Batts and Fibre

So last weekend we had a family outing to Fibre East - Shelley, Emily and me went early and did a Batt course with Jill, then Sue, Pat, Nanny, her friend and Alice all joined us to wander around, watch sheep being sheared and buy stuff!
The batt workshop was great, getting ideas about colour, blending fibres, making batts on a theme and accidentally putting a deposit on a drum carder!?
Then we wandered around and bought lots of fibre, most of it for me to spin for Emily, but some from picperfic for me to spin for me!
Here are some pictures of the batts and the finished sample skeins - I guess my first art yarn!
Bad Day on the Motorway (complete with cars!)

Walk in the woods - think winter time

Then some lovely dyed fibre from Picperic - whose stuff I used for GTs shawl during the spintelligence course;
Twinkle - 70% superwash merino and 30% trilobal nylon - for Emily, two skeins

Susie - 75% organic merino, 25% mulberry silk - 3 skeins, probably for me


I will do another post soon to show all the natural, undyed stuff we also bought, including some fleece that needs washing and scouring - looks like I am getting a stash fit for a busy winter!

Spinning update

So its been ages since I posted last and I have been spinning lots, but just keep forgetting to keep things updated - so here is a quick whistle stop tour of what I have been doing recently.

On herbie;
"Evening Lights" world of wool merino and silk blend bumble bee, and charcoal merino.
513 metres, 215 grams, 16 wpi, (largest on small whorl)

"Midnight Blue" world of wool merino blend and plain black. 153 metres, 165 grams, 10 wpi, (smallest on large whorl)

"Shetland Greens" 100% shetland from knit studio newcastle, maker sue's crafts for enthusiasts. 171 metres, 100 grams, 14 wpi. (largest on small whorl) fractal spun.


On spindles;
"charcoal gleams" wool and nylon mix for socks. singles spun on spindle, plied on ashford. 267 metres, 101 grams, 17 wpi

"Seaside pebbles" Some single colour merino I carded and spindle spun a while ago, 95 grams, 13 wpi


Current WIP;
mini trindle, aiming for lace weight 2 ply, 20 grams sample of BFL in gothic colourway from Freyalyn's Fibres.


Soon to come will be the Tour de Fleece, where I am competing for the spinnotts team, and the aim is to spin everyday of the tour, with challenges on specific days.

As a leaving picture - here is my current spindle family, including the new steampunk spindle from Knit in Nottingham, made by anglergifts.co.uk and my two trindles from trindleman on etsy - but the mini trindle is not in the family shot!

Herbie

So I have accidentally bought a spinning wheel - and given that we are feeling slightly anxious about the last payment on the house the timing seems a little off - but couldn't resist. Herbie is a ladybug bought from The Threshing Barn. I went there on a day of tying wheels - firstly an ashford joy, ashford traveller and kromski fantasia at Wingham Wool Works - great place for browsing and accidentally buying all sorts of fibre! Then, having not liked the joy which I thought I would, and liking the Kromski but recognising its limitations we went on to the threshing barn where I tried the Schacht ladybug and a louet julia. I really liked both, felt the Julia was a bit easier to spin - but it had been a trial machine for 6 months, unlike the bug which had been out for 2 weeks only! After oiling the bug and trying again I really liked it, and think with the option of double drive as well it will take me a lot further. So I bought it - with money I got from teaching 300 GPs!
It seems that wheels, like bikes need names, so I would like to introduce Herbie;

complete with tensioned Lazy Kate.
I have spun a variety of things over the last week - all very beginnerish, which is odd after having cracked things on the spindle - but part of the fun is learning more! Most of the stuff has been rather overspun, but I have managed one successful although somewhat uneven skein;

after a variety of rather shambolic few skeins!


Now might start on some of the fibre I got at Wingham wool works to see if I can be doing something slightly more successful for my fist Guild meeting this saturday - may have to go back to a spindle!?

joining in

So having started to seriously get into spinning, and being involved in a couple of combined projects with Emily, I have been invited to join the blog!
This is just to say Hello, and I will see how I manage to be a part of this?!:)

To date I have mostly spindle spun on the 7 spindles I have, making a variety of yarns, a lot of which were samples. I have made the samples into 2 scarves, and am now doing Spintelligence challenges via Ravelry, and have started the monthly challenges on the Spindlers forum to get the skills to spin a host of different types of yarns. I have also sucumbed to the thought of a spinning wheel and am going to try out a few different ones at the end of the week, so we'll see what happens - Emily is coming along as moral support, and because there is fibre and yarn for sale too!