Spinning

Sorry there are a lot of photos, if you are not interested in spinning look away now...

The Montgomeryshire Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers had a friendship day yesterday.
I've never seen so many wheels of different sizes, and they were all able to travel... some had come from North Wales others from Cheshire....




Some knew what they were doing - the speed of the spinning was amazing - and some weren't even watching what they were doing !

The lovely Rita had the only other Louet wheel in the room, and she showed me how to use mine.
Together with help from Diane and Mary I managed to produce my first skein of spun and plyed wool.



Before being washed, it came from a 'very dirty' fleece...


And look at the difference some washing up liquid and warm water makes...

It is now dripping in the conservatory, too windy to even think about putting it outside....


This is how it started out, the dirty fleece, and some rolags ready to be spun.
One good turn deserves another and Diane gave me this and another bag of fleece - currently hiding in the cupboard under the stairs away from the cats !
She had run out of money when I spotted a bin linner with a jacobs fleece washed and made into a batt and they only wanted £2.50 for it .... so I paid for it quickly


This is some of my purchases, a SW&D bag for £2, a small amount of Wensleydale curls, and I got two bags of Mid Brown Ryeland, as recommended by Mary - previously I had been trying with washed, dyed tops not good for the beginner I was told...
I did also get a book on Lace knitting, that will be in a future booky post...

Bargain of the day ......
And they had a sale table where members were selling things for themselves.
By the table were three bin bags, and in the bags were Alpaca trimmings. We split a golden brown and chocolate brown between the two of us and the other Dian had the other one....It was cut by an amateur and there is quite a bit of straw in it but it's relatively clean.....

And the price...

All this for £5, I think there is about three kilos..