12 Days of Christmas: Day 5, more weaving

Day 5: After a very sociable day visiting friends and family, I got some more weaving done on the Double weave bag.

Double weave tubular bag. 

I stopped at this point as I need to wind on some more weft. I am using these warp ends and as they are fairly thin, I weave with 4 strands together.

 It takes me a bit of time to get the yarn unbraided and then wound on evenly onto the shuttle.


 The yarn came from a weaving studio somewhere via a friend. I need to ask her again where she got it. I don't even know if it is wool or what. I love the vibrant colours and as I am only a beginner I use what I have and see what I learn from it.

12 Days of Christmas: Day 4, some weaving.

Day 4: Friday 29th December 2017.
I got some weaving done, Double weave, on my Glimåkra Victoria table loom.
It took a bit of straightening to fix the warp that admittedly has been on the loom for probably about a year, gulp....
The magic of Double Weave is that you can weave an upper layer and a lower layer at the same time. Last year I wove a tubular piece closed at the lower end. It looks like that is what I am going to do this time too! I might add a flap at the top to this one.
Here is the progress on the latest one, so far.

Double weave, tubular piece, closed at lower end. 

12 Days of Christmas: Day 3, Ashford Scholar Mark 2 teaches me a lesson.

Day 3, Thursday 28th December
Today there was a beautiful sunrise, I know this because I was up early to drive my daughter to work for 8am. The sky was clear and blue. However, it didn't take long for the clouds to roll in from the south west. I could see the horizon darken as I was driving home for my breakfast. The forecast was for showers of rain, sleet and snow. Oh dear...




Luckily the roads were ok for driving and after my breakfast, I gathered my bag of Very Important Things for Fixing Spinning Wheels, and off I set. I got safely to my friend's house, M in Killaloe, Co Clare. M has a Mark 2 Ashford Scholar. The connector between the conrod and treadle had broken off ages ago, and a new piece was needed, but it wasn't working out so well for M to fix it.

Well, all I can say is that I live and learn. I will spare you the trials and tribulations of the learning curve, but I can assure you it was steep. Finally, M's partner discovered after over an hour of us women trying and failing, that actually, there was a short piece of the old green connector stuck in the hole of the conrod. Sigh.... That was why the screw couldn't get a grip on the connector piece properly. I had seen a little bit of green, but didn't realise it was a whole chunk of old connector! Mea Culpa!

Oh well, it was a successful visit after all, as the wheel did spin after that, albeit with a slightly shorter piece of connector than the optimal length, (boohoo, I had cut the piece earlier, dang!...)

A drop of Ashford Spinning wheel oil worked wonders and the wheel spun smoothly for me before I left.


Lesson 1 learnt today, Use your eyes and keep asking questions of yourself: i.e. What might that little patch of green mean? Investigate!
and Lesson 2: Order more Connector pieces asap.

 It was snowing as I was driving home, but it didn't land and  it didn't last.
Plan for tonight: Weave, Spin and read up on the Foundation Certificate in Spinning in UK.

12 days of Christmas: Day 2, spinning wheel exchange

Day 2 , Wednesday 27th December.
Let's start with a bit of background info: I have 10 spinning wheels and 4 children, one husband and one cat, all in a relatively small house. Coming up to Christmas, I realised that I needed more floor space in the living room in order to have space for the Christmas tree. Also , I had two daughters who would be coming home from college and they would not appreciate sharing their bedrooms with a spinning wheel or two, from this little group of wheels.

the view of the corner of my living room

To cut a long story short,  I decided that two of my spinning wheels could go on a Christmas holiday to two new spinners.
One wheel (a light coloured Dutch wheel in the style of a Louet S10) went to B outside Ennis.
The other wheel, (a dark coloured Willy Spinnewiel from Holland also) went to S, from County Limerick.

Willy Spinning wheel, from Holland

However, the leather tension strap on the wheel that S got broke shortly after she got it home.

