Abergele WSD flock visit

 

Making history for our Guild, we got out in the field with the Shetlands whose fleece we've been spinning for the last few years. Jenni's flock was excited to see us, too. Perhaps it had something to do with the interesting buckets of feed she was bringing them. For once, the sheep flocked towards the people, providing opportunities to examine the lambs, depth of coats, stroke their hard heads and hear about the lambing statistics this year. Lambs were strong and showed all the colouring variations of their type:  panda-eyed Yuglets, tan Moorits, dark Gulmogets with white bellies, a Mirkface with a white stripe and dark patches on the face. Then there were the rams, tan Moorits with surprising black depths to their fleece.

Walking the fields in bright sunshine and long views down the valley, it was great to be listening to the sheep and dogs. Back indoors there was an impressive display of rosettes and show photos,and a welcome tea.  

B.T.

 

Some new links to inspect.

For those of you who don't do Facebook, or who haven't realised that by clicking on the "Home" button on the top right of our Facebook page you can see some interesting extra stuff:

http://tomofholland.com/ will take you to the blog of Tom, an expatriate Dutchman living in England.  Believe it or not, he darns things.....but he also knits, and his blog has lots of links to follow.  He writes about the Sanquhar glove pattern, which our late member Jean de Salis used to knit.

http://www.shetlandwoolbrokers.co.uk/  Jamieson & Smith, well known to all I'm sure.

http://www.shetlandwoolweek.com/  - fairly obviously, a week's festival of wool in Shetland.

http://www.rozannehawksley.com    Textile artist - you  may have seen her exhibition in Ruthin Craft Centre some years back.
Have fun (and watch this space for a report of our visit to Jenni's flock of pedigree sheep)
AC

Sunday Spinning, May 12th

A small but select gathering on yet another cold, wet Sunday.  Lots of spinning and chat, and lovely cake (thanks to Jenni & June)

Jenni & Bryn getting some work done

Jenni plying yarn from her own sheep on an Ashford "Joy" wheel

Bryn's plying on an Ashford traditional wheel. (Bird's eye view - stray toes removed with the clone brush)

Krithia spinning Shetland fleece, also on a Traditional Ashford wheel

Superwash marino for a baby's shawl on Alison's "Traveller" wheel

A portion of gorgeous red silk on Betty's beautiful wheel. (I think it might be a Timbertops???)

Our next treat is a visit to Jenni's flock of pedigree sheep, and then we meet again in a month's time for more spinning, weaving and cake.
AC

The Abergele Guild is on Facebook!

I tried to think of a snappy title for this post but failed, as you can see. 
Despite reservations (do we need a blog and a Facebook page?  do I really want to spend even more time on the Internet than I do already?)  we have decided to join Facebook.  The link to our nice new page is at the top of the Links section on the right.  You may also click here while this post is in view, although of course it will work its' way down the screen and eventually fall off at the bottom. I haven't discovered how to put one of those blue Facebook buttons on this (Google) blog, but maybe there's a way.
The page has been running for 24 hours, and has already attracted a lot of traffic.  The poor old national Association of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers had only had 15 "likes" in three and a half months when I visited their page yesterday - if we carry on at the rate we are doing we will pass that in less than a week.  However, I hope that people visiting our site will also see what the Association are up to on their page.
So we hope that our venture into the world of social networking will raise our profile and that of our craft, and may also attract some visitors - and even some new members?
AC

Friendship Day, Sunday April 14th 2013

Our Friendship Day was held in the Memorial Hall in LlanfairTH., on a day of gales and driving rain.  The weather really has been terrible this year!  Despite the storms most of our members managed to attend, and we had a number of visitors as well.  Tea and cake were available in huge quantities, so some of us saved our lunches till later.  We all managed to do a fair bit of spinning, and with a good variety of yarns on the bobbins our visitors had a good opportunity to see what we do with our time.

Fibres from "Mam a mi" (with my apologies for the glare off the polythene bags - I think the sun might have come out briefly!)

Thanks once again to Kath of "Mam a mi" for bringing her wonderfully dyed fibres for us to treat ourselves.

Fine felt scarves

Here is the first photograph in what I hope will be a fine collection of scarves made in Helen Melvin's workshop:

Sherry B.

 

and some more:

Yvonne

Betty

Krithia