Bakewell Show 2009

As we had been so busy through the summer, August seemed to creep up on me and before I knew it it was time for Bakewell Show again. I must admit it was the event I had been really looking forward to as it was the place that our Murmuring Wheel Group made it's first proper appearance.

The problem being, we had such a great time last year, we had been wondering how on earth to top it this year.

Things didn't look too promising when we arrived the night before to set up our stand, the ground was already quite wet and several of the other exhibitors seemed to be having difficulties which made it difficult for us to set up where we intended, meaning we had to have a 4.30am start the next day to get sorted out in time for the show opening. Things improved from then though and the ground dried up pretty quickly in our corner.

We had arranged to work with Richard and his Sheep Show again, which was always going to be interesting! We had already been and had a chat with him when we visited the Great Yorkshire Show back in July so had a few ideas of what we were going to get up to.

We decided that we would stretch ourselves this year and worked on two different projects, a mystery item in segments for each day plus a special surprise for Janet Bailey, the lovely Show Manager, who we thought deserved a bit of thanks for all the hard work she puts in all year round, making the Bakewell Show such a popular and enjoyable event.

Our mystery items went down well with the visitors, turning out to be a sheep on the first day:



And a teddy bear on the second, complete with costume, does it look like anyone familiar do you think?



We also managed to finish the project we had been working on for Janet, a crocheted woollen shawl, and were honoured that - although she was very busy - she found the time to come down and see us so that we could present it to her in person.

Many thanks to Lesley and Kirsty in the show office for helping us plan the surprise.

As we expected we had a brilliant time at the show, we enjoyed seeing friends that we hadn't seen in a while, who had come for a day out, and also meeting new people, lots of whom we hope to see again in the future.

We also really enjoyed working with Richard and The Sheep Show again, it's always nice to have someone else to have laugh with. Sooner or later we will know his show off-by-heart too, in fact I think I could recite most of it already!

We are already looking forward to next year and trying hard to come up with new ideas. Any suggestions welcome.

Summer is really here

Summer really seems to be here now, the group and I have been out and about demonstrating in the sunshine.

Sunday the 24th of May we were out as members of the Arkwright Spinsters at Hardwick Park Farm

It was an absolute scorcher of a day which seemed to attract the visitors. They had a team of shearers in, shearing their sheep, so we picked a nice looking fleece and got to work.

Laying the fleece out in the sun kept the lanolin warm which made it much easier to spin and the fleece was soon knitted up -

into a lovely ( although slightly greasy and smelly) shawl, for farmer's wife Clare.

They had a fantastic barbeque cooking too, we can recommend the beefburgers!

Bank Holiday Monday saw us at Wetlands Wildlife and Waterfowl Reserve at Sutton-cum-Lound, near Retford, which, by the way, is a great place to visit if you like to get a good look at unusual types of creatures, or just fancy a country walk around the lakes.

We had a nice shady spot, under the trees at the end of the deer pen and not far from their one sheep, Knobby, who was sheared by Philip in the afternoon ( the 100th sheep he had sheared this year!)

We managed to talk a few of the visitors into having a go at spinning too with some pretty impressive results.

Catching up

Well, it's all very well starting a blog if I never update it!

I have been so busy over the last few months that I have hardly been near the computer. I have however managed to make a start on a website: Murmuring Wheel which I will be working on in the future.

So, a quick catch up of the last few months:

Bakewell Show for a start as I previously mentioned it.

We demonstrated spinning with the Peak Wool Heritage Group in the Farming, Food and Fun section. We did a very succesful link up with The Sheep Show spinning and knitting a fleece that was shorn by Richard Savory, the presenter of the show on the first morning, and by the end of the second day of the show had knitted a scarf the length of his stage. This was all from raw fleece of course so we smelled a bit by the end of the second day!


As it turns out we were having too much fun to actually get any photos of us in action but did manage to get one of Richard having a go at spinning between performances. Surprisingly he turned out to be a pretty good spinner too.

We also demonstrated at the Heritage Open Days event at Cromford Mill on the 13th and 14th of September, representing the Arkwright Spinsters. It was a quiet weekend but we were visited by some friends and their children, which livened things up a lot!. If anyone in the Derbyshire area or nearby would like to come and see us at the Mill, the Arkwright Spinsters meet there on the third Sunday in every month.

At the end of September we had a day out and visited the Masham Sheep Fair, we met a lovely lady from the Craven Guild who was spinning there and also caught up with the Sheep Show again and saw that Richard was still using our scarf in the show.

In between times, I have been doing a lot of spinning for customers and the occasional bit just for fun and we have made a few trips to The Threshing Barn where Janet, the owner always makes us very welcome.

More posts to follow, hopefully more regularly from now on.

First post

Hello, welcome to the first post of Murmuring Wheel, my name is Diane, I am a handspinner in South Yorkshire, England, providing custom handspinning, knitting and crocheting services and spinning demonstrations at various events.

My family and I have been demonstrating spinning for five years as members of the Arkwright Spinsters but have recently started demonstrating as a group known as The Murmuring Wheel, some photos of our first demonstration, at the Bakewell Show, will follow shortly.