The leather strap on the wheel before it broke. It is connected to a tension peg, which is hanging loose on the left lower part of the photo.  

That was two weeks ago. I really wanted S to have a working wheel.  So yesterday's spinning activity involved me meeting S and taking back one wheel from her and giving her a different one. We met at a hotel in Limerick and had a lovely chat and cuppa, joined by  another knitter/spinner/dyer, G.
S took to my Ashford Traditional without too much bother, and I tried out the dark Dutch wheel again.  Amazingly it spins and takes up without any tension at all, and I got it to spin quite finely. Apparently it is a bit of an acquired taste, the other two girls did not find it comfortable to use at all,  so it looks like this old Dutch wheel will be staying with me for the time being. No bother....

I am glad it works without the leather strap. Maybe I don't need to be in a rush to replace the leather. I do not fancy taking out those 3 studs holding the strap, I am afraid I would damage the wood. Not to worry, I know an excellent woodworker, who can do these small jobs for me.


It was lovely to spend time with two other spinners last night and it was just what I needed.
The waitress even recognises us now because that hotel is where we go to meet up for the weekly Limerick Knit night which G started. The waitress offered us some wool as she said she had a fleece from one of her family's sheep. Immediately, I offered to teach her how to spin the fleece. So maybe one night she can come join us and learn how to spindle spin!

12 days of Christmas: Day 1, Spinning endeavours

The Twelve days of Christmas are traditionally the 12 days between Christmas Day and the Epiphany, on 6th of January. Although when you count it, that makes 13 days, so maybe the count starts on St Stephen's Day, what with Christmas Day being such a special day. I imagine that this was a time of relative rest or at least, a pause, (before the calving and lambing started, etc) for people in the past, especially people living in the country farming. I often wonder what the lives of the people who lived before us were like. 

My 12 days of Christmas are the wonderful 12 days of my Christmas holidays, after Christmas Day, i.e., after all the rushing and buying and cooking is over. Now that I have this extra bit of free time, I plan to do something with spinning, dyeing or weaving each day and to blog about it!

Day 1 was yesterday, St Stephen's Day. I did some plying yesterday, see the photo below. The fiber is Masham, which I got from a destash sale on Ravelry.com. It was a bit felted together when I got it back in the autumn, but I was not going to let that deter me. I worked patiently on just splitting the fiber lengthways and opening it out by hand. I spun it with my default spinning technique, which is short forward draw, semi-worsted.  I also spun some of it on a spindle, almost nekked spindle pictured also below.

Yesterday, St Stephen's Day, I got out the Bliss wheel and the bobbins and spindle and 2- plied the singles. 

Masham , 2 plied

Also yesterday, I had a lovely treat, I was asked to come give a few pointers to a lovely young woman, D, who had just gotten her first spinning wheel for Christmas. The wheel is a Timbertops Thurmaston 18" wheel, with 8 spokes. It is a beautiful wheel, and D's dad had cleaned it up till it was glowing, in a lovely chestnut colour. Luckily D had gotten through any teething problems by the time I got there and she was spinning happily. I had met D and her family earlier in the summer at a market and I had given her her first spindle and first spinning lesson back then. So it feels great to see her sitting and spinning happily on her very own wheel. 
If anyone wants to see what the Timbertops wheels look like, check out this site: http://www.woodland-turnery.co.uk/timbertops.html

When I got home from D's house, I was inspired to start thinking about weaving again on my loom. So I cleaned it off and dusted it down and checked the warp that was on it. It is several months since I used the loom, so it was indeed dusty. I had it warped for Double weave (more on that anon), so I am thinking of  doing a sampler of Double weave, trying out the different types : tubular, open pockets, closed pockets, pocket open at one side, etc. I just want to finish out the warp and then I can get a new warp on the loom. 

Back at the loom again

Gotta consult all the books of course!

Happy Christmas 2017

Happy Christmas everyone!
Just keep spinning...

St Stephen's Day, December 2017