Wednesday 13th July 2011

Here we are halfway through July and I cant believe that the summer holidays are nearly here.  The girls are looking forward to a nice long lazy six weeks and to be honest so am I.  Getting up at six every morning to ensure everything gets taken care of before heading off on the school run can be a bit wearing.

First the chickens, rabbits and guinea pigs need feeding, then the dogs and cats and finally us.  After breakfast its chivvying sleepy children into doing their hair, teeth and retrieving their shoes from the last place they were thrown when they came home the previous evening.  It will be nice to have a slower pace of life for a while. 

Finally after getting them into their schools its time to walk the mad dogs on the beach.  After that down to work.

I have a three day craft fair to attend in August, it will be the 5th, 6th and 7th of August and takes place at Sanders Garden World at Brent Knoll in Somerset.  The proceeds of the fair go to the FreeWheelers charity, which is a group of people who transport blood, x rays and similar free of charge between the local hospitals.  It can help to save lives and is constantly needing funds. 

I shall be taking my fibre shop, with drop spindle kits, hand dyed fibres and yarns and some of my jewellery. 

I have been taking advantage of the hotter weather to get lots of dyeing and washing of fleece done.  I now have 5 lovely Jacob fleeces that were purchased in Somerset through a contact from the craft fair I attended in February this year.  I have also discovered two Bowmont fleeces lurking in my store cupboard and this is now listed for sale in the online shop.  I have assorted hand dyed rovings for sale, last summers stock is currently at half price and the new fibres are being listed as they are dyed and dried. I am waiting on some gorgeous Wensleydale fleece which should be with me by mid August.  This will then be dyed and listed in the shop.

I am currently spinning up some hand dyed mohair curls which I have dyed in shades of lilac and purple and these are coming out very fine and I will hopefully be making a shawl out of the resulting yarn. 

I have warped up the knitters loom using a 12 dpi reed and am making some place mats using some Swedish weaving cotton that I got as a job lot on ebay. 

The weaving bug is still biting and despite selling the beloved floor loom I am strongly considering investing in a small table loom to satisfy my urge to keep weaving.  The jewellery making means that I can just weave for pleasure and not for income so the strain on the back wont be so bad.

I should love to hear from anyone regarding their spinning or weaving projects, its  always good to talk fibre.