Bakewell, York and the Green Fair

Bakewell Show

We had a great time at the 2011 Bakewell Show, again in the Food and Farming area, with The Sheep Show, NFU Let's Talk Farming Roadshow and Bakewell Young Farmers to name a few.

The weather kept us on our toes, scorching hot the first day and showers of rain on the second, both of which made me very glad that we took an extra, small gazebo to cover the area of our pitch which would normally be bare ground, with us sat/stood spinning exposed to the elements. We are learning - slowly.

I'm amazed at the amount of people who come back to see us year after year. It's a lovely feeling to be recognised, and to be told how much people enjoy seeing our display.

As we speak the papers for this years Bakewell Show are halfway to being filled in, so hopefully we will be back again -  if they will have us.

York Food and Drink Festival

I was very pleased to be invited by the lovely Rachael from NFU Northeast, to demonstrate on their stall for York Food and Drink Festival on the 20th of September. The theme of the day was sheep and the display also included a couple of lambs, brought along by farmer Rosey Dunn. The lambs certainly got plenty of attention. I suppose it's not often you see sheep in the middle of York ( excepting Nobby and friends the previous year - obviously)

Rachael had also brought along my flag, as part of the display. I was pleased to see it again, and to hear that it has been used for lots of events, including Great British Beef Week.

The event was certainly well attended, not surprising with so much yummy food on offer!

Rachael, Rosey and I even got interviewed for Radio York, by Dougie, who bravely had a quick drop spindling lesson, broadcast live while he was talking to me. See photo at the top of this post, my fantastic photographer/mother even got the flag in the background.

It was a really enjoyable day overall. I must admit I'm getting very fond of York and would love to be asked to work up there again.


Green Fair

Chesterfield's first Green Fair was held on Saturday 24th September, organised by Alastair and the Buzz team.
It was a very different atmosphere from other Buzz events we have attended but certainly brought the event to the attention of a lot more people, some of whom seemed surprised to see some "extra" stalls on market day.

The reaction from the public and the regular stallholders was - on the whole - very positive. There were even a few people interested in booking for our spinning courses at Heage.
Feedback after the day sounds to have been very good and I'm told that a similar event is being planned for later this year.

Wool Week, York Minster, Nobby and the Union Jack.

I think I've said before that I like odd requests. I enjoy a challenge, and an excuse to do something a bit out of the ordinary.

Sometimes though, I have moments where I wonder what I've let myself in for!

The idea for my most interesting project this year started at Bakewell Show. Richard from The Sheep Show casually strode over and asked if I thought I could make a Union Flag from wool. " I don't see any reason why not"...... I said.

I didn't really expect to hear anything more about it, but a few weeks later I got an email from the NFU's Regional Public Relations Officer for the North East. They wanted the flag making as part of their campaign to have wool included in the 2012 Olympics ( more information here) a campaign which Richard had been supporting all summer.

We swapped a few ideas and what followed was about 5 weeks of sketches, charts, samples, spinning, dyeing and crochet. I decided on crochet rather than knitting so that I could easily make the pattern the same on both sides.

The final result can be seen below, as well as more impressive shots here and here


The photos were taken at a special Wool Week event at York Minster on October 12th. The event was part of the national Campaign for Wool but also to celebrate the success of the NFU petiton.

We spent the day spinning outside the South Door of the Minster while Richard and Ed drew the crowds with The Mini Sheep Show. A full write up of the event can be found here.

We also managed to find a use for that 40ft scarf knitted at Bakewell. Emperor Constantine made a great model for the day!


We had a lot of fun with the tourists and also children from the nearby Minster school, who all had a go at spinning for themselves.

We were especially honoured to have been invited to this event as I'm told that this area of York is not a designated event area, and so the event was a the first of its kind.

So, in short, even if I was slightly upstaged by a Norfolk Horn, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.

Thanks must go to the NFU who looked after us so well, and especially to Rachael who made such a great job of organising the whole thing. Also to the Minster staff who made us very welcome.

And if you still want to see more, there are many more pictures: Mini Sheep Show Murmuring Wheel and York Minster

Bakewell Show 2010

Our third year at Bakewell Show, what can I say that isn't like repeating myself?

Fun, friendly and muddy as usual!

The oversized scarf idea came into action again, it came to over 40ft this time, see future posts for what we did with it!

Here it is in progress, photo kindly supplied by Dot Lumb:

We enjoyed working with The Sheep Show again of course.

How many sheep shearers does it take to spin a yarn?


Don't worry, my wheel did survive the experience!

Countrytastic!!

