Fleece Fair Report

Yesterday was the Annual Fleece Fair of the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers.


It was a great day even though it did rain quite a bit as predicted by Radio 4 on the way down to Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall. I managed to arrive just after 9am and members were already there setting out the tables for the sellers and washing lettuce for the lunches.

We had the main hall full of sales tables for the fleece and fibre.




And the back room for demos of weaving, spinning and fibre prep.





We had Amanda Hannaford from MandaCrafts with all her lovely fluff.


And we had Sarah Harris and Mr Harris of The Spinning Weal with all their fibery goodness.


There was also cake, mmmm.


After being adamant that I was NOT going to buy anything I did crumble a buy a couple of small bags of Romney. It’s from the same lady that the Romney I have just finished spinning up was from; which is cool, as I got to tell her how lovely it was/is and to get some more!

And there is more to come! Oh yes, we are off to WoolFest on Thursday, yay!

Calling All Fibre Fiends!

This Saturday is the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers Fleece Fair!


We will have all sorts of yummy fleece and fibre for sale all brought to the fair by local smallholders and shepherds plus dyed tops and fibres as well. Here are a few pictures from 2009s fleece fair taken by Amanda Hannaford of MandaCrafts. That’s Amanda behind all her lovely fibres.






The fair is held at Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall in the village of Hatch Beauchamp which is about 5 miles from Taunton. Here’s a map to get you there and there are more details on the Guild website too.

Thank you to Amanda for the pictures.

See you there!

P.S. DH has spotted that I haven't mentioned that the reason I am able to go to the fleece fair is that my wisdom teeth thing has been cancelled. It got cancelled yesterday and has been rearranged for the beginning of August. Something to look forward to!

Friends, Fibre and Fun

Well we have been very busy doing lots of stuff and as usual I have been soooo busy doing it that:

1. I haven’t taken pictures of most of it; and
   
2. I haven’t got round to telling you all about it yet!

So what have I been up to?
Well first off we have some sad news. Miranda got sick, just like her sisters did. She became very quiet and just stopped being happy and perky and got all puffed up under her chest. We took her to the vet thinking the worst; the vet was very kind and said that there was nothing that could be done to make her better so we let the vet put her to sleep.

Obviously this meant that Amy was all on her own and we couldn’t have that so yesterday we went back to where we got Amy from last year and got Rebecca. She is a Rhode Rock which is a hybrid cross of a Rhode Island Red and a Barred Plymouth Rock (I think). She’s a bit shy still but is quite friendly when meal worms are in the offing.

Happily Amy seems to be ok with the whole “new friend” thing and really hasn’t made too much of a fuss. She has been a bit vocal but hasn’t been pecking or chasing Rebecca so fingers crossed that all will continue to be well.

In spinning and fibery news, well quite a bit has been happening.
I am now the new Treasurer of the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers ( I get a proper metal badge) and we are having our annual fleece fair on Saturday the 18th of June. However, I probably won’t be able to make it as I am having my three wisdom teeth out and will be sedated for the procedure. This means that I will not be allowed to drive for 48 hours afterwards and as the procedure is on the Thursday afternoon I won’t be able to drive until Saturday afternoon……so I won’t be able to go – pants!

Wisdom teeth aside (and frankly I am not looking forwards to it one little bit!) my friend Liz and I have been rather busy with the spinning. We had a spinning afternoon together which was really cool. We both managed to score a bunch of free fleece on freecycle so we have done a bit of swapping between us.


We spun this – Liz did the brown, which is Zwartbles (fab word!) and the white/grey is the Romney that I’ve been working on (since forever).


Ah, what a cute puppy dog.


Liz and I also did a spinning gig at the Bath & West Show for which we managed to get free tickets for the Saturday in exchange for us sitting at the Somerset Life Magazine stand and spinning for a few hours. The weather was lovely all day; sunny with a bit of a breeze. We had a few weird questions from the public and met a few interesting textile people. We also checked out the food halls (yummy coffee and super ice-cream) and the sheep (cute Shetlands and North Ronaldsays) and watch a crazy man on the top of a very tall thin pole do a balancing act with NO safety harness!

Another Fibery Friend and our Knit Club Organiser, Lesley, organised a bit of a workshop afternoon at her mums house. There’s more space there as her mum has a conservatory and Lesley left the kiddie winks at home so it was just us grownups and a load of tea and yummy cake! We did Navajo plying and dyeing which proved to be a right laugh. Kim and Megan did a double act with their Navajo plying.


While Lesley and I did some dyeing. Here’s Lesley dyeing some of her hand spun yarn.

We steamed it in her mums electric steamer.

So, that’s it really. I’m hoping that I’ll be back to update the blog before we all go to Woolfest but if not then there will be a big update of Woolfestiness! We are going up on the Thursday and staying over until the Sunday, not long to go now!

Excited (10,00000000)