This blog is dedicated to my Aunt Yvonne.
My favourite crafting is my knitting and here I share my ideas, projects, pitfalls and successes.
Vancouver, Canada
We will be experiencing some shifts this month in the times of the Live Stream and The Wool Circle – both will be shifting forward 2 hours for this month and then we will reassess. I have been working on all the fleece this month: Washing, carding and spinning! I’m excited to share my progress with you on the show:
Live: Tuesday, April 1 @ 12noon* Pacific / 2pm Central / 3pm Eastern / 8pm BST
*Note the 2 hour shift forward for the Live Stream this month
Cormo, New York, NY – washed & scoured, lock popped & carded; 2-ply {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Shetland, All Wound Up Corriedale (Castor, AB, Canada), Cotton – washed & carded into batts {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Knitting
Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry – Dorset Fleece, hand dyed; 3.00mm & 3.5mm (US 2.5 & 4) {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Community Participation
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
While not a ton of making done in these two weeks since the last stream, I have some finished yarn and fibre preparation to share with you that I’m feeling quite excited about!
Live: Tuesday, March 18 @ 10am Pacific / 12noon Central / 1pm Eastern / 5pm GMT*
*please note that N.America has moved to Daylight Savings already!
Exciting news: One of our members has been working their way through the catalogue of episodes and slowly working towards an archival system for me. I will work on making this more accessible in the Spring but shortly, you can expect time stamps on older episodes! Thank you to those doing this work!
Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry – Dorset Fleece, hand dyed; 3.00mm & 3.5mm (US 2.5 & 4) {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Community Participation
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
It’s good to be home! I can’t believe it’s been a few weeks since we chatted last – I have very little to share with you about what I’ve been working on. We’ve been on a whirlwind trip through the UK and I look forward to sharing that with you on the show.
Live: Tuesday, March 4 @ 10am Pacific / 12noon Central / 1pm Eastern / 6pm GMT
Exciting news: One of our members has been working their way through the catalogue of episodes and slowly working towards an archival system for me. I will work on making this more accessible in the Spring but shortly, you can expect time stamps on older episodes! Thank you to those doing this work!
Radio Show with Bramble Ridge & Ordering Link (Everyone) here
To help with spinning this longwools blend, check out a vlog, Longwools Revolution, here
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Fibre Prep & Spinning
All Wound Up Rambouillet – washed & scoured, lock popped & carded; 2-ply {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Knitting
Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry – Dorset Fleece, hand dyed; 3.00mm & 3.5mm (US 2.5 & 4) {Ravelry Projects Page here}
Community Participation
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
Welcome back to another stream! We are having snow days now, sitting around -5 degrees C (which is not that cold but causing ice on the roads). Let’s forget winter weather for an hour or so and sit together and talk about warmth in the form of WOOL!
Live: Tuesday, February 3 @ 10am Pacific / 12noon Central / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK
Exciting news: One of our members has been working their way through the catalogue of episodes and slowly working towards an archival system for me. I will work on making this more accessible in the Spring but shortly, you can expect time stamps on older episodes! Thank you to those doing this work!
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
Welcome back to another stream! We are deep into wintering here at Casa de Wool n’ Spinning (ie. being cold all the time). I’ve been cozied up in warm sweaters and drinking warm tea.
Live: Tuesday, January 7 @ 10am Pacific / 12noon Central / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK
Radio Show with Bramble Ridge & Ordering Link (Everyone) here
To help with spinning this longwools blend, check out a vlog, Longwools Revolution, here
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Ask Anything – Tools
From Dania:
I have been trying to to decide if I should purchase a quill head and very fast head for my Lendrum, I know you a very fast head, and do you find that get a lot of use out of it? Other than spinning cotton or that type of fiber what is best spun the very fast flyer?
Spindling
Crafty Jaks Boutique Organic Polwarth, Tussah & Sari Silk in Blue-Purple – supported spindle-spun; rolags {previous spin, same fibre/different colour here}
SPINNING
Cottonman Upland cotton – brown; Lendrum Very Fast Flyer, 3
Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry – Dorset Fleece, hand dyed; 3.00mm & 3.5mm (US 2.5 & 4)
Community Participation
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
I have been on the fence about doing a Make Nine this year – there has been a lot happening in the background that has had me a bit paralysed about creating a set of ‘goals’ or aims for the year. Usually, I have a word for the year that I find myself coming back to again and again but I haven’t had word come to me just yet. I’m being patient and know that the word will come to me as the year unfolds.
