Being in two places at once...

Today we were in two places at once, 7 miles apart.
Jenni F. and her Gazebo Gang were at the Gwrych Castle Fete in Abergele, survived the cold and probably met the best part of a thousand people.  Val's husband provided refreshments from the campervan and earned the title of Guild Roadie. (Pictures to follow, I hope.)
A select group of less adventurous folk came to LlanfairTH and stayed in the warm, with cake, and got a great deal done. Several full bobbins and some finished weaving between us. (Pictures to follow, once I work out how to upload them from a tablet computer.  The eventual solution: email the pictures to myself, and then upload them from the P.C.)

First of all, the Cake Picture - affected badly by the red heat lamps

More amazing fibres from Katie Weston - these are a very dark plum colour with touches of peach

Jill's colourful weaving on a Kromski knitters' loom.  This is a rigid heddle loom designed to take knitting yarn; it has a neat warping board incorporated into the base and folds up neatly with the weaving in situ.  Jill is weaving red merino on one shuttle and red merino plied (plyed?) with recycled sari silk on the second shuttle.

Quiet concentration on the other side of the room.

Friendship Day, 2015

Thank you very much to all who helped to make our Friendship Day such a success on Sunday, April 12th. The weather was, quite frankly, terrible:  windy, cold and wet, and we were very glad to be inside.  Despite the poor travelling conditions our visitors came from all over the area, and by lunchtime the hall was a veritable hive of activity; spinning, weaving, braiding, knitting, crocheting and more.
As usual, our "Stash table" provided a way of getting rid of unwanted stuff, before restocking with gorgeously dyed fibres from "Mam a mi.  Jenni Frost brought some prepared fleece from her flock of Shetland sheep (and didn't take much home). 
Our request to bring a plate of food" turned up trumps, and people brought a brilliant variety of goodies, from home made bread and biscuits to exotic chocolate traybake, with all sorts of savouries and sweets in between.  We had lots of unsolicited help with the washing up, too, which was greatly appreciated.

Waiting for the rush...

Mam, ( "Mam a mi") and some very tempting packets of fibre.

Jenni's Shetland stall.

Busy,

busy, busy.

So, that's over for another year, but there are lots of other opportunities for us to meet like-minded spinners and weavers over the next twelve months, starting with the Clwyd Guild Friendship Day in Llysfasi next Saturday.
A.C.

Another month almost finished..

..and another evening meeting in Abergele.  Fortunately the roadworks finished today, and access to Capel Mynydd Seion is now unimpeded.  As usual our members had brought a varied selection of fibres for spinning, and we all managed to spin a yarn (or two).
And thanks once more to Val for the cake!

Busy hands no. 1:  Helen and her own natural-dyed fine fibres.

Busy hands 2.: June knitting basket stitch.

Bryn spinning Shetland fleece for her Certificate of Achievement.  The fine, fluffy short staple is quite a challenge.

Hilary spinning a luscious green mix from Hilltop Cloud fibres.

Activity on one side of the room

and on the other side, too.

See you all at our Friendship Day next month.
AC

Our Winter Tour: Part 1

Our thanks to Bryn for volunteering to host the first day of our Winter "Tour", if that's the right word for it.  As it can be cold and miserable in North Wales in the winter months, two members of the Committee have kindly invited us into their homes for our Sunday meetings.  On February 8th. a goodly number of us journeyed to Bryn's house and had a lovely day spinning and chatting.  After a bitterly cold, foggy and icy start to the day the weather turned sunny and clear, apart from a persisting black haze over the hills in the distance. Bryn generously made two delicious kinds of soup, and other members brought cake. Despite the temptations of the latter we all managed to fill bobbins - many of them using the gorgeous colours we produced with Katie Weston last month.

AC

More amazing colour blending with Katie Weston

We had a brilliant start to 2015 with another excellent colour blending workshop with Katie Weston.
Building on skills we learned during her visit last year, we produced even more sophisticated hanks of yarn, with some amazing variegated effects.
Firstly, Katie showed us how to make "punis"/ mini-rolags of blended fibre, taking a wispy but uninterrupted length off the drum carder using a dowel (to which the wool sticks) and a knitting needle (which slips out of the puni easily, so that the dowel can then be removed).  With a bit of practice, and not too much bad language, we all produced mini-rolags, ideal for using with a drop spindle.
Our next task was to make a tri-coloured fibre blend which can be spun to make a yarn with gradual colour changes.  Using Katie's gorgeous coloured fibres, we blended three separate batts of wool, silk, bamboo, Angelina...... and then teased them out to three thinnish slivers which were drawn onto the drum carder so as to make a single batt with vertical stripes. Then, working down the batt in the direction of the fibres, we "Z-stripped" it into a long sliver which clearly showed the change in colour along its' length.
Finally we made another three-coloured batt and took it off the carder using a diz.  Like puni-making, this requires practice, and a certain amount of non-Sunday language could be heard as the fibres fell apart and fingers were stabbed on the carding cloth.

Katie shows how to make a "puni" - a tiny rolag of fibre wound between a dowel and a knitting needle

And now a larger batt...

.. which comes off the carder in one piece, with three distinct areas of colour (looking from left to right),

and is then separated and "chained" into one long piece with the three colours running separately along the length.

Supporting the component fibres on a chair prevents them falling apart and thereby avoids grief and gnashing of teeth.

Stripes in the making.

Everyone produced large quantities of luscious fibre, and rushed home to start spinning.  We can't wait to see the results - (an idea for a Guild Challenge, perhaps?).
Very many thanks to Katie for her patient and expert tuition, and to Bryn for organising the event.
We take a break from Llanfair during the depths of winter, so our next couple of Sunday meetings will be in private houses. (Probably just as well:  driving past the hall this evening I noticed that the playing fields at the rear are flooded, and the river is very, very high). We are meeting as usual on the fourth Monday evening of the month in Abergele and will be back in Llanfair TH in April for our Friendship Day.

AC.

A Happy Christmas to all our readers

The title says it all, really.
Our pre-Christmas meeting in Llanfair was busy with spinning and weaving, interrupted only for a delicious meal in the pub across the road.  As usual, my camera gave up at the crucial moment, so no photographs of the festivities I'm afraid.  Our thanks to Jenni for organising the meal.

Bryn warping up her rigid heddle loom under the red electric heaters.

  

 Photographs courtesy Jenni Frost.

AC