Cotswold Purls

The White Stuff

2009-02-07T21:53:00.004Z

Amazing scenes in the south-west of England recently - the deepest snow for 18 years, so the Met Office tells us. Understandably, since this is a very unusual state of affairs for us, the whole country was unprepared. (I was idly wondering, when watching a news report featuring people complaining about how badly prepared the councils were, whether they themselves had got grit and salt for their front paths? No?) We are more fortunate than most, because we do have the 4x4; but we also have to get out there to do the animals, no matter what.

The sheep are doing very, very well in the snow, to my surprise. I think they would definitely prefer to have this sort of weather than the mud and rain of recent winters. They need to be fed hay, although they are perfectly capable of finding grass under the snow - just not very much of it. Even Alfie, no fan of frosty weather on the whole, is a lot less cross about it than he was around New Year.

Here are Alfie (on the right) and Lulu, waiting for Foz to feed them. They always like a bit of a scratch first. You can see that Alf has snow on his back; he's so well insulated that it just won't melt. He is toasty warm under all that fleece (and the way you tell that is to feel right up between his hind legs - if he's warm up there, then he's fine. It's considerate to make sure your hand isn't freezing cold if you do that, though.)

Here's Alfie at speed, galloping through the snow to get to a bucket of food which he hadn't previously noticed. I love the way all the snow is being kicked up as he goes.

This is Magda, our oldest ewe (not that old, at 5, but still, we must respect her seniority!) She's really happy at the moment, enjoying the snow and loving the attention she's getting. Even if you know nothing about sheep at all, I think it's possible to see from her expression that she's really enjoying that scratch from Foz.

I'm afraid there has been little time for spinning, but I do have some lovely new yarn up on Etsy. Hopefully it will find new homes soon!

Hurrah!

2009-01-28T19:55:00.004Z

Want these? www.cotswoldpurls.etsy.com

A first go at combing

2009-01-19T17:00:00.012Z

I have to admit, I just don't know what equipment I own. Having had a rummage in my workroom, I recalled that I had bought a pair of tiny wool combs, single pitch ones (i.e. with only one row of tines) and very small, but nevertheless, they are combs. Here they are:

There's nothing on this photo to give them scale, but they're quite small, especially in comparison to the huge wool combs of the past. But still, they give me an opportunity to try out the technique.

So firstly, I needed to wash some fleece. I know from experience that washing Cotswold fleece can be tricky, but I also know that if one separates the locks beforehand, and lies them in a roasting tin (a roasting tin which, I hasten to add, will never be used for food...!), this is easier. So I use some gentle detergent, and some hand-hot water, then put the tin on the hob on a low heat, and very gently heat for about 20 minutes or so. I then let the water cool down on its own, to about blood temperature, then drain the fleece, and then gently pour on rinse water of about the same temperature. No rubbing, no boiling water to be put onto the fleece, no stirring the water; this way, we hope that we won't get felt. The fleece I used is one I've had for a while - it belonged to Trixie, a Cotswold sheep who is owned by Fiona. It's a nice fleece, and very lustrous and creamy white.

So once the fleece is nice and clean, it needs to be dried, which I did by sticking it over an airer, over the bath, overnight. The next stage seems a little weird. You need to put back some of the grease which has been taken out by the washing. To do this, I spray the fleece locks with a mixture of half-and-half olive oil and water, put into a spray bottle and shaken thoroughly to mix. Now, I know that spinners are divided about whether to wash fleece or not. I never used to do so, but now I nearly always do. Every authority I have consulted about wool combing reckons that it's essential to wash the fleece first, and furthermore that when it was done on a huge scale in the past, clean fleece was always used. In my own experiments, I've realised that if you don't get the fleece fully clean, and then try to create a tightly wound, very fine thread, you will never get that thread clean. I have had some very disappointing yarns which are still quite sticky from having lanolin still on them. As another experiment, I tried combing wool first without the olive oil and water spray, and then with it - and it's sooo much easier with the spray.

So, I have clean, dry, and now sprayed-with-olive-oil-and-water fleece. The next thing to do is to set the combs up. I think these combs are designed to be hand held, but I decided to put one of them into a vice, and clamp it to the table. This was after I nearly did myself a mischief with the tines - they are very sharp.
The next thing to do is to load some locks onto the comb. With the big combs, you can apparently load them to half the depth of the tines, but that is far too much for these little ones. I put two layers of locks onto the comb held in the vice.

You then rotate the comb through 90 degrees, so the teeth point to the right (for right-handers - for left handers I should think it'd be more convenient to have them pointing the other way). The second comb then comes into play. I have to confess at this point that I was taking these photos on my own, and wielding a comb with one hand and a camera with the other was Not Easy. So I'll have to describe what happens. The comb in your hand describes a sort of circular motion, from above to below. The tines just tickle the ends of the locks on the way past, at least to start off with. Some fleece will transfer from the fixed comb to the one in your hand. This is what we want to have happen. You carry on with this combing until most of the fleece on the fixed comb has gone onto the one in your hand. Then, you change the motion of the hand held comb. Instead of going in a circular motion from above to below, it swings from right to left, transferring the fleece back onto the fixed comb.

