Dawn Woolly Wednesday April

Hi, finally made it after a mammoth seedling planting on this morning out in the greenhouse. I was listening to the radio whilst out there and all the reports of rain, snow and power cuts, but it was a rather different picture in the garden with sunshine.

On the spinning side of life _ have spun up the 100g each of white, brown and dark brown/black Icelandics previously mentioned I think. I am keeping these as singles like the greys I spun up earlier in the year. I just need to get them on the niddy noddy and set the single ply on these. 

Icelandic wool singles

I have almost finished the blue/lilac/purple roving from my March post (the last 3 photos). 

And I have returned to spinning the Cotswold too. I decided to get it all out and tease it open more as it had compacted and found there were some shorter bits at the butt end of the fleece - can't really tell if it's a double fleece thing (not sure on the Cotswold) or if it was a few second cuts on shearing. Anyway I took all these out and teased the rest, although I separated out some of the curls that I plan to do some dyeing on sometime soon. Here it is - the curls on the left for dyeing, the teased fibre to the right for spinning.

Cotswold fleece for spinning, and some dyeing

Here is the spinning progress, a bit loose on the bobbin, not sure why that is, but it's fine. I am enjoying spinning it now that I'm not getting the lumps in it. Hopefully it will be spun by next month and I'll have moved onto something else.

Cotswold spinning

Much of my time recently has been spent doing things for the Guild. I am the newsletter editor for the local guild and the next issue is due at the April meeting so I wanted to get it done and off to the printers before the Easter weekend. 

Also planning and trying to get some things done for a local hospice charity which the Guild is involved with - the theme is butterflies and will be something we are working on over the next couple of months. The hospice is Naomi House - a fabulous hospice for children and young adults with conditions that mean they are unlikely to reach adulthood. They offer care and respite to families at difficult times, and are a wonderful local charity. 

They have an end of life  butterfly suite and garden next to it, the butterfly suite is a "special chilled room where a child who has died can lay to rest and where families can say goodbye to their child before the funeral". Work created by the guild on the theme of butterflies will go on display in the dovecote in May, and little butterfly pins or other butterfly work will be chosen by family members to go in a memory box for the child they have lost. Such a lovely project to be involved with. I have knitted a couple of butterflies so far and plan to do more and some felting too.

And finally there is the Association of WSD National Exhibition and my entry for the unselected work - which means everyone's work will go on display. The aim is to make something using the crafts of weaving, spinning, dyeing to go in a 6inch ring (see Claire's post linked on her blog Simply ... Life). It can be any method of craft - knitting, weaving, crochet, latchhook, felting, etc, etc using fibres or yarns and the ring.

my ring for the exhibition

Here is mine so far - a knitted circle from some old handspun Dorset Horn left over from other projects. A blank canvas now really! I an going to use some of these tapestry wools to embroider a picture on this side. I then hopefully will felt something to go on the reverse and thus hide the back of the stitches!

I need to take this to the Guild meeting in April so have to finish it soon, so will share a picture next month.

Oh and combining my interests in gardening with interests in fibres and spinning and dyeing, here are some madder plants coming on in the greenhouse from root cuttings I acquired recently - looking good!

Happy fibre days to all, looking forward to seeing everyone's blog posts.

Dawn x

Dawns Woolly Wednesday March 2012

Hello March, hello Spring ... ah spring lambs all around too, gorgeous aren't they?

Cotswold fleece

Well February saw me spinning several things. Firstly I started spinning some of a lovely Cotswold fleece that Kelly sent me last year. The raw fleece is just lovely and has a great lustre. As I had stored it a while I do think it had compacted a little so tried a few things in the preparation of it. 

 

 Preparing the Cotswold to spin

Cotswold single (so far)

Carding was not so easy as it is quite a long staple. Spinning it was lovely, although I found it was bumping a little at the curly ends. I then tried just flick carding and combing it and this seemed better to then spin from the open locks.

I have a project in mind for the Icelandic wools I have previously spun (grey and grey/brown) and wanted to add to those the white, brown and brown/black Icelandic roving. So I have spun the 100g of white Icelandic and have started on the brown one. The project is a bag for spinning items that I hope to felt, unless I change my mind by then which isn't unheard of!

In other spinning news, firstly a confession to having added another Spinning wheel to my home. She actually came to live with us last year, bought 2nd hand from another spinner who hadn't used it in a while. She is a Wee Peggy, a lovely little wheel that I had admired for a while. Here she is next to my much loved Louet.

My other girls - Louet on the left, Wee Peggy on the right

Late last year I started trying to get used to this wheel as it is a Double Drive wheel which I had not really tried before, previously I had only used Scotch tension on the Ashford Traditional and Irish tension on the Louet. I could not get the balance quite right and it wasn't drawing the yarn onto the bobbin properly, no matter how I adjusted it. I wondered if it was just me, having heard that many people say they can't get on with DD wheels, whereas some spinners love them and can't get on with Scotch or Irish tension! So I switched it to scotch tension and got it working pretty okay, but still felt the wheel wasn't quite right.

So in February I gave the wheel some more attention - a thorough cleaning, oiled the wood and oiling the moving parts, a bit more spinning and suddenly she felt like she was singing. Leaving it on the scotch tension for a while she was spinning nicely so I thought I would switch it back to Double Drive an try again. A few adjustments and it seemed the balance was there, yarn was pulling nicely and winding onto the bobbin smoothly. I had cracked it, and I love it. I have it set at a level that works for me, having been used to the strong pull of the Louet Irish tension.

So there we are, confession time over, yes I have 3 spinning wheels here. Although one is much neglected, my first wheel so I have a sentimental attachment to it, but I think it may be time for it to go to a new home.

So having now successfully got the Wee Peggy working for me, I have spun some multicoloured roving I had and have two lovely bobbins of bright colours (you may need sunglasses for the next photo). I have decided I don't want to ply them together but will ply them with something else - I have plans to dye some wool in a contrast and ply with that, a project for the coming weeks.

bright roving (colinette)

I have moved onto spinning some more pre-dyed roving and am loving how she spins.

 

 

Latest roving spinning on the Wee Peggy

I will return to the Cotswold on the Louet when the Icelandic is spun and then a couple of other samples Kelly sent me. I washed some of my grey zwartble x fleece last week, I intend to wash more and wash some of the pure zwartble ram (darker but not black) too; oh and I washed some merino too - more on that another day. Then there's some curly longwools waiting ...

So what have you been spinning? (or knitting, felting, weaving, etc)