Home spin at Pat's February 23rd

We had the morning spinning at Pat's with the Alpaca outside keeping an eye on us. Vida made this sweet dog jersey for her little poodle who feels the cold, she is now going to make another one - I expect she needs different colours so that he can be coordinated! He will be the best dressed poodle in West Melton.

Whilst at Homebush Val and I were given the chance to spin some Romney with the longest staple I have ever seen, we later measured it at 25cm.The two skeins on the left are the greasy wool - It was shorn on Saturday, spun and plied on Sunday. The skein on the right is the same wool washed, I was expecting to have to soak it over night as it was very greasy but I washed it in shampoo and soaked it for about 10 minutes - rinsed and repeated! and it came out beautifully clean and soft.

The Romney staples! You might need to zoom in but I can assure that the ruler shows the staple over 25cm!

 

Here is Valerie spinning her greasy Romney, long draw - quite amazing! I have still got a lot to learn!

 

Jayne brought her entry for the festival which was absolutely beautiful, for those of you not at Pat's - You will have to watch this space!

 

Thanks, Pat, for a lovely morning

 

February meeting

It was good to get back to spinners and weavers today after the summer break. There was lots of chat and catching up as well as some sorting out ready for our exciting year.

Vida recently bought Anne Fields book 'Learn to Weave' and is aiming to work her way through some of the projects in the book. She started with these beautiful dish towels having to buy the cotton from the US to follow the book accurately

 

Valerie and Fay made this sweet cot blanket in the up-cycled wool blanket challenge, the detail is wonderful

Jessie very, very nearly finished her socks and just in time, she will need them when she gets back to Scotland in a couple of weeks time

Catherine has been spinning alpaca for the festival challenge in April

She also finished a couple of scarves on the sample it loom

and also dyed a couple of skeins using a glut of blackcurrants mordanted with alum

Pamela would have shown us dozens of stunning master pieces, however, she had rather more help than she could cope with! Double trouble!

 

 

 

 

Welcome

Welcome to 2015, it looks like it's going to be a great year
We got off to a good start by representing the group at the Two Rivers Community Trust Darfield Summer of Fun event held on Waitangi Day, Friday 6th of February

We arrived at the crack of 9.30 and set up a display of work produced by the group, fibre, spun wool and some of the tools of the trade for people to see

We then settled in for the day doing what we love

Valerie displayed the art of kiwi craft 'spinning'

It was warm work all that rolling, Jayne seems pretty relaxed spinning in the conventional way!

Valerie was soon knitting away though while Jayne and I were still spinning!

We also demonstrated with the sample it loom which proved popular with adults and children. Many of the more mature visitors reminiscing about doing something similar at school.

It was a great day with lots of interest in the group and what we do.