Eventually, you'll be left with a wild, combed out mass of fleece on your fixed comb, thus:

and a mess of little noils and short bits on the comb in your hand, thus (which you discard, or else keep for carding):

The next bit definitely needed two hands. Rotate the comb in the vice so that its teeth are pointing upwards again. Then, form the mass of fibre on it into a sort of goatee beard shape, and you'll find that you can slowly draw off a continuous stream of fibre; this is called a sliver. Don't take any short pieces of fibre, or indeed any bits with nasty noily bits in. You can then 'plank' the sliver, which is where you lie a couple of feet of it onto a table, break that piece off, and then lie another piece on top of it, breaking that off, and repeating until you have something like this:

You then load it back onto the fixed comb, and go through the combing process again. This won't take quite so long. I think that, if you were using combs with more than one row of tines, this process would remove even more of the short fibres - the point of this exercise is to only use the long ones, and to get them all going in the same direction. I found it's all pretty flyaway at this point, and getting it to stay on the comb was a bit of a challenge at times.

So, the next process is to get that mass of fibre off there, and for this you need a diz. Now, I am not a great one for making equipment, but I did make my own diz - it's the bottom of a plastic bottle, with a hole punched into it. The piece of plastic I used is concave - this is important. Here's the diz:

Now, you rotate the fixed comb back so that its tines are pointing upwards, and you create the little goatee beard sorta thang.

Then, poke the point of the goatee beard through the hole in the centre of the diz - with the concave side pointing away from you, so it is as if the diz becomes a funnel. You can then draw off a continuous stream of fibre again, in a controlled manner. This is really hard to describe, and I suggest that if you want to see this done, you should try searching on YouTube - there are several really good videos of this being done.
Not a terribly clear picture, but never mind.

Once you've removed most of the fibre (and again, don't worry about the horrible short noily bits, leave them on the comb), you have a thing called a top. You can then wind it into a bird's nest sort of arrangement, and put it to one side for spinning.

Now, I've got to say at this point that I worked all this out by using Peter Teal's book, which I mentioned in my last post (and in fact it's the definitive work, if you're interested in wool combing it's definitely worth getting hold of) and the instructional videos I found on the internet. So, I'm no expert, but I have to say that this wasn't difficult to do. I think you need to have a bit of a feel for what the wool is going to do, especially when you are making the sliver or the top, but that's very like hand spinning, so if you can do that, you can probably do this.

I'll post about the actual spinning in a few days. I have to say, though, that I've really enjoyed this, and I am definitely intending to get some big combs. These little ones are good, but they don't manage very much fibre at one time - the big combs are capable of doing a lot more.

Happy New Year

2009-01-15T18:36:00.003Z

Well, a happy 2009 to you! Here's a picture which I meant to post at Christmas, but didn't:

Poor Alfie, his dignity is just eroded more and more. He's very philosophical about it though.

Anyway, enough tormenting of innocent creatures. I have a Project which I am thinking of starting. I haven't really been thinking much about my own personal projects over the last few months, because I've been too busy. This, however, might well have been a bad idea, because those personal projects are the engine-house of what I do. They're where I play, where I work things out, where I just do the things I'm interested in, and of course I tend to find that they lead me down useful paths as well. Now, I have two talks to give in the early part of this year, one next month and one in March, and I want to have a Major Project to discuss for them.

As you know, I'm interested in the historical side of both the Cotswold sheep and the craft of hand spinning. One of my goals for having the flock of sheep has been that I wanted to gain a personal understanding and experience of all the processes which are involved in going from fibre to finished object, both in the modern setting and as they would have been done in the heyday of the breed, and I think I have tackled that pretty well so far. Mostly. I have delivered lambs, I have done routine and non-routine shepherding tasks. I know enough about shearing to be completely OK about that fact that I will never, ever use hand shears (like big scissors, basically) to shear my sheep - too much like hard work, takes a stress-inducing long time to do, doesn't do such a good job in the hands of a beginner. I can sort fleece, assess it, send it to the mill and do creative things when it comes back. I am a pretty expert hand spinner by now too. But there's one big process that I know little about, which is wool combing, and it's that which I intend to master this year.

Wool combing is a process particularly suited to the long locks of Cotswold fleece. It enables the spinner to create a yarn which is flat, shiny and hard-wearing; one in which all the fibres lie parallel (known as worsted), rather than one in which they are jumbled (known as woollen). It's not a particularly common skill today; most fleeces are prepared by carding, which is the way of preparing for woollen spinning. The main source these days for finding out about wool combing is the outstanding book by Peter Teal, Hand Woolcombing And Spinning. There are also lots of very informative videos on places like You-Tube (try surfing to find them, they are many and various).

So, here's the plan. I intend to purchase a pair of wool combs, probably for mondo cash (they are beautiful things, and craftsman-made, and of course as a craftsperson myself, I do not begrudge paying someone to make some for me), and learn by experimentation how to use them. I will then perfect my worsted spinning (I have done some, but not very much), and create a lace cardigan from the resultant wool, of my own design. I doubt I'll have it done by the first talk, but it will certainly give me something to talk about. I also intend to blog about this, how I'm doing it and what I'm finding out.

First step is buying the combs. I've emailed a couple of vendors, so I'm on the way...

I seem to have lost something

2008-11-13T20:29:00.003Z

I'm not entirely sure whether turning the house inside out, looking into my pockets, under the sofa, or in the back of the car, will entirely help with rediscovering my lost thing. This thing is, of course, most of the start of November. I mean, what happened? How did this occur? A couple of days ago, it was 22nd October. Now, it's 13th November. This is just patently unjust! I want those days back.

It's particularly important because, coming up this weekend, we have the Knitting and Spinning weekend at Lower Shaw Farm, in Swindon. Preparation has been going on for a while, and I'm now really looking forward to it. Lower Shaw Farm is such a lovely place, a friendly and calm learning environment where people can hang out, learn new crafts, make new friends and meet old ones, and eat wonderful food. We have got games to play, lovely raw materials to use, and beautiful tools to work with. Full report after the weekend, I hope.

