A successful Craft Fair... and some sad news

Well! The Craft Fair at the Fairfield Halls did turn out to be a success. And I must thank the ladies of the Croydon knitting Group for showing their support. The weather was incredibly cold, but the turn-out was a little better than anticipated. We were slightly disappointed at the lack of crafty stalls - there were a lot of people selling things like light-up plastic stocking fillers, commercial beauty products and even shoes. But there were some really special stalls, too. Our stall was in the foyer because the Angora bunnies needed a good supply of fresh air (Skye came on Saturday and Misty on Sunday) and both of them behaved absolutely beautifully, even when Basil Brush came out and disturbed the peace! (Please excuse poor quality of photos - these were all taken with my phone in the poor light available)...

Ice rink on the forecourt

Pretty! Bright lights from the Ferris wheel
on the forecourt

Tess spinning Angora fluff at our stall

My good friend Roz was there with her friend Anne, selling the most beautiful hand-embroidered cards, Christmas decorations and hand-made gift tags. Everything of theirs is so incredibly intricate and beautifully made! I now have a beautiful star decoration for my tree, some even more beautiful cards and the perfect tags for my gifts!

Roz and Anne's stall with hand-embroidered cards,
decorations and hand-crafted gift tags

There was also a lady called Joanne selling the most incredible hand-crafted jewellery all made with semi-precious stones and Stirling silver. This picture does not do her craft any justice at all, but I was drawn to it again and again. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a website, but I will update this as soon as I hear that she does.

So, the snow threatened over the weekend but didn't arrive until Tuesday and everything ground to a halt. It took me over three hours to complete the 13 mile journey home from work and, to make matters even more complicated, I arrived home to a FREEZING house as the boiler had broken down. Typical! As I am neither elderly nor do I have have small children I was not a priority case and it wasn't until yesterday, 6 days after the breakdown, that the gas man was able to come and replace the broken valve. Incredibly, due, I'm sure, to the breakdown and subsequent start-up of the boiler, I now have a leaking radiator in the bathroom and have to call someone out to fix it. Ugh. At least, though, the house is starting to warm up!

Snowed in!

The bad weather which kept me indoors over the weekend did, however, allow me to sit in front of an electric fan heater with a hot water bottle and finish a couple of Christmas knitting projects... Photos will follow after the recipients have received them!

The sad news I mentioned is that of Alfie, a 5 month old Labrador/Greyhound cross with a fatal liver condition. He has had four homes in his short life, all of which have passed him on after learning of his illness. It is treatable, but the surgery will cost £3,500. He is currently living with the kind people at the Happy Endings animal shelter in East Sussex. In light of this, I will be updating my Etsy shop this week, and offering a 10% discount on all purchases (details to follow). All proceeds will go towards Alfie's plight. I will also enter everyone who purchases in to a prize draw and the winner will receive a FREE(!) skein of hand-painted, hand-spun yarn. Yay! Please check back and I will update the shop very shortly with all sorts of goodies for your winter spinning, felting and knitting needs!

Emma x

Preparations...

...are well underway for the Christmas Extravaganza at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon! All the yarns and fibre are packed neatly in their bags, and other small bits to make the stall pretty are almost done. There will be a plethora of yarns to choose from, as well as some knitted winter woolies, unique tree decorations and learn-to-knit kits with needles, instructions and a choice of yarn. The weather looks like it may even play ball, what with the forecast of snow (snow!) in the area over the weekend!

I have a LOT of holiday knitting to do. Some of which are to wing their way overseas before Christmas, so I have a lot to be getting on with. My Etsy shop will close over the weekend for the Craft Fair, but shall re-open Monday, full of lots more goodies, and a special offer!

Yay!

Forgive me, interwebs, for I have sinned.

It has been over two months since my last post! Working in the US is to blame. I am, however, full of updates...

I have been spinning! These are all Falkland wool:

Scotch Mist - approx 200g £30

Heathered - approx 200g £30

Wunderland - approx 200g £30

And, my, I have had SO much fun with these fibres!

This Wensleydale was a joy to dye. The colours were just slurped up, and it has this lovely sheen to it.

That's not cheese, Gromit - 100g £8.00

And these two braids of BFL/silk should, I'm sure, be spun and then plied together. The photos do them no justice, unfortunately! Squishy and so soft...

Wenceslaus - approx 100g £9.00 SOLD

La bohème - approx 100g £9.00 SOLD

Oooh! Merino! Unbelievably fluffy.

Nymph's grotto - approx 100g £9.00 (two braids available)

Lady of the Lake - approx 100g £9.00 (two braids available)

And, my favourite of all, Falkland. I honestly couldn't come up with a reason why it would be my favourite. I mean, it's not quite as soft as Merino, is not lustruous like a longwool, nor is it as bouncy as other breeds from merino, like Corriedale. But there's something that keeps me coming back to Falkland each time. I love its qualities for both spinning and dyeing.

Antheia - approx 100g £8.00

Kleio's lament - approx 100g £8.00

Rhodanthe - approx 100g £8.00

Spill - approx 100g £8.00

And, finally, I have a couple of sock yarns to add. I have a lot more, so will be taking photos this weekend and adding them very shortly.

