Mystery spinning wheel

I am selling a spinning wheel on behalf of a friend.  She has had it for a while and never got round to learning to spin, and although she loves it, it takes up a lot of space and she would like it to go to a good home.  It does need some TLC (the wood is dry, there are a few minor cracks, and the adjusters appear to be seized up), but is a rather beautiful wheel.  Does anyone know what this is?  If so, please get in touch, as before I can advertise it for sale, I could do with knowing what it is!  It is, basically, a double-drive wheel with distaff, but I think the flyer and bobbin do not belong to it, and unusually the wheel is left-handed (wheel on the left, flyer and distaff on the right).  If you can offer any suggestions for maker, country of origin, type of fibre it was intended for, age, or anything else, please contact me!  I can send a few more pics by email if that would help.  Many thanks.

I have rigged it up with a temporary drive belt (which gave me a headache as I don't normally use a double drive!), the wheel runs very smoothly, and it does spin, although the take-up is poor.  Because the tension adjuster has seized up, I can't be sure if that's the issue, or because the belt is slipping on the flyer or bobbin, whether it's the rogue flyer/bobbin.  The bobbin looks as if it has come from another wheel, as the wind-on pattern of the yarn which is on it does not correspond to the hooks on this flyer.  Also the spindle length seems a bit too long for the space between the maidens, as you can perhaps see from the top view of the flyer.

Front view

Flyer from above

Close up

Back view

Natural dyeing - my first attempt at dyeing with onions skins

Having collected prodigious quantities of onion skins, I finally got around to my first attempt at natural dyeing.  I had some pongé silk and also a piece of vintage French linen in rather bad repair, which I wanted to dye and incorporate in my work.


I followed the instructions in Jenny Dean's excellent book, and mordanted the textiles overnight in a solution of alum crystals and Cream of Tartar (the stuff you bake with!).  Mordanting helps to make the dye fix more permanently.  Meanwhile, I prepared a dyebath by simmering my onion skins in water, and then leaving to steep overnight.  Next day, I sieved the dyebath to remove the onion skins, and then removed the fabric from the mordant and transferred it to the dye, which was by now a wonderful port-wine colour.  Brought to simmering point and kept there for 45 minutes, it yielded the following rather amazing colours:

The silk is slightly darker than the linen, which is what I would expect (animal fibres like wool and silk are structurally easier for the dye to penetrate than vegetable fibres like cotton and linen).  Interestingly, the linen is a bit patchy - running my fingers over the fabric, it appears that dye uptake has been better (and hence there is a deeper colour) in the parts where the linen is worn and the surface slightly roughed up - presumably breaking down the surface smoothness of the fibres has made it easier for the dye to 'take'.


Warned that excessive heat might lead to the silk losing its lustre, I used my jam thermometer to ensure that the temperature of the dyebath remained below 80 degrees C, and as you may be able to see from the pics, there has been no loss of lustre.  It would seem that I now need to have two jam thermometers, as it's really not a good idea to use the same implements for dyeing and cooking!


Being able to dye my own yarns, and especially the scrims, linens and silks I use in Nuno felting, will add a whole new dimension to my work, and I fear that I am, after just one foray into the wonderful world of natural dyeing, completely addicted...

St Fagan's Museum textiles collection

I'm very grateful to Elen Phillips, curator of textiles at St Fagan's (the National History Museum of Wales), who has arranged for me to visit next month to research in their extensive collections.  I am especially interested in samplers, as I wish to use some historically authentic motifs in a forthcoming piece of work, and also in domestic linen (tablecloths, sheets etc).  At the moment a lot of my work seems to be linking with my background in history, and especially my interest in domestic and women's history, which is often recorded in artefacts rather than in the written record.  The recent acquisition of a quantity of vintage French linen has enabled me to do some experimentation in using this material, incorporated into my felt and stitch work, to link my contemporary textile art to the creative legacy of generations of anonymous women.

Again, I suspect it is my background in history which makes me so keen to research this properly, using original sources, and it is great to have the huge archive of St Fagan's within an hour's drive of where I live.  I'm very much looking forward to my research visit there in a month's time, and will blog about how I get on and what I find!

