Wool Experience 2011

Wool Experience 2011

Deserves a whole post to itself I think.


We had a larger number of stalls this time around, which took a bit more organising. My fingernails suffered quite a bit of chewing in the lead up to the event but on the whole, I'm happy to say that the day went very well!

This time around we had some lovely new exhibitors, including: Paul Crookes from Halifax Spinning Company - who was very popular with the visitors! Some even came and thanked me for inviting him as he was so friendly, helpful and knowledgeable.



Amanda from Pedwardine Gotlands, who seemed to have lots of interest from our spinning visitors,
Emstead Leicester Longwools, who also had lots of fleeces snapped up by the visitors,
Amber Valley and Farhill Farm Alpacas -this stall too, fleeces selling like hotcakes!



Forest Crafters from Nottinghamshire,
Mum and daughter team Weave Knit It,
and local dyer Judith from The Wonder of Woolies.


Also back by popular demand, Dot Lumb and Yarnmaker magazine, and a shearing display by the Singing Shearer. I was also very happy that Carole from Skeins could come along for the day too, her stall was certainly very popular.

The weather turned out to be just perfect, which resulted in lots of visitors. We raised a good sum on the door, which was split between the local church, the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institute and Mediciens sans Frontiers.

Plans are underway for the 2012 event, already looking like it will be bigger and better, with many stalls already booked, although I am on the lookout for anything slightly unusual or interesting and wool related, so please feel free to make suggestions.

Thanks to Jayne and Nancy Fisher for the photos in this post.

Black Sheep Birthday

Wednesday 17th November 2010 was the first anniversary of our Black Sheep Spinners!

To celebrate the occasion we had a bit of a party, all the members brought along tasty treats, many of them home-made, and the Blaze Farm staff very kindly made us a cake (see above)

We are thrilled that the group has been meeting for a year and seems to be going from strength to strength, we have lots of lovely regular visitors and it's always a friendly, fun atmosphere at meetings.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us for the last year.

New Year and more to keep me busy

2010 seems to be disappearing as quickly as 2009 did. Almost a month gone already!

The Black Sheep meetings continue to be successful, we did have a few worries about the January one after such a lot of snow up near the farm, but we still managed to get across, as did many others.

The diary is filling up at an amazing rate at the moment, some dates have been added to my Events page but lots more will be added in the near future. It's looking like this will be our busiest year yet.

The first workshop at Amber Valley Alpacas went very well indeed and seemed to have been enjoyed by everyone who attended. I'm going to write a seperate post about the day when I've tracked down some photos.

The date for the February workshop is fully booked and the March date is getting plenty of interest too so we may have to look at arranging more dates later in the year to meet demand. Anyone looking for spinning courses, felting courses or workshops any other related crafts please get in touch and we will see what we can arrange.

Ah well, must get some work done, back soon.....

The Black Sheep Spinners, 1st meeting

I think I have just about recovered enough now to blog about yesterday! What a fantastic, friendly, fun, tiring day it was too.

I think I can safely say that the first meeting of the Black Sheep Spinners went well. We had far more people come and join us than we had ever imagined and the room was totally packed for most of the day, we think that, aside from the 8 of us who organised it, there were about 20 people!

It was great to see lots of new faces, who we hope will become good friends in the future, and also to see some old friends that we hadn't met for a while. Such as Sally and her family, home educating friends of ours who fitted in perfectly. Her girls were a delight to have with us and both Lani and Freya produced some very neat spinning.

Lani even helped out, teaching needlefelting to two children who visited after school. We hope to have lots more home-ed children, and children in general at future meetings.

Sally has already written a lovely post about the day on her own blog here Thanks Sally!

We had our own Black Sheep Banner, ready in time for the day, thanks to the hard work of Florence. It looked fantastic and shows just what a talented lady she is.

Both the banner and our badges sport our logo, George Clooney II of Camall, the Black Sheep. His image is used with the kind permission of Mr James Graham.

It was great to see so many people, spinning, knitting, chatting, swapping tips and having a go at different aspects of their crafts.

Dorothy doing very well on the Great Wheel there, I know who to leave in charge whan I want a break!

We all want to say thanks to all at Blaze Farm who took such good care of us, especially Katy who did so much to help us prepare in the lead up to the first meeting.

We are now eagerly looking forward to next month's meeting, 16th of December. We are anticipating even more people coming as almost everyone who came this time said that they would be telling friends. Hope the room will hold us all!

We intend meeting on the third Wednesday of each month from now on, I will post list of dates for next year eventually. Everyone welcome, all ages. £3 per session with refreshments.

If you are not a crafter, why not come for a look around ( free admission) and see what we get up to. You might just find that last minute Christmas present, as some members will have lovingly created items for sale. And of course it's never too cold for an icecream before you leave.

I will leave you with a taste of what we had on display, if you want to see more, then come along and visit us.