Just a few quick photos from Fibre East.
The stall, looking good. This year Fibre East had moved to a large school complex, so the show was spread over several classrooms, large school halls and a couple of marquees at the back. Access wasn't ideal if you had difficulty getting around - stairs had to be avoided by going outside. (Odd in a school that prided itself on disabled sports access!). The caterers were pretty off-the-ball and completely unable to look after the vendors on site before the show opened in the morning. However, we had the entire sports field (flat, dry, firm, mown short) to camp on, plus facilities.
The heat was unspeakable on Saturday - I'm honestly surprised we didn't have people keeling over. Then of course the now traditional thunderstorm arrived on Saturday evening, but despite the heavy rain for most of the night, the field remained dry and firm, and the tent was actually dry when I dropped it on Sunday morning. It won't be coming out again til next year's Woolfest.
This is the lovely spindle that I asked Ian at IST Spindles to make for me at Woolfest, when I realised that I didn't have one of his square spindles in my collection. (I really must get out of the habit of buying one of his at every show I see him, but they are so lovely...). A green dragon, no less - it spent much of Saturday and Sunday spinning green tussah silk, as I wasn't allowed to bring my new wheel to the stall!
At least when I stick a spindle in my hair for temporary holding, I know it's there. The amount of times I've popped a knitting needle in there and then spent ages trying to find the stuffing thing.
Yes, new wheel. Ooops. In my defence, I have part-exchanged this for the other large Saxony-style wheel at home, which we shall drop off at Woodland Turnery on our way down to Somerset in September. I normally pop into their stall at the beginning of shows to get all their wheels up and running, ready for people to try them out, and this one just called my name. Nice and plain, no twiddly bits, nice big wheel (26"), a lovely traditional Norwegian style. And a much smaller footprint that my other big wheel. You can tell it's designed for linen, because the orifice is small and it still has its distaff - which is useful for holding wool too.
Today it's Friday, which means that although I'm available to do things for work I don't actually go in, just check emails and stuff from home. So I'm trying to process some of the mountain of fleece I appear to have acquired. I still have an unwashed Jacob fleece from Tyndale Spinners' Gathering, a British Corriedale from Woolfest, the Charolais from Lance and Lucy, and then last weekend I rather indulged: the Sheer Sheep experience had some rather lovely and unusual sheep breeds that he was shearing to order for their fleeces (Mark discovered this), so from him I got two extremely fine Corriedale lamb fleeces, and two LonkXPolwarths, which are long and so fine and soft. All of which is piled up in the kitchen waiting to be dealt with.
This morning, the Charolais. So, it hadn't been skirted so that was nearly half to the allotment's compost. But it's big, and there's lots left. Nice crimpy staple, bright white, crisp rather than soft. So I washed it in the usual way, mesh bags in buckets of very hot very soapy (dishwashing liquid) water, and then after spinning rather than rinsing it goes straight in the dyepans. I have to use equally hot water to make the dye solution, but straight in the oven until the water's clear. I can't re-use the exhausted dye solution as it's also the rinse water and won't be clean, but it cuts down on water usage anyway. So while the first lot's in the oven, two more bags of fleece are in the hot soapy water waiting their turn.
Today's cooler and breezier out there, so there will be a nice breeze along the corridor which is my drying area.
The stall, looking good. This year Fibre East had moved to a large school complex, so the show was spread over several classrooms, large school halls and a couple of marquees at the back. Access wasn't ideal if you had difficulty getting around - stairs had to be avoided by going outside. (Odd in a school that prided itself on disabled sports access!). The caterers were pretty off-the-ball and completely unable to look after the vendors on site before the show opened in the morning. However, we had the entire sports field (flat, dry, firm, mown short) to camp on, plus facilities.
The heat was unspeakable on Saturday - I'm honestly surprised we didn't have people keeling over. Then of course the now traditional thunderstorm arrived on Saturday evening, but despite the heavy rain for most of the night, the field remained dry and firm, and the tent was actually dry when I dropped it on Sunday morning. It won't be coming out again til next year's Woolfest.
This is the lovely spindle that I asked Ian at IST Spindles to make for me at Woolfest, when I realised that I didn't have one of his square spindles in my collection. (I really must get out of the habit of buying one of his at every show I see him, but they are so lovely...). A green dragon, no less - it spent much of Saturday and Sunday spinning green tussah silk, as I wasn't allowed to bring my new wheel to the stall!
At least when I stick a spindle in my hair for temporary holding, I know it's there. The amount of times I've popped a knitting needle in there and then spent ages trying to find the stuffing thing.
Yes, new wheel. Ooops. In my defence, I have part-exchanged this for the other large Saxony-style wheel at home, which we shall drop off at Woodland Turnery on our way down to Somerset in September. I normally pop into their stall at the beginning of shows to get all their wheels up and running, ready for people to try them out, and this one just called my name. Nice and plain, no twiddly bits, nice big wheel (26"), a lovely traditional Norwegian style. And a much smaller footprint that my other big wheel. You can tell it's designed for linen, because the orifice is small and it still has its distaff - which is useful for holding wool too.Today it's Friday, which means that although I'm available to do things for work I don't actually go in, just check emails and stuff from home. So I'm trying to process some of the mountain of fleece I appear to have acquired. I still have an unwashed Jacob fleece from Tyndale Spinners' Gathering, a British Corriedale from Woolfest, the Charolais from Lance and Lucy, and then last weekend I rather indulged: the Sheer Sheep experience had some rather lovely and unusual sheep breeds that he was shearing to order for their fleeces (Mark discovered this), so from him I got two extremely fine Corriedale lamb fleeces, and two LonkXPolwarths, which are long and so fine and soft. All of which is piled up in the kitchen waiting to be dealt with.
This morning, the Charolais. So, it hadn't been skirted so that was nearly half to the allotment's compost. But it's big, and there's lots left. Nice crimpy staple, bright white, crisp rather than soft. So I washed it in the usual way, mesh bags in buckets of very hot very soapy (dishwashing liquid) water, and then after spinning rather than rinsing it goes straight in the dyepans. I have to use equally hot water to make the dye solution, but straight in the oven until the water's clear. I can't re-use the exhausted dye solution as it's also the rinse water and won't be clean, but it cuts down on water usage anyway. So while the first lot's in the oven, two more bags of fleece are in the hot soapy water waiting their turn.
Today's cooler and breezier out there, so there will be a nice breeze along the corridor which is my drying area.
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