Treasure - Welsh vintage wool blanket

Took a trip to Brecon today, to have lunch in the the excellent Tower Cafe in St Mary's Church in the town centre (highly recommended, also for nice teas) and to mooch around the three antiques shops there.  We never seem to manage to get away without finding some treasure there, and today's treasure was something I've been looking out for since we came back to Wales 6 years ago - a vintage Welsh woollen blanket.  They are a) usually hideous expensive, b) often not in great condition, and c) frequently in colourways which are just too 'sweet' and pastel for my taste, so to find one which was reasonably priced, in superb, pristine condition, and with a nice punchy apricot stripe was just too good to pass by!  The flash photography makes it look a tiny bit pinker than it is, it's more peach/aqua in the flesh.

The guy I bought it from had got it as part of a stash of vintage blankets he had bought from a lady in her 80s who lived in a farmhouse near Trecastle, and who had lots of blankets stored in a traditional coffer (large wooden chest for storing blankets and linen).  Most date back to when she was setting up home, and many (I suspect including this one) had never or rarely been used.  It is beautiful, and really very pleasing.  The trick will be to keep the cat off it, somewhere so soft and woolly would be Sophie's idea of heaven!

That's it - no more fleeces this year!

Having found some space for my latest fleeces in the garage, I have come to the conclusion (with enthusiastic encouragement from my partner!) that I need to call a halt to the acquisition of any more fleeces until I have processed at least some of the ones I already have - I find, on doing a stock-take, that I have 17 fleeces, which is, by any standards, excessive!  The trouble is, I find it so hard to say no to the opportunity of acquiring exciting rare breed fleeces...I did, heroically, turn down a Jacob and a Balwen today - very traumatic, but I think domestic relations might become a bit strained if I promptly go back on my decision to call a halt!  Not to mention the fact that we are likely to be moving house before too much longer, and the prospect of moving all these fleeces might not thrill the removals company...There's always next year, sheep are not suddenly going to stop producing wool between now and then, and I have MORE than enough fleeces to keep me occupied, both for spinning and feltmaking, in the meanwhile.  If we get some sunshine soon (please?!), let the scouring commence!

Rare breed Boreray fleeces - what must my Postie think?

Lovely delivery today of shearling fleece from Raskelf rare breeds farm in Yorkshire www.raskelfrarebreeds.co.uk (another triumph for Twitter' ability to bring people together!), I've not worked with Boreray fleece before so this is all very exciting.  Borerays are ancient and primitive sheep, feral on the island of Boreray since the evacuation of the population of St Kilda in 1930 - the sheep on Boreray were the 'reserve flock' and were left behind.  For more information about Borerays, and also the related Soays, see www.soaysheep.org which has the full story of these breed's history.

This foray into Borerays is part of my exploration of rare breed wool - so far this month I've spun and felted Ryeland, spun Poll Dorset 'in the grease', and carded some Balwen preparatory to felting it.  I love my work!  (But I can't imagine what my Postie thinks about all the squishy, sheepy-smelling parcels he's been delivering here lately...).

More spinning - this time in Somerset

Yesterday I got to spend yet more quality time with Winnie (my spinning wheel) as I was on another one-day spinning course with Sarah Harris at The Spinning Weal in Clevedon, Somerset www.spinningweal.co.uk.  This shop and workshop venue is a real Aladdin's cave of all things wool and fibre, well worth a visit if you are in the area.  Sarah and David are incredibly knowledgeable about all manner of wheels - as indicated by them instantly recognising Winnie's pedigree, which has most people very confused!  (She's a Mark I Ashford Traveller, which were only made between 1977 and 1979, so there's not many about).

Sarah decided that I needed to be technically stretched, so she got me spinning tussah silk, which was lovely and produced beautiful fine lustrous singles which I plied with a Corriedale single (shades of magenta and fuchsia pink blended on the carder to give a luminous berry colour), resulting in a wonderful 'raspberry ripple' yarn.  She also handed me a supply of cotton, on the principle that if you can spin cotton you can spin anything - after a certain amount of colourful language I did manage to produce a reasonably amount of a consistent cotton yarn without actually having a nervous breakdown, but I don't think it's an exercise I shall be repeating any time soon!

