First taste at Spinning and Farm Visit

I've had a practice on my spinning wheel and have a few books out from the library to help me along. Mostly I have been treadling to get the hang of the rhythm. I'm excited to have found two people now that I am hoping to go and see about some tuition, one is for a full days tuition from sorting a fleece to spinning yarn, and the other is a lady from the local guild of spinners who runs weekly lessons. Just need to get sorted out with a day to start.

In the meantime, over the bank holiday weekend, we went to a local working farm for the day - Manor Farm Country Park. They had an event on this weekend - a Woolly weekend! They were supposed to be showing some shearing their shears unfortunately had broken and they couldn't get a spare part at such short notice. They did however demonstrate other cutting of the wool on the sheep to help prevent fly strike. Imogen enjoyed watching this.


And then there was the barn full of lovely ladies Spinning and Weaving. So whilst the visiting grandparents were taken on a tour of all the lovely animals on the farm who Imogen has previously met (see previous post), I spent some time chatting to the ladies who were members of the local Guild who I had been in touch with about joining.

They were all lovely, and approachable which was just what I needed being new to the world of spinning. I was given a leaflet and some information about the guild and encouraged by all to join and come along to their meetings. They were demonstrating drop spindle spinning, spinning wheel spinning and different types of weaving. I never realised there were so many different types of weaving. There was also a display of natural dyes.
I got chatting with one lovely lady who was keen to get me to join the guild, being a younger member which they are trying to encourage. She was great at explaining things that I had been trying to learn from the books and then asked me if I wanted to have a go ... wow yes, please!

It looks so easy when an experienced spinner is spinning wool, but isn't when it's yourself but I started to get the hang of it and by the end of my little taster session I had spun some wool into yarn so was really pleased. The lady was excellent and showing me what to do and encouraged me greatly. She also said after I'd sat there a while that she thought I'd be a natural and already had a good rhythm for spinning. I actually found it relaxing.

Me Spinning!

In the barn they also had a handmade yurt that had been created by the guild using the wool from the sheep from Manor Farm, which they all use. This yurt was fantastic - over the frame the fabric was all felted wool with braiding, weaving, tassel making, etc all done by the guild members fair hands. What a work of art.

The fabulous Yurt

Another great day out, hot and sunny and as per our previous visit Imogen got to hold the baby animals again - a baby rabbit, duckling and chick. She also had great fun watching cows being milked and stroking the pigs, lambs, calves, and horses. A few more photos of the day ...

Imogen and baby chick

Imogen and baby duckling

Imogen and baby rabbit