Goodbye Molly

2008-11-04T11:35:00.003Z

Sadly, Molly didn't make it. Her condition really deteriorated during Thursday night and Friday, and our vet put her to sleep on Friday night. She waited until Foz returned from Edinburgh, and was delighted to see him, but after that she really went downhill. She spent most of her last few hours eating little tiny bits of chopped up carrot, then resting from the effort with her head either on Foz's lap, or resting against him as he sat with her. Our vet gave her an overdose of sedative, and she drifted off very peacefully and with dignity. The barn seems very empty without her. I'm surprised at how gutted I am to lose her. It's always part of shepherding, that you will lose sheep. Cotswolds are tough customers, and don't deserve the reputation sheep have of dying easily, but they're still mortal. We lost another well-loved ewe, Tilly, earlier in the year, which was very sad, but losing Molly feels much worse.

Probably due to the stress of the last week, I have gone down with the cold that I could feel prowling round the edges of my immune system, so I am at home right now feeling pretty wretched. Edward, our vet, said that he felt Molly had left behind a real legacy, because she had been one of the original ewes we bought, and had been the friendliest, right from the word go. We now want to make sure that we use that legacy in the best possible way, so we're thinking of how to take the flock forwards from here. It could have been easy to have been discouraged, but we are determined to pick ourselves up and carry on.

A Quick Molly Update

2008-10-30T12:56:00.002Z

Molly is still hanging on in there, although she had a bad day yesterday. She got stuck on her side at some point during the night, and I found her exhausted and disorientated the next morning. She seemed to recover OK, but her energy levels seemed to crash during the afternoon, and by the evening she was very weak. I phoned the vet, and asked him to come out, with the unspoken understanding that he might have to put her to sleep. Meanwhile, I fed her some sugar beet pulp, which is easily digested and a good energy giving food, and she perked up. The vet has changed her homeopathic remedy, and I really think that she seems to be responding to it. She seems somehow different this morning, and I feel that she may have some more muscle tone in her hind legs. Maybe yesterday's crisis was her hitting rock bottom? Who knows. I'll keep you posted.

What can you make with a single skein?

2008-10-27T21:49:00.004Z

This has been bugging me of late. What CAN you make with a single skein of my wool? 100g of pure knitting loveliness, especially the hand painted yarn.

See? Very nice. (Oh, you saw that picture last time - duh. Never mind. It's staying there now.) Now I like quite big projects - jumpers, large-ish bags and the like. (I also like making teeny tiny little beaded bags, knitted on the thinnest of knitting needles, but they are not made of our Cotswold wool, and so I shall not mention them right now.) But I want to create some knitting kits, which will contain handsome wooden needles, a pattern, and enough wool to create the item in question. I'm wanting to do some for beginners, and this is causing me a bit of a problem in deciding how tricky the design should be. Can I, for example, include a bit of decreasing? I don't think that's too difficult... especially if I explain how to do it. How about ribbing? I dislike doing it myself, but that's not the point. Clearly some people love it. I tend to feel that things you can create out of rectangles are Good. Also, things you can put into the washing machine and felt, thus maybe disguising slightly weird tension, the odd dropped stitch, or the strange thing that happened when, for a period of 10 rows or so, you had 2 more stitches than you should have had, and then the problem resolved itself without you knowing why. (Actually - and I probably shouldn't say this - all these things have happened to me recently, but I think the gaining and losing stitches could have been due to the beer.) My Cotswold mill-spun wool doesn't felt quite so enthusiastically as the hand-spun stuff does, which does mean you have to grit your teeth and put it on a bit of a hotter wash than you might originally have thought of - but it does go lovely and felty and furry and soft when it comes out.

So. I-pod sock? (Will have to swipe someone's I-pod for that in order to make it fit - I don't own one myself.) Egg cosy? Tea cosy? Very retro-ironically-chic. Scarf? Nice, but a bit of a long haul if you are only knitting 4 rows a night. Hat? Good project, but to make them nice, they have to have shaping... maybe not a complete beginner's project. Purse? Bag?? Mat for one's cat to sit on??!

In livestock news, our misfortunes continue. Molly, one of our senior ewes, has been stricken with a strange hind leg paralysis, the sort where sensation is still there, but muscle tone and the ability to actually move those hind legs has completely gone. Our vet is stumped. Fortunately, Molly is absolutely fine in herself (apart from the small matter of being paralysed of course), and is still eating and drinking, plus fulfilling all those other bodily functions necessary for good health. She is also content to lie there and be waited on, and I do get the feeling that she thinks this is her due from the simians with the buckets. Our vet, as well as being a most excellent vet, is a qualified homeopath, and it's this form of medicine we are pinning our hopes on now. Molly did have a bit of a go at getting up this evening, which she hasn't tried for some days, which is definitely a change. She is very well loved by all who know her, and Foz and I have been very up and down about the whole episode. Our vet, though, is absolutely determined to get her well again, and so the only thing we can do is to trust him. At least Molly is not suffering in the slightest - she is in no pain, she's pretty happy sitting in the barn and watching Sheep TV (the cows and pigs, which she seems to hold in magnificent disdain, but is secretly interested in them - a bit like someone professing not to like Big Brother but secretly being an avid viewer), she has her daughter Lily with her, who is not best pleased but that's just tough, and she is getting any amount of attention from all her human friends. I'll let you know what happens.

Just to cheer myself up, and make myself feel a bit better about the sheep situation, here's a coupla photos of Alfie, taken by our friend the lovely Annabelle last week.

What a handsome boy. And with a lot more fleece than he had last time you saw him. Thank goodness that all grew back.

