Progress is happening...slowly!

Remember this these little piles of colour from the Dartmoor dyeing? I was working on getting these spun up so I could knit them into something for our spinning group's Open Day next month. Good news! The spinning has been completed - ta da....

I give you... two skeins wound up into balls as well as two skeins which have since been swished around in some nice, warm, soapy water to clean any left-over gunk from them. Let the knitting begin! No photos of that, yet, but I can tell you there have been a few gribbit, gribbit noises coming from the two balls of yarn. Yes, they have been to the frog pond a couple of times. Maybe they have settled down now. Time will tell. But, hopefully, they may look like this one day soon. Do you think I can do it? The pattern is in Spanish, of which I know next to zilch, but after a run through Babelfish it is a little more understandable (the emphasis is on little!).

The hat, if it doesn't run into another frog, may be on the small side but I don't care at this stage. Even though the fleece was from a Border Leceister sheep, for some reason it seemed to spin up very fine. More like a 3-ply than a 4-ply (this is the weight of yarn, like DK, not the number of plies). No-one else seemed to have this problem so I think it must be me. But it is nice and soft and has a lovely sheen. The softness seemed to be unique to me also. Is it the way I spin? What is so different about it?

I wish I could show you the other items being made from this same fleece but you will just have to wait until after 17 May for photos! There are a couple of hats and a glove and cravat set. More items are still to come. But my favourite, so far, are two needle-felted dolls made by a new member of the group. This woman is a doll-maker as well as making bobbin lace and beautiful embroidery. But she says knitting is too difficult for her!! As Rove McManus would say, "What the...??" She has taken another couple of little coloured piles and is going to transform them into some little needle-felted boxes. I can't wait to see them!

We will have two speakers at the Open Day - Stuart Albrey, a local black and coloured sheep breeder and Pauline Jones who makes pergamano cards (google it for various sites showing this unusual card-making method). should be an interesting day.