The smell of spring is in the air...

While the northern hemisphere is about it go into cooler weather, the southern hemisphere is looking forward to some warmer weather after a winter with very variable conditions - from very light "snow", and extremely heavy rainfall with flooding in our Adelaide Hills and metropolitan areas, through to balmy days where short sleeves were necessary in place of beanies and scarves.

 

 

A couple of years ago I purchased some gorgeous fleece from Dani in Victoria who sent me some English Leicester which varies from brown/grey to chocolate brown. Finally, I've dug this out of my stash of fibre and been spinning this up. I'm very pleased with the minimal preparation required for this lovely fibre. I've really only needed to tease out with my fingers then spin. The fibre doesn't want to spin thick though, so some extra spin is required to hold the yarn together. Prior to spinning, I've attempted to sort the colours between the grey and the chocolate. I've spun up mostly the grey/brown which I'm really pleased with and plan to ply that together. Also, I'll keep some singles to ply with the chocolate later so there are essentially 3 different yarns. 1) grey/brown plied with grey/brown
2) grey/brown plied with chocolate 3) chocolate plied with chocolate.

The spin in progress. A pleasure to spin

The raw fleece (English Leicester)  

The feel of the fibre is not as soft as the merino I've been working with, but I do believe it will be perfect for socks - which requires a fibre which is harder wearing. I'm getting excited about the thought. I've not made socks before with my own handspun, so watch out for my future blogs.

I hope you enjoy reading my blogs and would be happy for you to follow and share. Thanks very much.

I must go now - listening to Sunnyboys "Happy Man" and spinning, is my happy place. :)

Until next time, take care, find your happy place and enjoy. :)                                                        

Im back after a period of absence....

Dear friends,

I'm back after a period of absence.

It is great to be back. I've been doing bits and pieces. I've not been able to do some things until very recently...like spinning and driving due to health reasons, but now thank goodness I'm on the mend.

A couple of weeks ago I came across a second hand Ashford Joy which I purchased as an early birthday present. I've mostly used the old original Ashford Traditionals and I also have an another upright wheel - the Camelot which is presently out of action (requiring leather replacement thanks to overzealous children trying to fast treadle on it when I was out of sight... 20 yo and 9 year are the main culprits ;) )..

The Joy (pictured above), took a little getting used to but I've now found is great to use. I hadn't initially screwed the spindle into the thread firmly enough and after several attempts of spinning having the flyer pop out I got serious and figured out the issue. Since then, I've no problems, and really enjoying using the new wheel.

I love how it neatly folds up and tucks into it's own nifty bag. I am so impressed with it and consider it was worth every cent. My only real complaint would be that it comes with 3 bobbins and not 4 like the Traditional. One of the upsides though is that I have other bobbins (which came with my other Traditional wheels) which are apparently compatible. I will be testing this today because I managed to fill all three bobbins last night - 2 with single ply at the moment the 3rd with the plied yarn. I want to leave it on the bobbin for a wee bit to set the twist.

I've been doing some spinning on my Traditional which I have tucked in a corner in my kitchen when in there - spinning up some merino which I have processed from raw fleece (very satisfying but laborious process).

 

  

 

When in the lounge (like last night watching our beloved Crows football team), I have been using the Joy, which quite frankly is a joy to use. I've been spinning some mill processed Corriedale which is just bliss to spin up. It is like 1kg of continuous skinny cloud.

 

 

I've got to get some other things done now, so until next time, I wish you good health and much happiness. :)