Enhanced By Cats

2008-10-17T14:28:00.004+01:00

I've had a very busy couple of days. Yesterday, I went to see my friends at Lower Shaw Farm, who are hosting the knitting and spinning course I am teaching on next month. (14th-16th November, and there is apparently one place left, so get in there fast if you wanna go! Great food, wonderful atmosphere, and wool as far as the eye can see. What more do you want?) We have talked over The Plan, and have found it good - and also very open to change, which is great because that's what we want to have happen. It's wonderful to be able to sort out exactly what everyone wants to cover, and then have a goodly go at getting all that in. It worked well last year, with everyone telling the group what they wanted to do, and us all agreeing the programme there and then. Today, I made a visit which may well take my business in a different direction - more details to come once finalised, but I'm very excited.

But the weather is fine and lovely, and so photographs of WOOL must be taken! I need to get some things posted up on Etsy, so have to take pictures for the posting. It being beautiful outside, I took my camera, and went out to take these pics:

Lovely wool, good colours - probably needs a bit of cropping on Photoshop, but that's fine, I can do that. I love that bench in my garden, as does my cat Tico.

Clearly, everything on this bench belongs to Tico, and here she is, having appeared from nowhere, to inspect what is going on. I am expecting her to rub extravagantly against the wool and knock it down. So I'm poised with camera, waiting for her to do something amusing so I can capture it for posterity.

Do we ever do what is expected of us? Nope.

This definitely reminded me of something you see on Etsy shops, where sellers state whether their work spaces are smoking/non smoking, or whether they have pets. Quite often, you see someone's house described as 'enhanced by cats'. Well, that's my life for you - definitely enhanced by cats.

In Which I Discover My Maths Teacher Did Not Lie

2008-09-18T12:57:00.003+01:00

I wasn't very good at maths at school. I was a rather scared and dutiful child, though, so I did my best to understand it - but to no avail. Of course, now that I am designing knitting patterns, I find myself using maths all the time, and I am just about mastering the easy stuff. Working out what tension (or GAUGE, as Elizabeth Zimmerman would have it) I am using by calculating the amount of stitches per centimetre on a tension swatch, then multiplying that by the measurement of the garment I want to knit - yep, I can do that. And the things I make now fit, most of the time. I know about how to custom shape things so they will fit better. So, on the whole, this kinda stuff wasn't a problem for me.

Then, I discovered this book. It's an amazingly beautiful and inspiring book by Maie Landra of Koigu Yarns , and all the patterns in it are created with mosaic knitting - little pieces of knitting which are created by means of cunning decreasing, and which form various shapes which, when knitted together, form larger geometric shapes. I had an idea of a hat formed in this way, maybe with a hexagon crown, and squares for the sides. I worried at this idea for a long time, wondering how on earth I could work out how big the hexagon had to be. Then I remembered pi. Of course! In theory, I know how to work out the diameter and radius of a circle, if I have the circumference - remember that? Circumference of circle = pi (3.14) x diameter. Halve the diameter, and you get the radius. The little triangle segments which form the hexagon are each the length of the radius, from point to base. Knitting being fairly flexible, I thought, does it matter if it's a circle or a hexagon? It was worth a go. I knitted a sample hexagon, and blow me down, I found that it worked. To say I was gobsmacked is an understatement. Who knew that this would ACTUALLY WORK? So they weren't lying to me at school after all. Wow.

(Bit blurry, and this is actually a later version than the original, but it does show the segments quite well.)

Inspired, I did the rest of the maths for the hat, and knitted away with trepidation. Was it going to work? Errr...
Well, it turned out exactly the size I had wanted it to, but what I hadn't factored in is that hats fit best on a person's head if they are about an inch smaller than the actual circumference measurement of the wearer's bonce... I seem to have knitted something that looks more like a lampshade.

I'm trying again. Meanwhile, if there's anyone of my acquaintance with an absolutely enormous head, I've got a hat for them.

Picking Up And Starting Again

2008-09-18T12:57:00.002+01:00

I haven't been around these parts recently. Things have been happening, though, and at times it's been quite difficult to deal with those things. It's a salutary lesson to me that things ain't always plain sailing, and sometimes all you can do is to pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and carry on.

Here in the South-West of the UK, things haven't been so easy for those of us who have livestock - my vets say that there has been a huge wave of young animals going down with pneumonia due to the wet, humid weather, and we have been no exception. Ruby, the bottle fed lamb, got it first, and fortunately a single antibiotic and anti-inflammatory injection sorted her out. Her brother Yan Lamb, the largest and most magnificent of the triplets, got it next, but after several emergency vet call-outs (never within office hours, how did he do that??) we were no further on. He definitely had had pneumonia, but the usual treatments weren't bringing him back to full health. The 4th vet to see him (who happens to be a homeopathic vet) diagnosed an intestinal blockage, and recommended that, if we wanted to give Yan Lamb a chance to survive, we should send him to the Bristol Vet School straight away, the following morning, where they have large animal surgical facilities. This we did. Poor Yan was really unwell by the morning, obviously in more pain, and I was reluctant to put him through a journey to a strange place, but he had Ruby with him for company, and the lovely vet at Bristol felt it was worth a try. Sadly, though, it wasn't to be - Yan Lamb turned out to have an intussuception, which is where the large intestine telescopes in on itself and necrotises, and he had to be put to sleep. This meant that poor Ruby had a night at Bristol on her own (they shut at 5pm, and I couldn't get back there to pick her up before they closed) which she didn't actually mind too much because she was outrageously spoiled throughout by the staff there. Even the children from the on-site creche came down to see her the next morning. She was pleased to be home, though, and apart from shouting her head off at various points through the journey, is none the worse.

