When Adam delved and Eve span

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow....

2009-05-26T21:21:00.002+01:00

How the days run away from me.. this seems to be what happens when one gets older
Time passes like the days being torn of a paper calendar; I saw that in a film once.

Anyway, I've finally finished spinning a second bobbin of singles on my lovely new Bee. She is absolutely wonderful to spin on.. so smooth and easy to treadle.
Tomorrow I'll attempt plying!

I've been doing more knitting than spinning recently.. socks for my OH; a little cardigan for my newest grand-daughter; another addictive mystery shawl.

I've managed to acquire two new sock books too... no idea how that happened but I can thoroughly recommend "Socks from the Toe up" by Wendy Johnson and "Sock Innovation" by Cookie A (I might even be tempted to knit some socks from the cuff down, her patterns are so wonderful)

My Bee is here.

2009-05-15T22:53:00.000+01:00

My Bee arrived today... more about it tomorrow.

Medieval Illustrations showing spinning

2009-03-30T19:33:00.002+01:00

There are some wonderful illustrations here.

Back to basics....

2009-03-21T14:45:00.009Z

I have returned to spinning my shortdraw style.. not sure exactly what it is but I know that it does give me a semblance of control over the finished yarn.
And how could I resist starting with this beautiful BFL roving from WoolForBrains, called "I dream of Spring"
I did find the spinning much easier and so I've decided to leave the longdraw for another time when I'm more used to the double-drive.

The pictures (taken on my phone) are quite different colourwise and neither as green and springlike as real-life.

Spinning.... sigh..................

2009-03-19T18:55:00.003Z

I'm just finding it a bit frustrating at the moment.
I can't work out if it's because I've installed the double-drive or because I'm trying to spin longdraw from rolags.
I think I should just go back to my old spinning style (all of two months old) and get used to the double drive.
I went to a guild meeting the weekend before last and had a go on a Lendrum wheel; it was lovely... so smooth to treadle and the scotch tension seemed much easier to control. Maybe I made a mistake wanting double-drive; I did think it would give me a more consistent yarn but all I seem to get is a much twistier one......

The best tutorial on spinning from batts EVER

2009-03-14T08:32:00.003Z

Is HERE and it's by Vampy

My Ashford Traveller

2009-03-01T12:40:00.003Z

This is my first wheel... meant to be my only wheel but we'll see.
I decided to buy this one after trying one at the spinning weekend I went on at the end of January. The one I tried was a double drive with a Woolee Winder (which I would love to buy sometime)
I bought my wheel unfinished and used a medium oak coloured Danish oil to protect the wood.
I've now just finished putting the same treatment on the double-drive unit for the wheel and I'm planning to install it sometime today. I'm not sure how this is going to work out at all as all my spinning on this wheel has been done using single drive Scotch tension

And don't you just hate it when....

2009-02-14T13:25:00.002Z

Some silly little oik behind the counter insists on calling you 'mate'?
I wasn't his 'mate' in any sense of the word and if the carrier service that Amazon Prime use was better organized, I wouldn't have been travelling to Basildon in the early hours of Saturday morning to collect a book that Royal Mail would have stuffed through the letter box..

Saint Valentine's Day

2009-02-14T13:10:00.002Z

Beautiful roses from my so romantic other half who puts up with my ever growing stash of fibre, needles, yarn, spindles and now wheel without a murmur...

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

2009-02-01T19:22:00.002Z

Jasmine was born a week ago but I saw her today for the first time.
I now have three beautiful grand-daughters.

Details of the great spinning course at Urchfont Manor and my new wheel will come later.

And Louiz, thanks for all your helpful comments; can't tell you how much I enjoy reading your blog

Hardly any spinning..

2009-01-19T16:05:00.005Z

At my grand-daughter's birthday party on December 22nd, I discovered to my horror (but my DIL's evident relief) that her due date was to be brought forward and grandchild No 3 would be putting in an appearance at the end of this week... January 23rd to be precise.
Horror because I thought I had a whole other month to knit the circular shawl I had planned.
The very next day I made a start on Mandala
I was really pleased with myself; by Boxing Day I was well into the third chart and it was all going well.
But, in the nature of Pi shawls, I had been lulled into a false sense of security and didn't realise just how long the the 4th clue would take to knit.
So here I am; a couple of days to go and desperately trying to get the knitted on border finished in time. I've got two thirds to go, so that's another 64 twelve row repeats to do before I dare look at my lovely lonely spindles again...

2009-01-06T11:30:00.007Z

I have some time off at the end of this month so I've just booked what looks like a great spinning course here at Urchfont Manor near Devizes in Wiltshire.
I'm just hoping they get the minimum numbers for the course to run or I'll be really disappointed.

Thank you, Louiz, for your kind comment about my spinning; I'm beginning to think I just enjoy filling spindles because I tend to lose interest in the yarn once I've wound it off onto a felt ball. (Or maybe I'm just not confident about plying yet)

Drop spindle - winding on

2008-12-23T17:30:00.005Z

A few people have been kind enough to ask me how I wind my spun yarn onto the spindle.
Here's the reply I gave to one of them:
Basically, when I start to wind on, I wind crosses instead of parallel coils and always lay the next coil next to the one before and never on top. I started doing this because I read that it was a method of stopping the yarn moving round on a notchless spindle (It doesn’t, by the way)
I usually start by winding the spun yarn onto my fingers in a figure of eight before starting to put it on the spindle so I have more control.

The fibre is 'Mistral' BFL from Pigeonroof Studios and the spindle one of my favourites; a 2" Goldings ringspindle in lignum vitae weighing in at .95 oz

These colours make me want to dye!

2008-12-17T16:16:00.007Z

This is one of my favourite pictures. I always set this as my desktop at this time of year. There's something about sheep in snow...

Who was then the gentleman?

2008-12-13T15:55:00.009Z

I have discovered spinning!!
Well, to be perfectly honest I've re-discovered it. I did learn to spin many years ago when I was taking the Dip.AD (Diploma in Art and Design) in woven textiles. Mine was the last year of Dip.AD as it changed to a BA the year after I finished the course.
And I didn't last the course; changed to ceramics after 18 months and regretted it ever since.
BUT... I did learn to spin then and I'm learning again now.

Adam and Eve from beautiful Amiens Cathedral is posted with the kind permission of Mary Ann Sullivan, Bluffton University