Spinning again, and weaving?

I have just made these skeins of wool on my spinning wheel, and now I need to give them a wash to set the twist in the yarn. This wool is from one of our Jacob sheep, one of the first really good fleeces we have had from the flock, and I am so longing to get working the new fleeces, which are still sitting on a tarpaulin in the courtyard waiting to be sorted out, because several of them have some grey from the under coat which should make for an interesting colour mix.

I don't sort out the fleeces into separate colours because I don't have the time to do so, all I do is spin one fleece at at time, letting the different colours of the fleece come as they want to. Neither to I prep the wool first (wash, card, etc), again because I do not have time to faff around....I spin directly from the fleece as it comes from the sheep, but without the daggy bits, but even then I can find myself with a nobble of this or that, which I most times remove, but I am sure that some small bits escape into the yarn. Not to worry, I do wash the wool once it is made into yarn though.....

As I say, with the new fleece calling to me, I need to up the time I spend on the spinning wheel. This urge to spin has also triggered off my thoughts again about buying a rigid heddle table loom so I can weave fabric from the yarn I have already made, and this is the loom I am thinking of buying

.... and thanking Ann from Spinwise.co.uk for her helping me in this process (these photos are 'borrowed' from her website). The loom is a Kromski Harp and is 80 cm (32 inches) wide, is reasonably priced, and is light enough to be taken hither and thither wherever the urge to weave comes upon me. However, I do not have a clue about weaving, so onto Amazon to order the 'how to'  books which Ann recommended, then on to YouTube to watch the 'how to' vids. To learn new things is very good for the soul, that is what I kept telling myself as I watched those vids, and I am sure that as with all things I have already learnt, that I shall understand this new challenge in time.

Meanwhile, I need to get my stash of yarn increased ready for when I start being a trainee weaver, which gives me an excuse to sit out under the oak tree with my spinning wheel, not that I need an excuse, but I do get side tracked by other things sometimes, which really are not as important as spinning under the oak.

Most of our fleece this year is either black or brown, with some splashes of white here and there. We still have some white mixed race sheep here but for some reason the fibre in these fleeces is quite short this year, possibly because we had quite a mild winter,so the sheep did not need too much protection from the cold, so I shall probably use them for dusting the house and will not spin them......but the dark fleeces of the pure bred Jacobs do have a longer length of hair so are ideal for spinning,  but dark brown is a bit, well, dark, so Ann suggested that I leave a fleece outside so that the sunlight fades it, which I think is a good idea especially since we have mid 30's C temperatures next week....might as well take advantage of that hot sun. At least that would give different tones to the dark brown.......



The wall dividing the hall with the back kitchen is now up, and we have now ordered new front doors and have the floor tiles for the hallway. Out in the veg plot and I weeded about half a metre of a weed filled row of beetroot before I was beaten back indoors by the strength of the sun, and it is getting hotter over the next few days. All the fields look brown now, with hardly any grazing to be had by anyone, so Lester has kept the cows in for a couple of days to give them respite from the sun and flies. We think we might have to buy in hay to get the sheep and cows through to the autumn if we do not have a good quantity of rain during July. Last year it kept raining right the way through summer and everything and everyone kept getting muddy and wet. This year it is the exact opposite. Oh well, not to worry, we'll cope..........

Mostly, all is well here, and I hope your patch of the world is well as well!

Bye for now,

Vx