Hook, line and spindle

Ooh ooh ooh! What an incredible day was had last Saturday (don't let my tardiness in posting about it reflect how I felt about the day... I think it's just taken me this long to come down off the high!!). I forgot my camera, but check out Taph and Spidey's photos of the day.

A bunch of Stitch n B!tch-ers (and Knit n Talk Sh!t-ers) went to play at the Waratah Fibres Studio in the home of Helen Rippin in Bundanoon. Helen's home is fibre heaven... she has a whole room at the back of her lounge room where the walls are lined with scrumptious hand dyed yarns and fibres!
After much drooling, fondling and hoarding, we settled in for a drop spindling lesson. As I think I have mentioned a couple of times, I have been super keen to learn how to spindle (is 'spindle' a verb?). Helen made it look so easy. It wasn't. But it was tonnes of fun, and very relaxing once you got into the groove. But most of all it was highly addictive. On Sunday I went straight out to order my new spindle! This whole week I've found myself daydreaming about all the beautiful spin-able things you can buy at Ewe Give Me the Knits (thanks George!)... and trying to convince myself that I don't really need them, seeing as I have copious amounts of alpaca coming my way! But they're so pretty... Anyway... moving along!

After a lunch of gourmet pizza and salad (did I mention that we were completely spoilt?) we headed outside for a lesson in dyeing. We learnt how to make 9 different shades of colour from two original colours, and we all ended up with little sample cards to take home. Seems like a great technique so that later when dyeing up a batch of yarn, you can choose which colours you like together etc and reproduce them exactly.

So of course, although I tried to be restrained, (don't roll your eyes Mr Purl!) I came home with lots of gorgeous goodies... wanna see?? :)

Most excitingly... my very first spinning attempt knitted up into a tiny square.

And fibre (is it roving? is it sliver? is it tops? who knows! I'm sorry, I know a few people did try to explain the difference to me!). Hand painted Wensleydale in 'parakeets' colourway. If this doesn't inspire you to spin, nothing would!

This is some beautiful merino which I think was dyed by a friend of Helens. It somehow ended up on the pile of stuff I was buying because someone thought that for some reason I might like it (I can't imagine why! :) Thanks Spidey!). It really is lovely. There are about 5 different colours of purple in it... less blue looking than in the photo... I'm really having trouble getting true colours from my camera. I think this will be the first thing I spin.
And some very prurdy lace weight in Jacaranda and Outback Sunset colourways. (I'll let you figure out which is which!)

This may be the most lovely of all... Polwarth/silk blend which Helen dyed over grey fibre, giving these incredibly gorgeous muted purples and pinks and greens. Stunning! And it's so incredibly soft. Not soft like alpaca... but a different kind of sturdier feeling softness... mmm...

Some very fun 8 ply in 'Tropical Birds' colourway.

And this is just something that, inexplicably had to come home with me. Gorgeous curls of Wensleydale... dyed in my favourite colours... and they're really soft and pretty... and I couldn't stop fondling them... and they just made their way into my shopping bundle. I'm seriously considering not doing anything at all with them except fondling... but they would also be really cool thrummed (my new word for the week!) into a scarf or something! (I can't spin them... because then they would lose their cool curlyness!) I can't believe that there's a sheep that actually has these cool curls. I have to go check some of them out!

These are the sample cards that we came home with. All of those combinations out of three original colours - 'Raspberry', 'Mulberry' and 'Daisy'.

So huge thanks to Helen and the ladies from the local spinning guild for hosting us, and to Taph and Spidey for setting-up this awesome opportunity, and to Emma for driving us there!!