This was it, the big event that I had been planning for ( and stressing about) for months.... After a 2.30am wake up to make sure we got everything done in time, The Murmuring Wheel set off down the motorway at 3.45 am on our way to Countrytastic at the Three Counties Showground. We arrived on the showground just before 7am and just had time for a bit of breakfast before setting up.




We had taken 11 spinning wheels down with us. It was the first outing for one of them, our 17th century English Great Wheel, which was operated all day by Nancy.




We had lots of other equipment with us too to give the kids plenty to have a go at.

We were set up and ready by 9am and had time to chat to a few of the other exhibitors before the gates opened at 10am, a good thing we took the opportunity really as when the visitors started to arrive we got VERY busy - hence the lack of photographs, nobody had a free minute to take any. We found out afterwards that there had been over 4000 visitors!

Lots of children and their parents and grandparents had taken advantage of the glorious sunshine to enjoy a day out and we discovered quite a few promising young spinners and weavers among them. When they had been around our stand there was plenty more to keep the kids entertained, including The Sheep Show presented this time by Stuart Barnes, who we hadn't worked with before but who went down a treat with the audience.

Other attractions include a sheepdog display, terrier racing and a play area of hay bales and sawdust ( I think most of the kids liked the last one best of all!)

Adam Henson from The Cotswold Farm Park and BBC Countryfile was also at the event with his family, I persuaded Adam to have a go on my Great Wheel, which he did, producing a very........ interesting yarn. His daughter Ella also tried on mum's wheel and spun a bit of very nice wool.

If Adam happens to come across this blog ( not likely I know!) then we have a message for him:

" We hope your spinning has improved by next year as we will be back again. Get that spinning wheel out of the loft and get some practice in, who knows maybe we will save you a chair and you ( or Ella) can come and join in the demonstration!"

And if I get a reply to that I will be rather shocked!

We had a fantastic time and did actually get some work done. After seeing the sheep sheared on the Sheep Show, visitors could see us spinning and crocheting. We managed to make a crocheted a shawl during the day which we gave to Show Manager Doreen Smillie.

We want to say a big thankyou to everyone who organised the event, particularly to Doreen and to Education Officer Sue Hodgson-Jones. We were honoured to be part of such a well organised, fun and educational event and it was clear that you had put such a lot of work into making it the success it was.

We are looking forward to next year, it's the 21st April 2011 for anyone who missed this year and wants to catch it next time around.

Sorry that this post is a bit lacking in photos readers, but if you look here: Newsdesk there is a very nice one of Philip at the bottom of the article, we hope that the Countrytastic Gallery will be up on the TCAS website soon too.

Easter events

We're gearing up to a very busy Easter here. I'm spending every spare moment preparing and am sure that I'm never going to get everything done that needs doing.

If anyone fancies coming along to see us when we are out and about, we will be at the following:

2nd April - Good Friday - Open Day at Central Wool Growers, Worksop Branch, Nottinghamshire

3rd and 4th April - Easter Saturday and Sunday - The Spring Fling, organised by Artinvision
at St Stephens Church, Hatton, nr Wragby, Lincolnshire.

then a few days rest until.....

8th April -CountryTastic! at The Three Counties Showground, Malvern, Worcestershire. We are working with The Sheep Show at this one, which always proves an interesting experience!

11th April - Wetlands Animal Park, Sutton-cum-Lound, nr Retford, Nottinghamshire. We will be spinning near the deer enclosure.

We will also be at the Arkwright Spinsters meeting on the 18th and Black Sheep meeting on the 21st, so April will probably pass pretty quickly!

End of the summer season

Phew, at last I have caught up with blogging about our summer adventures. We finished off with our usual weekend at Cromford Mill for Heritage Open Days, which was quieter than previous years but still lots of fun, and of course, we have demonstrated every month with The Arkwright Spinsters, also at Cromford.

We did have chance to squeeze in a few day out for ourselves too, we visited Hope Show in Derbyshire at the end of August and enjoyed catching up with lots of friends that we hadn't seen lately.

We also went up to Masham Sheep Fair for a look around, I always like to see what has been entered in the spinning competitions in the Town Hall. We bumped into a friend of ours who was showing some of her sheep and of course we had to watch a Sheep Show, and find a few minutes to chat to Richard.

I have also been working on lots of commmission jobs through the year, plus making new items which I will have out for sale at next years events, if they haven't all been snapped up before then. I have also found the time to do a lot more experimenting with natural dyes recently, something I have dabbled in for a while but never had the time to really play around with. I have been getting much better results after a few tips from a friend of mine who does a lot of dyeing.

The diary for next year is filling up fast, it looks like we will be out at more places than ever. I have also been working on a few exciting new projects, news about some of them will be publised here in the coming weeks, so please keep checking back.

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.

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.