I might have a little time to breathe now..........

We are back from Alston, the regular (ha!) day and the Spindle Spinning workshop/retreat.

I hope no-one is going to contradict me, but we both thought that it was a pretty good weekend. A lovely friendly group, who seemed to gel nicely, and make huge progress in their spindling abilitiies over the course of the two days.



Here some of them are, hard at work. As usual, I had intended to take lots of photographs, and equally as usual, I didn't - there is never enough time, and if I find a few minutes to try, it is always then that people decide to mill around uncooperatively (and who can blame them!) But one of the participants, who is a member of our guild, did seem to be snapping away, so maybe we can share hers.

We think that we are going to have to try something like this again, but quite possibly a wheel spinning weekend next time (next year!) As popular as I like to think that spindle spinning is, I feel that a bit of variety would be a good thing. So when I am recovered, and have done some work on the next things to be coming up this year, I shall put my forward planning cap on and see if I can come up with something that might sound inviting.

I did manage to snatch a minute in the garden on Friday when the weather was sunny and warm to get a couple of images - I found a wonderful climbing plant around the pergola.



I shall try to go back next month and inspect it further.

Now, I was issuing teasing trailers about new acquistions. A new to me spindle arrived just in time for the weekend (and I shall at this point publicly confess that our personal collection has now been catalogued and is around the 120 mark. Which doesn't include teaching spindles...oops.) Anyway, I now have this fabulous Autumn Hollow Farm cocobolo and malachite beauty. It is heavier than I normally use, but looks extremely lovely and spins extremely well. Especially since I tweaked the hook, which was very slightly bent. Thusly....



See how the hook has been pushed forward, so that there is little gap for the yarn to pass under? It needed gently bending backwards to open that up and to re-align the high point of the hook directly over the shaft. The hook was also leaning to one side. I think it had been dropped top-down one to many times, something that happens all to easily - I had to fettle more than one over the weekend! For some strange reason this is something that I love doing, very, very gently tweaking a hook with my needle-nose pliers, turning a bucking bronco into a masterpice of trained Lippizaner.

(Oh, excuse me, I'm brain-fogged and foolish today!)

I did visit the Autumn Hollow website just to check it out, as they are spindle makers that I am not familiar with. There was this delectable
little ebony and lapis thing........aaargh.

But. There is more. I have waited so patiently for this to happen, never quite sure that it would. But finally. Finally, Sara decided to let some of her wonderful bags go to new homes.



I took this outside on a sunny day to photograph it, to try to do justice to the colour, but it has come out a brighter blue than it really is. I will try again, but am not overconfident. It is in reality darker, and more towards green.

But trust me, it is utterly beautiful. I am very fortunate.