Easter Weekend

The demonstration season seems to be coming around again. The Murmuring Wheel and I had a busy three days over Easter at two very different but very enjoyable events.

Easter Saturday we had been invited to the "Spring Fling" at Hatton Church in Lincolnshire, organised by
The Invitation.

The day started off rainy, but that didn't put off the visitors, in fact for such a small village, the turnout was amazing. As we were in Lincolnshire, we had decided that it would be appropriate to be spinning Lincoln Longwool fleece ( kindly supplied by Sharon of Greengate Wools) which many local people noticed. We had a really nice day, thanks to Margaret and Sheila for inviting us and hope we can come back again soon.

Easter Sunday and Monday we represented The Arkwright Spinsters at a Georgian Re-enactment and Living History event at Cromford Mill in Derbyshire. We were right up on the top floor of the main mill, which was new for us as we are more used to being on the ground floor of the wharf building, just across the road from the mill. Being so high up gave us a great view of what was happening in the mill yard though.





We thought that being up on the top floor, we wouldn't get many visitors, but were surprised at just how many people came in, partly due, on the Sunday, to David, the tour guide, bringing his tour groups in to see the spinning process. The other exhibitions in the same building as us were fascinating, unfortunately I didn't get to see as much as I would have liked.

Me, looking busy...........

So, a good start to our summer demonstrations, fingers crossed that the rest of the year goes this well.

Advent Gathering

On the 6th of December the Murmuring Wheel Group and I attended the Advent Gathering of the Staffordshire Moorlands Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers at Cheddleton.

It's always nice to see the Staffordshire Moorlands Guild as they are all such lovely people and this year, like last, they put on a fantastic event which was enjoyed by everyone who went.

We had a great time catching up with friends we hadn't seen in a while and making new ones.

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.