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.

Wonderful Wool Experience

Saturday 3rd July 2010. The Wool Experience at Blaze Farm.

I was honoured to be allowed to have a hand in the organising of the event this year. I was lucky enough to be able to arrange for some very exciting stallholders, including WildFibres with their SpinOlution wheels, which they were kind enough to let lots of us have a play on during the day.


Other exhibitors included our Black Sheep Spinners, Edale Woolworks, Newtoft Woodcraft, ELF feltmaking demonstrations and The Amoré Group with their fancy yarns. Also one of the Black Sheep flock, our good friend Dot Lumb, promoting her new YarnMaker magazine, the first edition of which is in the post to me as I type!!

We all had a really good day, lots of spinning and chatting going on and lots of icecreams eaten ( of course!)
Philip helped out with the shearing demonstration again, and even did a few with the blade shears, which seemed to draw a crowd.

Here's hoping that it is as good, if not better next year. Most of the exhibitors have already said that they would like to come back again, and a few more people have asked to be squeezed in too, so it's looking like the barn will be pretty full. Can't wait!

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.

Announcement

The five of us and a couple of friends have decided to start a new spinning group.

So, we would like to introduce........ The Black Sheep Spinners.
We will be based at Blaze Farm, near Wildboarclough in Cheshire.

We hope that this will be of interest to lots of people, not just spinners, all knitters, weavers, crocheters, lacemakers etc are quite welcome to come along and join us.

We are starting this group because we know people with young children, who want to learn to spin, or their children want to learn but have had difficulty finding a child friendly setting and also as a social gathering for crafters who don't like the idea of evening meetings.

It's free for anyone who just wants to come and have a look around and a chat or £3 per session if you want to sit and spin/knit/weave etc. Your first session is free.

If you are wanting to learn any of these crafts, we can arrange tuition at the group by prior arrangement but will have to charge a little extra for use of our equipment and materials.

All the information you need should be on the poster above, any questions please feel free to get in touch - TheHappySpinster@aol.com

We look forward to seeing you all.

The Wool Experience

Another update of our antics, as usual we have been so busy that I have neglected the blogging again.

Saturday 4th of July we were up at Blaze Farm, Wildboarclough in Cheshire spinning at their annual Wool Experience event. We first spun at Blaze Farm in 2007 and always pop in when we are passing, for one of their famous ( and delicious) Hilly Billy Ice Creams.

Although he was in his Murmuring Wheel outfit, Phil still got roped in to helping with the shearing demonstration, which seemed to be one of the highlights of the day for a lot of visitors.

There were a lot of interested visitors and we spent a lot of time taking to lots of lovely people. Plenty of kids - and adults - were brave enough to have a go at spinning for themselves too, which we always like to see, and we even gave a quick spinning lesson to farmers wife Caroline.

In between all this we still managed to find time to spin and crochet a shoulder shawl which we hope found its way to Blaze Farm's Katy who had been working hard all day in the cafe and also providing a commentary on the shearing display.