I also spun some of the Ryeland which I had scoured and carded recently, it is full of noils so takes a while to pick over but when spun woollen makes a really nice, lofty, springy yarn in a glowing white.  I quite fancy trying out some natural dyeing on this sometime, as I think it would make lovely winter woollies...

Field to fibre day at Kennixton Sheep

Pleasantly tired this evening after spending a day with Jane Bisset of Kennixton Sheep http://thekennixtonflock.webs.com/ on the first of her Field to Fibre days.  We met Dorset sheep on the hoof, and also Fen the collie who attempts to herd them!  Jane took us through the whole process from fleece (mucky bits and all) to finished handspun yarn.  Very well run day, delicious lunch, excellently led by Jane, and lovely to have the opportunity to meet likeminded people and spend a few hours playing with wool.  What's not to like?  I'd highly recommend one of Jane's courses if you can get to the Barry area of South Wales, whether you are a novice spinner or more experienced.

I particularly valued two things today - the chance to spend some quality time with Winnie, my lovely new wheel (regular readers of this blog will know how thrilled I was to get her a couple of months back, but I have had no real time to get to know her), and I am pleased to report that we suit each other very well and I think we have a rosy future ahead of us!  The other thing was spinning 'in the grease', ie with wool straight from the fleece without having been scoured (washed) first.  I have always been a bit squeamish about this, and not liked the idea of all that lanolin and pong, but actually if you start with a decent fleece, by the time you've teased it out and carded it into rolags, and then spin from it, it's actually perfectly fine and rather easier to spin with than scoured fleece, which can be rather dry and brittle.  I think I may be converted to spinning in the grease...nice soft hands tonight, too!

Herdwick sheep animation...

Just had to share this lovely little animation about Herdwick sheep in the Lake District, retweeted by a Herdwick shepherd I follow on Twitter.  The sounds are just fab!  Enjoy...http://vimeo.com/34753808

Trace application completed - felt for art exhibition, also in search of vintage nappy pins!

Today was the closing date for applications for the Trace exhibition in Bristol in late July.  My application, together with images of my work and of a study for what I am proposing for the exhibition, was emailed off this morning.  Now to wait and see if I am successful.  Meanwhile, I need to get on with the rest of this series of pieces.  I am using my own colour photographs of details of the painted plaster walls at Tretower Court and juxtaposing them with coloured and textured felt incorporating vintage linen woven textiles which represent the domestic context.  Some of the wool used will be from Ryeland sheep, a historic breed which is contemporary with the building, and genuine medieval coins form the period – themselves bearing traces of extensive handling – will be embedded in the felt.  (see pic, which is of the study and shows the linen but does not have coins)

I am also doing the preparatory work for another piece.  A little while back I acquired some pieces of French vintage linen.  Being vintage, it shows signs of wear, and this particular piece is made up of four pieces which appear to have been cut down from larger, threadbare linens.  It has itself been patched and mended and has some thin areas and a few marks.  I rather fell in love with this piece of linen, and began to think about how I could use it in my work.  Those of you who know my interest in social history will not be surprised that what I am planning to do is a tribute to this piece of linen's history as a domestic artefact, with references to the kind of things that linen has been used for in our homes in the past.  I also recently acquired some vintage shirt buttons, so some of these will be stitched to the linen.  Elements from samplers, produced by girls to demonstrate their domestic skills, will also be worked into the linen, together with drawn thread work such as was used to trim table linen. I am also tracking down vintage haberdashery - pins and needles - to attach to the work.  As an allusion to the childrearing aspects of domestic life, I'd like to include some vintage nappy pins - still an icon of babyhood even since the invention of the disposable.
So I have put the word out (via email and Twitter) that I need some vintage nappy pins!  It will be interesting to see how many appear out of the ether.  And it's rather lovely to have so many people involved with my work.