New Toy

Woolfest yesterday was fabulous. My friend and I had a wonderful time.... and it didn't rain at all for the entire day so we were able to see all of the truly stunning views as we drove... Cockermouth is in the Lake District and the mountains and lakes were at their very best as we drove through.  It was my turn to be passenger this year so I got to gaze at the scenery and amuse myself by choosing the house I would retire to.  On the way back though I didn't see much of the scenery.  I must admit, I played with my new toy.  Mainly because my mate claimed it wasn't possible to operate my toy in the car... so I was keen to prove her wrong. :)


I was quite a good girl this year, coming back with only my new toy and its associated paraphernalia, and some dye.  As said items were reasonably inexpensive, my bank manager won't  be very upset. 

I've been sort of wondering about how easy it would be to master a drop spindle for a good while... I nearly got one last year, but was persuaded it was a bad plan and of course I do have quite a few other projects on the go and  need to acquire a new skill/time consuming interest, about as much as I need a hole in the head.   However, this year, everywhere I looked at Woolfest there were drop spindles and lovely fibres to put on them.  And after a lot of discussion, (seriously... a LOT of discussion), observation of clever people with these spindles (both top and bottom whorl varieties), and two different demonstrations, I caved and got a (very inexpensive) top whorl drop spindle and some fibre.    And for anyone unsure, yes... you CAN operate a drop spindle in a moving vehicle, but small children (and some adults) in passing vehicles may point at you.

In the photo you can see my new spindle, some of the fibre I got to use with it, this one is part of the fabulously named "Jacob Humbug", together with  my very first, and truly terrible, attempt at hand spun yarn from said Jacob Humbug. 

The Jacob Humbug was several shades of natural colour wool from Jacob sheep.  The darker shades are all spun up (with various levels of success) into singles, washed, have been weighted to get out the kinks (there are loads more kinks than I think there ought to be) and are in the airing cupboard drying.  Next I am going to spin those light colours in the photo up, and then they will get plied with the dark colours, to hopefully make a yarn that is two colours twisted together.  I hope that this yarn will be able to be knitted.  But am not sure that it will.  :) 

You Tube has been my friend so far.  That first ball took me about six hours to spin the singles, which kept breaking, and the singles vary in weight from laceweight to bulky along their length, and the twist varies a lot too.  I don't think that first ball will be able to be knitted up, but I shall keep it anyway, because I'm actually pretty proud of that tiny little ball of yarn (there's only about ten or fifteen metres of yarn but that ten or fifteen metres encompasses a hugely steep learning curve)  but it IS yarn... not fluffy fibre and I will get better. 

It didn't take quite as long to spin as I thought it might, once I got it going, and learned how to attach new pieces of fluff to the fluff I was using.  Steep, steep learning curve, and many, many questions still.  I still need to learn SOOOOO much, but I did, technically, create yarn from fibre within 24 hours of first being shown how to do so. 

I also have a lovely hank of Blue Faced Leicester fibre, undyed (though I shall probably dye it), and two small bits of Blue Faced Leicester that are dyed.  One is blue/teal and purple, the other is red. I also have two sample bags that my friend bought for me; one of alpaca and one of cashmere, that I can play with and two 100g bags of alpaca fibre (which I learned after I bought them are NOT a beginners fibre).  So expect to see more bizarre yarn experiments as I get to grips with my new toy.