In the meantime, I’ve started to embrace the idea of taking on a Make Nine for the year. Rather than individual projects, which I’ve done in the past, I thought about creating a Make Nine that was based more on ideas. Because I have overarching projects that will guide my making throughout the year, I thought I would take a page out of Felicia’s recent Taking Back Friday vlog to focus on a Discover, Develop & Deepen exploration instead.
Discover
For Discover, I want to continue working through my cotton explorations. I’ve talked about my continuing development of a Spinning Cotton course for the School of SweetGeorgia. Throughout 2024, I’ve been on a steady journey to discover cotton, blending it with wool and spinning it alone. This path of discovery is one that I plan to continue throughout 2025 so it became a third of my explorations this year, including wanting to continue spinning up my stash of cotton, experimenting with some handspun cotton in weaving and continuing with my blending experiments that I started last year (see Develop for more).
Discover is also a commitment to a 30-minute daily practice that is purely for myself and myself only to sit quietly spin cotton (of some sort, in some preparation). I’m not going to commit to any other daily practices this year – not even a spindling practice. This will be my only one for the year.
Develop
Develop was an interesting idea for me think about because I have projects that were hang-overs (as my Dad used to say) from last year (2024) that I’m still steadily working on, including my Shetland/Corriedale/Cotton/Angora preparation & spin. Overlapping with my Discover plans because of the interest in cotton-wool blending, continuing to blend and work through big fleece preparation projects is a main focus of my work going forward. I’m excited about that work and looking forward to continuing to figure out how best to streamline the process.
This particular blend was an opportunity to draw out the yardage of some beautiful but slightly felted from scouring (not by myself) Shetland that was in my deep stash. To blend nicely with the cotton, I added some Corriedale that just created an amazing blend, along with some luxurious and local-to-me angora. More on this yarn as the year unfolds (the final sample I’ve settled on is the far Left skein in the above photo)!
Deepen
This ended up being the most difficult of the three to hone in on as I explored my Make Nine for the year: Deepen. I felt that I was already on this Discovery and Development path for the year that Deepen felt like too much! ha! I was already going to be going into the weeds with so much that Deepen felt like a journey to the depths … like the deep deep depths. How could I honour the idea of deepening my practice without overwhelming myself completely?
Deepen began to take on a different meaning instead – the idea of deepening my practice in general, rather than going into another rabbit hole (or warren, as is often the case in our handspinning practices). I wanted to commit to continuing to learning more about how to engage in my practice throughout the year, creating yarns that I’m excited to create with (here, weave with post-spinning).
To this end, I decided to focus on finishing my Cotswold-Peduncle silk hand spinning project that I started sampling last year with the aim to weave beautiful fabric with this yarn. Whether I create a throw or stole (depends on yardage), this will be amazingly warm and luxurious, with some drape (hopefully) and lustre.
My commitment to my Make Nine this year is simple: Discover more about a fibre I’ve already started to learn a lot about, Develop my fibre prep and hanspinning process even more for fluidity and ease, and finally, Deepen my hand spinning practice in more general terms: How to make this sustainable going forward? What works? What needs to go? How can I create amazing fabric?
That’s it! Sounds simple, right?! ha.
I would love to hear about your goals for the year – What are you thinking about? What intentions are you setting for yourself (if any)? Are you a goal setter? I’ve really gotten away from setting specific goals the past couple of years because it seems life continually gets in the way but I have an pretty clear idea of the direction I want to be moving in overall. I would love to hear more about that from each of you! Please share below.
Happy New Year, Wool n’ Spinning Community! Thank you for coming along for another year – I am so excited to have you here & spinning along with all of us. There is always so much happening in this vibrant community & it is my pleasure to share some of that on the show today.
Live: Tueseday, January 7 @ 10am Pacific / 12noon Central / 1pm Eastern / 6pm UK
Pink Velvet by Andrea Mowry – Dorset Fleece, hand dyed; 3.00mm & 3.5mm (US 2.5 & 4)
Community Participation
As always, thank you to those who share in the community, uploading photos and thoughts about what you are working on! I appreciate it – it’s my pleasure to be able to share!
