More sheep-related things

There’s a spinning wheel on ebay, for £49.99, about 20-30 mins drive away from me, good working order – what’s the catch?

No, no, must be sensible. I went along to a Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers meeting on Saturday and had great fun. A friend from FOE let me experiment with her drop spindle, which I slowly got the hang of, though I’d practically bitten my tongue off by then – the lady next to me said ‘BLAST!’ very irately and looked extremely shocked and bashful afterwards, and I was tempted to say much worse things when I kept dropping the thing on the floor and couldn’t get the two bits of yarn to fix together, and had to restrain myself from shouting profanities in a village hall full of 80-something-year-old women. I also got to play with carders, things a bit like hairbrushes that you use to get all the fibres going in the right direction before starting to spin, and I now have the drop spindle on loan, along with some rolags (round bits of wool ready to spin) to practice on, and on the way home I mentioned to the lady who very kindly gave me a lift that I was primarily interested in spinning, but having seen some of the lovely peg loom cushions and rugs on the Woolly Shepherd’s website and WW’s mat on Creative Living I also wanted to have a go at weaving, she said, ‘Oh, would you like to borrow a peg loom?’

I also, somehow, unintentionally came away with some raw fleece. Quite a lot of raw fleece, in fact. Fortunately, Scientist Boyfriend was out running when I came home, so I hid it in the spare room, and yesterday I washed some of it outside while working. I have some pictures, which I’ll post when I have more time.

Hmmmm. My next project was meant to be a hooky mat (see here for lots of fab rugs and instructions) and I had some hessian all ready.

So many beautiful textiles, so little time…..

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