Woolly Wednesday - August 2012

Welcome to our Woolly Wednesday gathering for August, come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month. All crafts and inspiration welcome.It's a little quiet here some months, we would love to hear from you. Have you been spinning, knitting, felting, crochet, etc


I would just like to say thankyou to Kelly for all the encouragement, support and friendship I have experienced during the lifetime of this blog and before and want to wish you all the best with your move. I shall miss you very much and hope our paths meet again one day.
This blog was born from a conversation via our other blogs, a kind of "shall we start a joint spinning inspiration blog" and went on from there. I enjoy posting here, wish I could find more time to post more but enjoy our Wednesday gathering each month. In light of Kelly moving away, if anyone is interested in co-blogging here or guest posting maybe, please let me know. It would be lovely to share this online gathering with you. The more the merrier.
Dawn x


Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture -  upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can.

Dawns August Woolly Wednesday

Since the last Woolly Wednesday I have finished the spinning for the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry and loved every minute of it. I will definitely be taking part again next year and set myself some targets.

Here are the results of my spinning for the TDF

 Polwarth 2 ply (loved spinning this)

 Total results of my TDF spinning - Olympic yarn, Polwarth, Shetland single, 
mixed scrappy yarn, Kerry Hill and Manx on bobbins, silk/wool/acrylic mix on spindle

 Olympic ring yarn on the Niddy Noddy

And my finished knitting using the Olympic yarn spun for the TDF - a little project I set myself for a bit of fun and knitted up into this linked rings scarf for Imogen. We shall be taking in the atmosphere at the Olympics in London, so maybe this will come out of the bag if the evenings are cooler. I have also made a hairband for her - just a few stripes of the colours in the same order.

 Olympic rings scarf

Look forward to seeing what everyone else has been spinning.  I shall really miss Kelly when she leaves the UK for her homeland and am sure everyone will join me in wishing her the best, hopefully we will meet again in blogland or elsewhere.

If anyone would like to become a regular poster on Spinspiration, please get in touch with me - would love to keep this blog as a space to share inspiration, no pressures or advertising ... just a fun virtual spin and chat group.

Dawn x

Dawn - Woolly Wednesday July

Well I spent Woolly Wednesday day travelling by train to a local town to listen to a talk by the very talented natural dyer and author of a great book on natural dyeing, who also happens to be a member of our guild. How great that is for us, so many fabulously talented members to learn so much from. I had my spindle with me for a little travelling spinning.


I'm taking part in the Tour de Fleece this year on Ravelry and part of my goals is to spin daily for at least half an hour, so I used some of my travelling time to achieve the goal for the day and will have the wheel spinning later.

Here is my spindle on the journey ...

 catching the train

 having a little spin

 on the return trip

a little more spinning!

On the spindle is a blended fibre of Wool/Silk/Acrylic and it is spinning quite fine. I actually had previously spun a reasonable amount of this but I recently knitted it direct from the spindle onto a piece of artwork a friend is creating - a lovely woolly project that has been travelling around and will go on display in a local art gallery in the Autumn. So back to spinning more of this on this lovely little spindle that just spins and spins and spins.

On the wheels for the TDF I an spinning up breeds of sheep that I have not spun before as my goals, and also as a way to get spun all those bits and pieces of fleece I have around. I am spinning Manx Loughtan on the Louet wheel, only a little bit done so far - need to prep some more fibre.

A little Manx spun for the TDF

On the Wee Peggy wheel I have done more spinning - the first breed I am spinning is some Polwarth which is a lovely bright white, soft and bouncy. I have spun one full bobbin and am onto the second one, and have a lovely pile of Polwarth rolags sitting waiting to be spun.

 One full bobbin - Days 1-3 of the TDF including prep

 Batt carded on the drum carder

Day 4 of the TDF spinning

Lovely pile of rolags of Polwarth ready to spin

I am going to finish the Polwarth first, then get more Manx spun and then look at the next breed to start on. I've been reminded today about some Whiteface Dartmoor that Kelly sent me last year so may well get that one out next as she has said to me how lovely it is spinning up for her. I have a lovely selection of others to move onto too - lets see how many I can work my way through for the duration of the tour.

Oh I nearly forgot, here is the blue yarn I was spinning and dyeing recently all finished, plied and in a lovely big fluffy skein. Looking into a project for this yarn soon hopefully.

 300g skein of my Ocean Waves blue yarn

Look forward to seeing others linking up, come and share your woolly adventures with us.

Woolly Wednesday July 2012

Welcome to our Woolly Wednesday gathering for July, come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month. All crafts and inspiration welcome.It's a little quiet here some months, we would love to hear from you. Have you been spinning, knitting, felting, crochet, etc

Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.

Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can. Back soon!

Kelly Woolly Wednesday for July 2012

I have managed to spin up quite a few skeins this past month. We are emigrating end of August and apart from having so much to organise, I have so much on my mind, and I find turning to spinning is a good time to think things through and it is so incredibly therapeutic. All those concerns slip through the fingers and result in some creativity, something beautiful, and more plans thought through!

Here are my recent spins from left Whiteface Dartmoor (white), North Ronaldsay(light grey), Mohair (darker grey) Zwartbles (black with brown specks) and Hebridean (black).  What I was interested in with my choice of wools in this lot was the different personalities, textures.  The mohair was an already processed tops and whilst it was so soft and easy to spin, really nothing compares to the satisfaction of spinning raw wools and experiencing their different characteristics.

The Whiteface Dartmoor is one of the most ancient of British sheep breeds and is currently on the at risk list.  It is a lustrous longwool and I was so happy with the resulting yarn.  I expected a coarser yarn and I was pleasantly surprised.  The longwool was so easy to spin, so white and drafted so easily.   I have seen it recommended for carpets but this is fine and simply gorgeous.  Maybe I got lucky with a fantastic fleece!

Whiteface Dartmoor

 North Ronaldsay was next.  The little seaweed eating rare breed which and I was interested in spinning this up as this fleece has two layers - the soft, short undercoat and the longer, coarser guard hairs.  Spun together, the resulting yarn is so full of character.  Not soft enough to knit up in garments yet gorgeous for another texture type project. 

North Ronaldsay

I am hoping to spin up enough Zwartbles to knit a jumper for my husband.  The fleece is black/brown is lighter sunbleached tips which results in a lovely specked yarn.  Full of character for a jumper.

Zwartbles

And lastly the Hebridean - another Scottish rare breed.  This was a lovely dark black and another double coat although I couldn't really differentiate between the two layers easily with the wool I spun.  Mine seemed mostly to be the courser hairlike top coat!.  Whilst I am not sure what I will use this skein for(it is mostly used for hardwearing items), the fleece appealed to me because it was a lovely deep black and an interesting spin.  It spun very easily but felt more hairy, frizzy, rather than woolly and I love the look of the sheep! 

Hebridean

Besides this lot, I have been plugging on with the Shetland (brown and cream) I was spinning last month and have nearly spun it all up.  I am also planning to try dyeing with natural indigo in the next week or so and can't wait to get to it!