Ember - approx 100g/375m Merino £9.00

The Fisher King - approx 100g/375m Merino £9.00

It seems that the summer is well and truly over. The evenings are drawing in and there is a definite chill and dampness in the air, which is a bit of an impediment when it comes to dyeing - my airing cupboard will, no doubt, be working overtime! I am dyeing up some new sock yarns this weekend - a beautiful medium-high twist 80% alpaca/20% silk sock yarn - and I hear that the showers should be intermittent. Hopefully, I can manage to dry them with relative ease. I am also spinning up some BEAUTIFUL alpaca fleece (photos to come). I started when the weather was grotty, so decided against washing it first and am just flicking the locks out and spinning them. I'll just make sure that the yarn is very well washed as they just love to roll in the dust.

The next few months are looking rather exciting! I continue to attend the farmer's market at Shabden Park Farm and, whilst the number of knitters and spinners who attend is limited, there is such a huge interest in the old art. Strangely enough, quite a lot of yarn was bought in July, on what was probably the hottest weekend of the year! In addition, I will be attending Heathfield Ecology Centre's Green Fair on Saturday September 18th, (such a worthy cause) and the Christmas Fair at the Fairfield Halls November 27-28. This is not to mention Unravel in February. Lots more to come!

Away with the fairies

I wish it was the fairies I've been away with! It seems that real-life has called and I have had no time to update here. I have some more yarns and fibres to update, but will wait until Saturday evening as I am going to be at the Shabden Park Farmers' Market on April 24th! Mayfield Lavender, one of my favourite places locally, will be at the farmers' market, too.

No doubt I will have lots to update with. In the meantime, everything in previous posts that does not say "sold" is still available.

Demonstration

I've been asked to do a spinning demonstration at the Sutton Community Farm tomorrow. Apparently, one of the things that participants really wanted to learn about was spinning and dyeing. Tess and I are more than happy to spread the word about this wonderful craft! I will be taking along some yarns, too. Hopefully we can get quite a few people interested!

What's been cooking

The steamer has been working hard over the last few weeks, and I'm hoping to dye some more fibre and yarn before the craft fair on Sunday. These are merino rovings, all approximately 100g:

Oceanus - SOLD

Floralia - SOLD

Sophocles

Fish pond - hand-painted 2-ply merino DK, 100g (approx 300 yards) - SOLD


Oceanus - hand painted 2-ply merino DK, 100g (approx 300 yards) - SOLD


And this is about 100g hand-painted Falkland roving spun up to approximately a DK weight called Jellybabies' Picnik. It was chain plied to preserve the colours which came out very prettily.

I don't have any yardages, but will definitely be measuring these and updating when I post again with my newest hand-spun. Am so looking forward to the craft fair on Sunday!

Spinning and more...

Well, the past couple of weeks have been filled with major fibre shenanigans, (updates and photos to follow, I promise!) including spinning Falkland and merino/silk blends and carding some GIANT batts. My lack of updates here, though, have been down to all the preparation, following through and post-processing of another project which came to a head on March 6th when I was my friend Hannah's wedding photographer. Here are a few of my favourite shots of the day:






Back to fibre-y stuff: I will be at the Fairfield Spring Fair in Croydon on Sunday March 21st! My wares will accompany those of my friend Tess of Silkwood, and one or two of her Angora bunnies. The fair is only on for one day, and will be open from 10am until 4pm. It promises to be a great day!

Normal service will resume this week.

Productivity

The weekend was really quite productive. While I didn't dye as much as I had hoped, (only about 500g of spinning fibre) I did manage to spin up over 200g of Falkland wool, half of which has been plied. It's looking rather lovely, in a sock-to-DK weight. The light was terrible all weekend, though, much as it has been for many weeks, now, so the opportunity for photographing anything did not present itself. It seems absolutely typical that, today, the sun is shining and there has not been a single cloud in the bright blue sky and I won't get home until it is dark. Before the end of this week I will definitely have more photos to show.

Meanwhile, the socks seem to be coming on well enough. While I love the colours and the striping of Noro, I am fast falling out of love with its unyielding rigidity once knitted. There just seems to be no give in the sock I am working on right now, which disturbs me a little. Well, only time will tell so I had better finish it off quickly...

Bedtime reading

I got home to an Amazon surprise; "Intertwined", by Lexi Boeger, better known as Pluckyfluff. The book is absolutely lovely, with great images of some incredible art yarns, covering everything from thick and thin yarns to coils and corespinning with patterns for each of them. While I am less likely to obtain masses of inspiration from spinning shredded paper, the book is definitely a worthwhile addition to any spinner's library. Now I'm off to bed, new book in tow!

Hand spun

Well, it has taken me longer than I had hoped to post some of my yarns and fibres but a full time job means that I have much less time to spin and dye than I would like. I have, however, got some hand spun and hand painted yarns to show you:

This is hand painted Falkland wool, spun to a heavy DK to Aran weight. I have called this Mephisoto's Magik and it is one of a kind. There's approximately 200g here (I will update the post with the exact weight).


Aphrodite's Arboretum is also hand painted Falkland wool, hand spun to a sport/DK weight yarn. Also soft and squooshy and approximately 200g.


Lastly, this is hand painted Falkland wool hand spun and plied with hand spun Yak down. This is so, SO soft. It's chunky weight and again, approximately 200g.


A lot (although not all!) of my hand spun yarns are Falkland wool. It's a hardy sheep of mainly Corriedale (and, more recently, Polwarth ancestry) and I like it not only for its softness but also for its staple length and the fact that it will knit up very comfortably as singles just as it does plied. It really is my favourite wool to spin.

All of these yarns are for sale. I have not priced them yet, as I haven't got the exact weights to hand, but this info will be available very shortly. If you're interested in these, or any other yarns or hand-dyed fibres for spinning, I am generally able to accommodate! Please contact me at lavendercottagefibres(at)googlemail(dot)com with any queries.