps of fibre, as usually I'll be stopping and starting, and I won't be fully concentrating, so the thickness often varies over the course of a day. I'd saved up all those balls of singles, then plyed them, and the grey's toned really nicely with the Gotland. Add in some purple Masham from the August edition of my Best of British club, and some pink longwool singles that had been gifted to me, and I had a pretty huge pile of yarn. When I was at Texere on the Skip North weekend I picked up 2 cones of grey wool/nylon blend to use for the warp, and I got going. 

I borrowed my friend Katherine's Flip loom, worked out the length I needed, added some width on as I knew it would shrink widthways when I took it off the loom and washed it. I wound the yarns on to the shuttle in a random order and used a spit splice to join them. 

Definitely not classical weaving, but I love it, and it's a great way to use up scraps of handspun. It's been washed here, but still needs an iron.

Spring.... or not

Last year I was sat outside, in shorts and t-shirt. 

I think if I did that this year I'd be suffering from serious frost bite!

It started snowing on thursday night, and it's not really stopped since. It was forecast, but I didn't think we'd be looking at this much! The main road is clear, but the cars are stuck at the bottom of our drive, fingers crossed we can dig them out, particularly as the temperatures are due to drop once the snow stops. Here's hoping I can get out to post parcels on Monday morning...

We keep getting mini avalanches off the roof, which keeps me on my toes, the sound of the snow falling and hitting the roof of the back passage is quite startling. 

On the plus side, the delivery man bought my wool delivery yesterday, so I have plenty of new fibre to play with!

Skip North

This weekend I took a bit of time out away from the pressures of work. It's only 5 weeks until Wonderwool, and the next few weeks are going to be rather busy.
I went up to Skip North, it's a knitty and spinny social gathering, based in Haworth Youth Hostel (the village where the Brontes lived). There's trips to local fibre and yarn suppliers, and workshops, and generally a chance to share my passion for all things wooly with like minded individuals.

First stop of the day on Saturday was Texere, this is a huge emporium of yarn of every type. I particularly like their Troon Tweed oiled aran weight, and hatched a plan involving some cones of linen....

That afternoon we got to go on a steam train, I've not been on one since I was a child, so taht was a real treat. The line we went along was the one used in the filming of The Railway Children, and still has lots of period features from the heyday of steam travel in the Victorian era.

Some features are from later in the Railway's history, this advertising sign in particular made me smile!

Star of the show, was of course the steam train itself, a great big black monster, belching steam and smoke. I only wish the ride lasted longer, but before you knew it we were back in Haworth, and it was time to get off. 

Sunday was a trip over to see  Wingham Woolwork, with the added highlight of some rather pretty scatterings of snow on the moors, but before I knew it I was on my way back home again, purse lighter, stomach full of cake, and feeling ready to get back to work. 

The shop will be a bit light on updates over the next few weeks, but odd bits and pieces will no doubt appear from time to time. Make sure you come over and check out the Ravelry group, and I'll let you know when I add new things. 

An eggcident

Something clearly went wrong here....

Yesterday I went to the nest box to collect the eggs and very nearly missed this miniature egg. It's definitely from the chickens as it's shell matches their normal eggs, but it's tiny, about the size of a cadbury mini egg. Normally they lay creme egg sized eggs (on the top left), which given my bantams are half the size of an ordinary hen is still pretty impressive, there's a normal egg on the right for scale. 

Who knows what happened, the egg itself is normal, with a yolk, it's just like it's been shrunk however. The chickens are there usual perky selves, with the exception of the one who has gone broody already, so I don't think it's a problem, just a rather intriguing bit of chicken biology!

Goodies in the post...

Look what arrived today!

Two new drum carders from Paul at Classic Carders. These are on long term loan for me to take out and about with me when I run workshops.  It's a good relationship for both of us, I have more carders for the workshops, and people get to try out Paul's carders who might not have seen them before. The UK fibre industry is great like this, for the most part businesses are highly supportive of one another. When things like the huge postal rises get announced we tend to band together and try to work out how to get round things. 

I've been working on a semi-secret project with Paul for a while now, and hopefully he'll be launching that something new at Wonderwool. I love working with Paul, he's passionate about what he does, and strives for the absolute best in every single carder that he sends out of the workshop (these 2 are supposedly cosmetic seconds because of a blemish on the wood and I can't find the blemish anywhere!). He actually lives just over the border from me, I visited his workshop last summer and we had a lovely discussion about how he started his business, and the technicalities of drum carders.

I use a Classic for all the carding I do for my shop, and hands down it's the carder I recommend. They work fantastically, Paul's customer service is great, and they're made in the UK.
I'll be taking these 2 around the country with me over the next few months, so they'll be put to the test by lots of people.