Razzle dazzle weaving.

Spring is not here yet, but there was a little light left in the sky when we set out to our evening meeting on Monday.  The full moon was rising, which might have had something to do with it, but it's a cheerful thought that the days really are getting longer.
Yvonne is knitting a scarf known as a Quaker Yarn Stretcher (why?) (does anyone know?), which sounds fearfully complicated with decreases and increases at the ends of the rows.  However, she says it's very easy, and a great way to use up bits and pieces of yarn.

Val brought her husband's amazing rug to show us; made with her handspun fibre and woven by him on his giant, home-made pin loom.  It has been beautifully made, properly fulled, and is quite honestly a masterpiece.  Comfortingly heavy, jazzy to look at but soft to the touch.  We were all fearfully impressed, and possibly a bit jealous of such a result on a first attempt at weaving.

Our next meeting is part of our "winter tour", and then we're back again in Abergele on the fourth Monday in March (which is Easter Monday, and it will be Summertime!!)
AC

Spinning Sunday

For once the weather has been kind:  cold certainly, but also dry and sunny.  The snowdrops are out, the daffodils are out in some places and the lambs are skipping around the fields.   So where were we?  Indoors, spinning.
Half a dozen of us met at Hilary's house and luxuriated in her large, centrally heated living room with a view across the valley through the French windows.  The birds feeding in her garden provided almost as much interest as the spinning; all the "usual" culprits (bluetits, great tits, chaffinches, robins, collared doves, a wren and a coal tit) but also a great spotted woodpecker which caused a lot of pleasure with its bright red cap.  And then, several fly-pasts by the local sparrow hawk, who didn't actually catch anything.
But back to the spinning:
Two of the earliest arrivals spent a happy morning mastering the art of using a drop spindle (and one of them had done no spinning at all previously).  Drop spindles are so portable, and of course perfect for hypnotising babies...

(note also Kate's beautiful knitted slippers).
The rest of us took advantage of a whole day to ourselves to fill bobbins for our latest projects (or just to fill bobbins with no particular project in mind).  It's amazing how much you can do when you just sit and spin. And as always, no two wheels are exactly the same.  Here's one of Hilary's:

Thanks very much to her for the hospitality and unlimited cups of tea.
AC
2016