I am proud of the fact that we didn't hesitate when it came to making a decision for Yan Lamb. Gut blockages in sheep can be, apparently, quite curable, depending on where they are. If the rumen is blocked, the prognosis is very good, and without actually examining Yan Lamb fully, nobody could tell whether he had a blocked rumen or not; so I don't doubt that we did the right thing. Even the journey in the trailer can sometimes dislodge a physical blockage, so the vet at Bristol told me (she said that she has often seen severe colic cases in horses where the animal has walked off the lorry perfectly all right). Yan Lamb was very friendly and loved people, so I don't really think that the whole experience would have been as stressful for him as for a more nervous creature. But it was all very horrible, and to have lost him anyway was such a sadness.

But there we go - sometimes you just have to pick yourself up and plod on, and that's what we have been doing. Poor Foz was away for work the whole time Yan was at Bristol, and this was a huge worry for him. He is now away in Chicago (how terrible, huh?) but is anxiously keeping in touch. I think it's probably worse if you are miles away and can't do anything, rather than being there on the spot and able to take action.

But the rest of the flock are fine, and I have to keep hanging on to that fact. The bit of me which is coldly pragmatic says that Yan Lamb was probably the most expendable one of the group, and that if we had to lose a lamb, it was better that the ram lamb should go rather than the ewe lambs, all of whom are definite breeding stock for the future. But even that bit of me acknowledges that it was a very sad thing to have lost an animal at all.

Woolfest, and a last-minute champion

2008-06-29T22:10:00.005+01:00

I'm back from Woolfest today, and my head is still reeling slightly from the complete fab-ness of it all. Maggie and I were so happy to be there, and we really made the most of it. Highlights included: the sheep (but no Cotswolds, alas); the amazing variety of hand-dyed fibres there this year (this seemed to be one of the big stories of Woolfest '08); the needle felting supplies (the other big story of Woolfest!); the purchase of an over-sized piece of equipment; and the performance of my hand-made sheep in the pre-auction competition...

For those folk who don't know about Woolfest, it's a 2-day sheep and fibre festival held in the large modern auction mart at Cockermouth in the north-western Lake District. It has stalls galore, demonstrations and lectures, fibre-bearing animals, classes on a wide variety of different crafts, an evening meal of good Cumbrian food (Tatie Pot this year, which is a bit like a Lancashire Hot Pot, but with the addition of black pudding to the lamb, vegetables and potatoes layered on the top) and then a Spin-In, during which you'd find loads of folk all working away at their chosen crafts, from knitting and crocheting through spinning to small scale weaving! It's an amazing place to meet wonderful, like-minded folk.

I was quite restrained in the purchasing department (stop that laughing at the back), but did splash out on the legendary book Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New. I had heard much of this book, and I have to say, the reality has just blown me away. Let me just say two words to you: Knitted Coracle. Yep, that's right. Debbie New has knitted a coracle, and it floats. It's a perfectly usable boat! A BOAT - made out of knitting... She has also made knitted cups and saucers, fabulous artworks, some of the most innovatively constructed garments I've ever seen... well. It's not a cheap book, but it's a must if you are interested in really extraordinary ways of creating things out of yarn. It's not really thinking out of the box - for her, there IS no box to think outside of in the first place. She's like a turbo-charged Elizabeth Zimmermann! I don't think that a reading through of this book will help me understand the things in it - satisfyingly, the only way to understand is to knit - a lot. Oh what a shame.

Alas, I did resist the temptation to buy a pair of knitting needles that lit up at the tips - but I did increase my collection of Brittany needles (the most lovely needles), and I also bought some roving, a blend of Merino and silk, very tactile. I also purchased the most ENORMOUS inkle loom, a potentially very useful piece of equipment acquired for a bargainous price. It is large, though, and I'm sure you can imagine how pleased Mr Foz was that it has been moved into the house.

But I have to say, the thing that did make it for me was the sheep auction. I pretend to be an uncompetitive person, because I am easily disappointed, but actually I like competing as much as the next woman. The textile sheep auction which had been organised at Woolfest this year was to raise money for Farm Africa, and I was all for that. Of course, what with one thing and another, I just didn't get on with making the blooming thing, and all the careful experimentation I'd wanted to do was just not going to happen - as you know from the previous post, I did rather mess up in the timing department. I was still frantically needle felting the dyed fleece onto the body of this sheep (my dad, observing this latest brand of madness from his daughter, thought that the whole thing looked very vicious!) on Friday morning. But it was worth it - here's a picture of the finished sheep, in the caravan:

I dropped him off with the rest of the candidates, and spent some time admiring them (there were some amazingly clever ones, including a pair of funkily well dressed Herdwicks in cable sweaters!!) before trundling off round the stalls. I hadn't realised prior to dropping him off that, in line with what happens in a real sheep sale, the lots were to be judged before the auction, and knitted rosettes awarded to the winners. Imagine my delight, the following day, when I returned to find this:

(I think he looks quite smug in the above picture, and no wonder.)

I'm glad to report that the auction was great fun - the auctioneer really entered into the spirit of things - and my sheep made £55 of the total raised, which was over £1100. Now that's what I call a good day's work at Woolfest.

No more bottles

2008-06-25T12:25:00.002+01:00

The end of an era yesterday - Ruby Lamb is now weaned. She had her final bottle yesterday afternoon, and is now officially a Grown Up Girl. She's huge now, healthy and lively, and since we are going to Woolfest this weekend, I figured that we shouldn't give lots of extra work to our friends who are keeping an eye on the sheep for us whilst we're away.

