Alice Jean

Some ramble about my spinning adventures. This here is merino Made into a tote. One photo before and one after felting. I have to admit I am very pleased with the result It came out just as I imagined. Also... I ordered some Superwash BFL Top at Babylonglegs . 'Very Berry' and some undyed BFL fibre Superspeedy delivery and it came with some coffee. ;-) The 'Very Berry' is on the wheel now and it spins up beautiful. I so love it! Today I played a bit with this new drum carder First I tried some Merino A nice first batt came off Second try out was some raw fleece of an Ouessant And here is the batt. Not bad at all, but this fleece was more difficult to card. Well, I will give the fleece some much needed more washes before I try again anyway.

Not much news here on the woolly front. Still spinning 200 grams of reddish BFL and spun some silk Also embellished a pair of pants (size small) with a Flower Fairy theme

Here I am, a brand new spinner. And now I know for sure, working with wool has truly become a passion. I only lack a few sheep in the back garden. It all begun with a spinning wheel. A few days ago she brought me an Ashford Kiwi (Where is Igglepiggle hiding?) And not only the wheel, she made me this gorgeous threading hook and dyed some sliver in the most beautiful colours. I love them both! This afternoon I had my first spinning lesson. Learned how to spin, how to ply and even Navajo plying. The first photo shows some BFL, the photo at the bottom is a merino. I think this will become an addiction...

Having 3 handspindles there's no excuse left. I have to learn spinning. To be honest, I tried several times, using online tutorials, but I did not get the hang of it. My big problem is to get the spindle twisting in the right direction. It just did not work out. Kind of frustrating. In the end I decided to look in that 'Spin it' book I have for some time now (and never looked at). There was one sentence about rolling the spindle on the leg towards the hip. I tried... and it worked! As there is some yarn around the shaft now, even the spinning itself seems to work. Okay, the spun yarn looks very very slubby and I really hope it will improve.

Remember this post? I was the lucky winning visitor on Babylonglegs . Today the goodiness came in... and boy, how spoiled we are. Oh yes, WE! Dory was not forgotten. Did I ever mention she adores sheep? So much she pretends to be a sheep a great part of the day! Well, she got a notebook, a ruler and a pen with images of sheep. She took the ruler and book even with her to sleep, I did not allow her to take the pen as well ;). And there was more. A lovely letter from Sarah and a beautiful drawing from Sarah's son. A hand made drop spindle, perfect for beginners like me, and some BFL fiber to spin. Also DK pure wool in variegated greens. You have to know how I love these kind of longies and I am plotting to knit Dory a pair like them, because they are so legging like. This DK is perfect to knit them. Will keep you informed about any progress on these leggings to be. And then... handspun Corriedale. I love the feeling of it! Sarah, you are the best! xx

With all those sheep we met during our walks, I made the mistake to think there should be knitting wool in one of the many 'woollen mills'. Stupid thought, I have been in Edinburgh Mills more than once and they sell no yarn at all. But I didn't think of that, all I remembered was a Woollen Mills near Blarney Castle , where was a whole department of knitting wool. I have to say that was four years ago. Nevertheless, when I found out there were 2 so called 'woollen mills' near us, I constrained the whole family to go with me :). But it was disappointing, no yarn. The lady I asked about it had to laugh when she heard my assumption. Another lady pointed me to a third woollen mill, they had sheep there, and as far she knew, there should be some wool as they also had spinning classes. She was correct about that. That mill had sheep, had spinning classes only at Saturdays (I was there on Friday) and they had a little knitting wool. And I have had a good conversation wit...

This is a Gotland sheep. Doortjes absolute favourite at Woolfest . Oh yes, there were many sheep more, but the Gotland sheep were the most attractive to her. I was allowed to see one stand at the time and then we had to head back to those sheep immediately. For me as wool lover Woolfest was worthwhile. It is a great pleasure to feel and see all kinds of wool and the sheep who produce that particular wool. And to see all the magnificent colours of hand dyed yarn. And to see a lot of people spinning and weaving. She gave me this drop spindle and some Merino roving. Unfortunately I was not able (in time) to attend the 'Spinning with Hand Spindle' workshop, so I have to learn it myself from the Internet. Or maybe I find myself a spinners group in the area, we do have a lot of sheep here :). I did not only watch, but also bought some stuff. One kilo of undyed organic wool, a bar of Olive soap (one of the things I want to do in the near future is felting wool), two bars of Woolfat ...