Calcitestar's yarns

Last weekend, hubby and I went down to The Glastonbury Wool Festival which promotes English wool and its use. Hubby with a useful leaning post! We arrived in Glastonbury at 9:30am ready for the sheep to be run down the high street.  After a quick dash back to the car to get the forgotten camera by kind hubby (not the only time I sent him dashing back to the car that weekend!) we  positioned  ourselves in a suitable spot amongst the rapidly gathering crowds. The well behaved Alpacas Just after 10am we caught our first glimpses of animals moving towards us and on further inspection we discovered that it was some Lamas on leads accompanied by their two owners. The sheep making a run for it! Following on behind in a rather less orderly fashion were a small group of sheep who were more intent on making a dash for it in any direction they could manage.   Human intervention. A couple of them had a munch of the flower displays en-route!  Wit...

Today whilst attending my local groups spinning day and I received a message that my English combs had arrived at home.  Avoiding the worst of the torrential rain that was submerging the roads I dashed back home eager to try out my new toy. When I unpacked it and slid out the combs from their cover I was amazed how much like torture devices they looked!  They also remind me of those huge toothed deep sea fish.  With a quick trip out again to the local DIY shop to buy claps I got it all set up and ready to go being very careful not to spike myself.  As there were no instructions I thought I would look on YouTube to see if I could confirm my ideas of using them.  I thought they couldn't be much more different than using hand carders and a series of 4 videos confirmed as much and gave me the confidence to get on and try them. Adding the fleece to the combs I started with the least good sections of the white Leicester Longwool fleece bought at th...

Today I went to the Rarebreeds show at the Weald & Downlands outdoor museum. There were plenty of wonderful sheep there that had so many different fleeces from an almost felted appearance to long long dreadlocks. Being a spinner the sheep were of greatest interest to me but I also browsed the huge pigs, big eyed cows and nosy goats. After that I went for a stroll around the stalls and found my favourite spindle maker IST. Here I found a new product for sale, a Tibetan supported spindle which I immediately fell in love with. They are so new they are not even on their website!  It spins like a dream for ever.  It is surely going to become my absolute favourite.  I also bought another Russian brass tipped spindle to add to my collection - I now have 3! I was told by the many West Surrey Guild members that I met at the event that as soon as the judging of the fleeces was over that there was a fleece sale so I hurried as fast as my legs would take me over to the...