In other news, Woolfest is coming (hurrah!), and I'm creating a knitted toy sheep to put into the charity Sheep Auction, happening on the Saturday. I'm very behind with this project, alas, having been so busy, but now have the body knitted and felted in the washing machine. The next task is to dry-felt some dyed Cotswold fleece locks onto it, making a rather wild and crazy coloured toy Cotswold sheep. I'm not sure if we will be there for the auction, but I think that I might change my plans and ensure I'm there for it. I will take photos of the dry felting in progress. I've not done much needle felting before, and of course I have left it rather late to experiment - I'm just going to go for it, and see what happens. OK, if it doesn't turn out all right, I'll just have to learn my lesson and not worry about it too much...

Launched!

2008-06-01T21:38:00.004+01:00

Open Farm Sunday has been and gone for another year. The rain held off, the visitors poured in, the hog roast was enjoyed by all and sundry, and our little corner of the yard was also appreciated by everyone who came by. The business Cotswold Purls is now officially launched - finally. It's only taken me 4 years of thinking about it, thinking better of it, then reconsidering!

Alfie and Ruby were also present, in a pen by the side of the stall. They had a great time, although Ruby bailed out at 2pm - she had had enough by then, and was quite tired. Even being stroked constantly by people can pale after a while! Alfie, being much older and much keener on being fussed over by all and sundry, toughed it out to the end of the event. When the gazebos and marquees were being set up in the morning, Alfie positioned himself at the gate of his field, and STARED and STARED at the action. This is the third farm open day he has done, and he obviously didn't want to miss out. He came out with a real spring in his step, knowing exactly what he had to do. I sometimes worry that Alfie will get too tired at these events, because he can get so involved with interacting with the visitors that he doesn't get a chance to lie down. He seemed absolutely in his element all day though, so I think he'd let me know if it was too much. Foz has had a great time being in the pen with the sheep and talking to everyone about them. I'm grateful that he wants to spend his spare time talking to people he doesn't know, when he spends a great deal of his working life doing the same thing! (but the subject at weekends is, of course, infinitely more interesting...)

Here are some pics of our stall:

I think the effect is actually spoiled somewhat by having the tractor parked behind our gazebo... maybe I should get a back-sheet, to block any unfortunate views! Heaven knows why, but taking a picture of the sheep completely slipped my mind. I'll see if anyone else has got any. The sheep were definitely the star attractions there today!

We hardly sold a thing, but then again we weren't expecting to - although I was always open in my mind to the possibilities that we might sell. I was so pleased, though, with how everything looked. Of course, doing a stall like that is quite a trial and error activity, and I have got some great ideas for next time.

What always amazes me when I do hand spinning demos and events is what interesting people you meet. I have talked to some really great folks today. A very pleasant lady was interested in getting some sheep to run on her horse paddocks. We had a long chat with her about the Cotswolds, and she seems very keen - it was so nice to talk to her. My lovely friend Karen, her gorgeous toddler Natasha (or Gnasher, as she has been known!), and Karen's parents, came over from Bristol. It was so great to see them too.

So it's now 10pm, and I'm shattered. Think I need a weekend off...

Looking forward

2008-05-28T08:38:00.002+01:00

Well, it is absolutely belting down with rain outside this morning. One of my cats, Tico, is sitting with me on the desk, glaring out into the rain-sodden garden and, I suspect, holding me entirely responsible for the weather. I wish I was as omnipotent as she thinks I am - the rain is causing me some worry at the moment.

As you know, we have got Open Farm Sunday coming up - this very Sunday, in fact. I'm getting plenty of things ready for our stall, and am obviously quite concerned about getting everything done, because I don't have a great deal of brain bandwidth for anything else right now! Lorraine is absolutely confident that it won't rain on Open Farm Sunday, and I am choosing to believe her - maybe she has the power over the weather which I don't have!

But it's not all work. I'm shortly going to be attending - as a visitor, definitely not a stallholder! - an event called Woolfest (yay!!) which I have to say is a very cool event indeed (and if you can possibly get up to Cockermouth in Cumbria for it, you should!) It is a festival of all things woolly and sheepy, with animals, stalls, demonstrations and workshops, all held in the auction mart at Cockermouth. My stepmum, Maggie, and I are completely beside ourselves with excitement about this event, which is coming up on Friday 27th and Saturday 28th June. I've got lots of shopping to do; it's a great place to find all sorts of wonderful hand made things, and I absolutely cannot wait for it.

The thing is with Woolfest, because it's inside, it is a much more interesting event if the weather is cold. This is because if the weather is chilly, all sorts of amazing hand-knits are got out by their clever creators, and worn with pride. It's an education in itself, wandering around the place and seeing the most amazing garments being sported...

Hendra Vean Ffyniant

2008-05-26T22:17:00.005+01:00

I'd just like to let you know that a very special animal died today.

This handsome creature is Hendra Vean Ffyniant, or Ffyn for short - a registered, pedigree Cotswold ram. He was 8 years old, and lived in Devon with Fiona and her Cotswolds (who are all related to my sheep - the other half of the flock, really). Ffyn was the first ram we ever had - he is Alfie's dad, as well as being the dad of lots of our other Cotswolds. He sired lambs for us for 4 years. Ffyn was incredibly good natured and friendly - rams can be aggressive, but Ffyn was always affectionate and kind.

He had been unwell on and off recently with crystals in his urine, but had recovered enough to attend the Devon County Show, where he did take a rosette or two, but mainly impressed everyone with his good looks and friendly nature. He even enjoyed several kisses on the nose by besotted children looking round the sheep tent!

