Back at the beginning of May was National Spining Week, which I spent demonstrating at Clandon Park again with the West Surrey Guild of Spinners, Weavers, and Dyers. I had a great time, it was lovely to chat to so many people. Also this year we brought along one of the guild wheels and so were able to let people have a go themselves. We had lots of kids have a go, who were all very quick on the uptake, even though some of them had trouble reaching the treadles while sitting on the chair!
I always like to have something nice and loud to spin at these events. It is nice to have a variety of things that we are all spinning to show that spinning doesn’t have to be all brown (although I do like brown too 🙂 ). So this year I was spinning some supersorted bluefaced leicester from Baby Long Legs in Tangy Doddle Tastic, which I bought at Knit Nation last year. I think the supersorted part means that it is the best quality bluefaced leicester, it certainly feels nice.
I spun a 2ply construction, which is about commercial 4ply in thickness. I have 104g and 342m. I split the top in half length wise in order to spin the two separate plies, so the colours merge slowly from one to another. My plan is to make the Marywarmers fingerless mittens pattern, though I might make them a bit shorter in the arms. They wont be identical because I didn’t split the fibre in two to make two lots the same when I started, but hopefully that will add to their charm 🙂 It was a very nice fibre to spin, and I love the colours.