Category Archives: weald and downland museum

Lovely locks

It’s that time of year again, the Rare Breeds show at the Weald and Downland Museum is coming round again.  I think it must be six years since my first entry, which was made using a spindle created from a CD and a chopstick!


I have one project well underway, but I’m hoping to get a skein of polwarth ready to enter as well.  I bought a small amount of locks a few months back, have washed them and started flick carding them.  They were not really dirty to start with, but a gentle soak and rinse made the locks look like something out of a washing powder advert!

In attempt to keep my hands from complaining too much about overuse, I am swapping between carding and spinning.  Spinning this fleece is a pleasure, I must remember to take my time plying as that is where I tend to get impatient and it all goes horribly wrong…

 

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Celebrating small successes

It’s been that time of year again, the Rare Breeds Show at the Weald and Downland came around for its annual festival of all things farming and woolly. More fleece was donated by my friend in Shetland, this time from Katie the Katmoget: IMG_2465 I battled with the mini-combs and managed not to injure myself, which was a success in its own right!  Eventually I came up with a small skein of fairly lightweight yarn, which the judges kindly awarded a red rosette: IMG_2543 Joy, owner of The Knitting Goddess, and Rachel of My Life in Knitwear have recently run a competition to find an image to use as inspiration for colours in a new mini-skein set. I was delighted to be included in the shortlisted photos with this shot of Bognor Pier: IMG_2466 Plotting new designs continues. Now that there are well-established processes in place to deal with VATMoss I hope to finally self publish some patterns as the autumn progresses. Watch this space…