Fiona found him in the field shelter this morning, looking as though he was asleep. He had died very peacefully, with no signs of distress or pain - it seems that he just went to sleep and didn't wake up. We are all very grateful for this.

Ffyn's death really feels like the end of an era for us. We had him for so long, he was always good natured and lovely, and we are all very sad to lose him. We do have many of his offspring to remind us of him, though. We'll never forget him.

Rain, gardens and more grass!

2008-05-25T22:52:00.002+01:00

Not much to report, I'm afraid, and no pictures either - I do carry my camera around with me, but often forget that it is there. The weather has broken today, so we have had a fair bit of rain; this has made the grass grow like crazy, so we have taken the opportunity to move the sheep onto a new bit of pasture, and allow their old bit to recover. At the farm, it's very like a three-dimensional game of chess, getting all the animals moving round the land so that they all have grass to eat, and the grass itself has a chance to rest and recuperate before being grazed again. I am hoping that we haven't checkmated anyone by putting the sheep where they are.

We have gardened for most of the afternoon, and have done a lot of planting; our long border (which isn't 'long' in the large stately home garden sense, but runs half the length of our garden) has now got loads more perennials in it, and is looking rather good. The plants do look a bit startled and lonely, though - I'm hoping they will spread out to take up all the available space. We will see.

Tomorrow, I will HAVE to do some dyeing. I fear that I'm falling into the trap of procrastination with this!

The machines fight back

2008-05-23T22:21:00.002+01:00

My plans for spending the day happily dyeing wool were slightly derailed, due to a vertical learning curve in the IT department. Obviously, if I'm going to be selling stuff, I will need to create labels for said stuff. Now, I'm no IT geek, but my 'normal' job does place me firmly on the fringes of the IT world, and I'm not scared - but I've been wrestling with Adobe Illustrator all day, and that's been quite an interesting experience. The thing with Illustrator is that I wasn't really sure what it does. It's on this PC, but I knew nothing much about it. Today I discovered that it's a great tool for creating all those artwork and design things which I need to create... I also discovered how very hard it is to work out how to use a piece of software if you are utterly unfamiliar with the job it is supposed to do. If you have a word processor, and you move over to another sort of word processor, you can at least have in your head an idea about what word processors in general do, and what you should expect this one in particular to be capable of.

Anyway, in a very commendable positive thinking way, I have chosen to look upon this titanic struggle as a learning challenge - and indeed, I have created a few things that don't look like I drew them with some crayons which are very blunt. Now if only I could get them to print on the correct bit of the page...

Lots to do

2008-05-22T08:23:00.002+01:00

My usual routine of getting up and working for a while on my computer before going to my actual day job (and no, I'm not going to tell you who I work for, they'd probably sue me if I mention their name!) has been resurrected. Foz has gone to the farm to feed Ruby Lamb and give Invalid Alfie his homeopathic remedy, and I have managed to check my emails, and generally do some admin stuff. My next major project is Open Farm Sunday, at Vowley Farm, where we keep our animals. I am giving a hand spinning demo, and having a stall, which will be the Grand Launch of my business, finally. Of course, I have a lot to do in the meantime! Alfie's injury has meant that my head is full of how to deal with him. I'm realising that having a nearly full time job, plus horses who also need attention (I haven't ridden for some time!) and the fledgling business including flock of sheep means that, although I have the physical time to do everything, finding the brainpower to deal with it all is a challenge.

But that's OK. Other things are also getting done, amazingly. I am speaking to friends on the phone, and I am keeping the garden work going (half the garden is fine, half is a wilderness waiting to be carved out) and we are eating home cooked food rather than rubbish. I am not quite sure how this is all happening, but I am grateful!

More soon, including (I hope) pictures of some of the wool products which I'm plodding away on. I've got a Grand Day of Dyeing tomorrow, and am hoping to dye some uncombed Cotswold fleece - it takes the dye wonderfully well, and just looks lusciously gorgeous when all piled up in a basket. Hopefully my customers will find it irresistible - I know I do.

Alfie strikes again...

2008-05-21T22:52:00.005+01:00

I don't think I've said very much here about Alfie yet. For those who know me, this is quite an unusual state of affairs, because Alfie is often very much on my mind. He is a 2 year old Cotswold wether (a castrated male sheep), who is probably my favourite of the flock, but he is very high maintenance. He was the last offspring of Foz's favourite ewe Maisie, who was very ill when he was born and died when he was a week old. Alfie himself was very unwell, and it seemed unlikely that he would pull through, but thanks to the dedicated nursing of my friend Fiona, he did survive, albeit in a slightly wonky and strange way! I got him when he was 4 months old or so, and became so fond of him that I couldn't send him to the abattoir - so he has stayed, making himself very useful in the ways only he can. He will walk on a halter, come when called, go into the trailer practically before the ramp is completely down, and is always cheerful and friendly. He loves meeting people, so is always a star attraction on Open Farm Sunday (coming up on 1st June... watch this space!)

So far, so cute. However, life with Alfie has a down-side, and it is that he is very accident prone. If anyone in the flock gets fly strike, it is Alfie. If someone hurdles the electric fence and falls into the fast-running ditch, necessitating Foz to go in over his wellies in order to effect a rescue, it is Alfie. The escaper who can blunder through the electric fence and be found happily grazing on the other side... well, that's Alfie too. Here is a photo of Alfie taken today:

No, he's not a goat - they have just been sheared - and actually, he's scratching himself. See anything else unusual? Natty legwear, huh?

