12 Days of Christmas: Day 9, Knit and Spin and Weave Night!

Spindle spinning at Knit Night

Wednesday 3rd January and an invitation pops up my Instagram: it is Knit Night tonight, hurray!
Roll on the evening and I head in to town to the hotel where Knit Night is on and my dear friend G has booked the comfy couches for us.
There are 5 of us altogether. We sit and craft and drink tea or hot chocolate and chat.
One is knitting a beautiful jumper of her own design in the most exquisite soft yarn, it is Baby alpaca dyed indigo blue, so soft and squishy and fine.
Another is knitting, then doing some carding of alpaca in preparation for spinning it at home.
Another is working on her crochet and embroidered cushion cover.
G is weaving in the Ashford Sample It loom she has rented from the Guild in Dublin.
And I am spinning on the Bliss initially, then on my spindle.
Photos of my efforts:

Second bobbin spun on the Bliss.

Spinning wheel and spindle spinning workshop

Welcome to my new blog about Spinning! Here I will be nattering on about the wonderful craft of Spinning wool with spindles and spinning wheels.

I have been spinning as a hobby for the last 7 years. I took my first spinning class about 23 years ago, in the autumn of 1994. It was a weekend class given by a spinner by the name of Julie Calloway who was then living in West Limerick. I promptly fell in love with spinning and rented a spinning wheel from Julie for a month or so. However  I handed back that wheel and packed away the spindle when I found I was expecting baby nr 1. The old stone farmhouse we were house-sitting in was just  too cold to allow me to sit and spin comfortably in the evenings and I needed my pennies for baby stuff, not wool.
Roll on 16 years, and I had some time off work on sick leave. I discovered the internet, and knitting blogs, and www.ravelry.com. From there it was but a few steps to unpacking the spindle and buying some wool to spin. Before I knew it I had an offer of a spinning wheel for sale. Yes! I bought my first wheel that summer, 2010.
Things have moved on, I have more wheels and lots of wool. More on this another time.
For now, here are  photos from a spinning workshop I gave in October 2017.

Above are the photos of the finished plied yarns. 

Below are some more  photos. First, the books I had on display, then my new Hero Drumcarder. 

Next, skeins of my handspun yarn, spun with dyed fleece from Kerry Woollen Mills; a

pair of hand carders, and finally two pieces of weaving, woven by me, all wool, warp is commercial grey wool and weft is all handspun, mostly my own.

Happy spinning all!