We drove all night

We are back from spinning!  I am not going to tell you that we can now spin but at least we know where we were going wrong and Carl is doing quite well despite a tendency to stick his tongue out and dribble whilst concentrating.  My leading hand has a habit of gripping the fleece too tightly and we have to make use of Sam to work the foot bit or it doesn't run smoothly  - we are persevering! 

The drive back was another Aylett marathon.  We left at 6.30pm and planned to stop around 9pmbut Carl said he felt okay so we drove on a bit - at midnight it didn't really seem worth stopping - so we drove all night Despite plenty of coffee stops it id mean that Sunday was a bit of a bleary day!  The Chippendales did well holding the fort - though they did have a minor panic when they thought one of the sheep was about to lamb - only to realise that it was the ram!

A little bit of carding!

It's arrived!  Our new Drum Carder!  Hand made by Paul Brittain of Classic Carder and a lovely piece of work it is (www.classic carder.co.uk).

. . . and here is our first Batt (think that is what it is called!). 

It is light and airy, as the instructions say it should be, but as it consists of the old leg and neck hair which was all I could find it is not prime quality! Sam is very into it and keeps telling me to move out of the way as he is, "Lining up the Batties!"

Now if we could only crack spinning we would be away.  In fact we have to as we have already posted an entry off for the Great Western Region Fleece and Fibre Show in the new yarn section - a bit premature I know but I thought with that looming it might concentrate the mind a bit.  Progress will be recorded on the blog - the first stage is to retrieve the spinning wheel from the top of the stairs where it has languished with Dad's easel for the past year!

As  I type there is a lot of banging as the spinning wheel is lifted down - looks like a knitting and spinning evening ahead of us!!!