Alfie has managed to sprain a tendon. This, I am told, is an unusual injury for a sheep. He is absolutely hopping lame, but otherwise completely unaffected. I'm not sure how he did it (I suspect a scrap with last year's ram lamb, who is looking increasingly tasty and will be got rid of next month) but he is completely out of action. Our homeopathic vet has recommended we shovel large amounts of arnica down Alfie's throat, and Alf has managed to work out that if he drops the carrot which the pill is balanced on (thus losing the pill in the grass, from whence it will never be retrieved), then dives for the carrot and eats it from the ground before we can get to it, then he will get another piece. He is having his bandage changed twice a day, and ensures that he always wanders in amongst the thistles for this to be done. He cannot be separated from the flock, otherwise he has a complete meltdown, but he does have his house, of which he is very fond:

I cannot believe he has done this. He could be lame for up to 4 weeks. Edward, our lovely vet, said to me 'don't worry, Alfie will be around to plague us for the next few years', so I'm glad to know it's not a life-threatening injury, but I have to say, I was hoping for a quieter sheep time of things. Sigh.

Letting go

2008-05-08T08:59:00.006+01:00

Look! A jumper!

As promised, here's the latest thing I have been working on. I am excessively pleased with this garment. It fits me extremely well, the colours are a delight, the way they merge from one to another is very subtle and lovely. It suits me very well indeed.

However, there is a problem. It's not for me. It will be used to take photos for my knitting kits, then I will sell it. I can see that this is not going to be easy! It's the difference between the idea of knitting for myself and my friends, and knitting for sale. I've realised that I tend to hold an idea in my mind of the person for whom this garment is being made, so that as well as it being made to their measurements, there is a sort of intention, throughout the making process, that the thing is actually for them. It's sort of knitted in with the wool. I wonder who will end up owning this jumper? It will certainly have a life away from mine. Will it go to someone I know? Or will someone on the Internet, maybe in a different country, buy it and wear it? Will they cherish it, will they pass it on after a season? Will it eventually pass into the hands of someone who doesn't know the story behind it? I wonder. Or even - well, this would be weird - will I see someone wearing it, one day, and recognise it? I hope I can restrain myself from rushing up to them and going 'see! See??! I made that!!!'

In other news, Molly's lamb is now called Lily. Here she is:

When this photo was taken, she hadn't even got to her feet yet, but I got a very strong sense that she knew exactly where she was, knew exactly what she was doing, and intended to have it all her own way. Newborn lambs often look majorly confused just after they have been unceremoniously turfed out of the womb, but not this one. I predict a interesting relationship ahead!

The naming of things is a difficult matter

2008-04-25T05:25:00.004+01:00

Naming any living creature is tricky. Even naming inanimate objects isn't easy (we always name our cars... What? What's wrong with that??) We are, however, having a terrible time thinking up a name for the latest lamb. We know her as The Princess, but that won't do for a real name. Our criteria are: it must be a Real Name (not something like Lady or... well, or Princess), it must sound well with the flock prefix, which is Burleigh, in front of it, and you must be able to yell it across the field without feeling like a prize twit. So far, we have Lulu and Alex from last year, and this year's named lambs are Yan Lamb (you know the Cumbrian sheep-counting dialect thang, Yan Tan Tethera?), Tansy, and Ruby. This new one... we're having problems with her. We spent an amusing time discussing names over dinner, but are no further on. Ella? Dido? Nope.

Anyway. Look! Wool!!We have, at present, what I think in business might be termed a cashflow crisis (using this terminology makes me feel much better than if I think of it as being broke until pay day!) so, in the entrepreneurial spirit I don't have much of and am determined to cultivate, I have started pushing forwards with the business again. My website has been revitalised, and within 48 hours of this happening, I had a phone call asking me to give a talk... I read recently that if you take one step forward, the Universe takes another one towards you, and after this, I really believe it!

I'm creating a jumper from the brown/blue/turquoise wool which is lurking on the right of that picture, coyly hiding behind the purple, and I've got to say, I think it's lovely. Photos in the next episode.

Out of the Lambing Zone...

2008-04-18T16:39:00.008+01:00

Today is a day for picking up all the jobs which I have neglected since I went into the Lambing Zone; and setting up a blog is one of them. My intention is to blog about my craft activities, mostly knitting and spinning, and about the things I create from the wool of our beautiful sheep. An integral part of this is the creation of yet more sheep, and it is this that I have been supervising the last few weeks.

We have a very small flock of Cotswold sheep (there are only very few large flocks of Cotswold sheep!) who have been enthusiastically producing lambs, both alive and (alas) dead, for the last 3 weeks. The whole sleepless, stressful, scary time has been worth it because of these:

plus Princess Lamb (photos coming soon), born on Wednesday to our favourite ewe Molly, and who is being outrageously spoiled by her doting mum. To say that Molly is pleased with her lamb is an understatement. I was concerned about her yesterday, because she didn't seem to be eating very enthusiastically. She was tucking in until the lamb bleated or moved, then the unchewed food would drop from her mouth as she focussed with single-minded determination on the lamb. The solution was to put down a large pile of hay, pick the lamb up and put her right into the middle of it, so Molly could eat AROUND the lamb, thus keeping her nose on her baby if she so chose. I do not fear that the Princess will be neglected - on the contrary, I fear that she will become so unbearably spoiled as to be impossible.

Now we have lambs on the ground, I must give some more consideration to dealing with the end product - namely, their wool. I realised a while ago that I had to start thinking about selling the stuff, because I have so much of it that even I, demon knitter and spinner, cannot keep up. I have had a consignment beautifully spun up by the Natural Fibre Company, and I'm now experimenting with it. I am slightly freaked out by the amount of wool I have still to be spun... and of course the amount which is out there on the backs of the sheep, growing away even as I write. At least this year's lambs won't need shearing until 2009...