Spinning in the Museum Gardens (and puppy update)

We were very lucky yesterday - we had lovely weather for spinning and it's a lovely setting. A lot of people don't realise that Harlow museum has beautiful walled gardens - there's a knot garden with lavender, large lawns and paved areas with seating (where we gather to spin) and some lovely planting. I found a couple of dye plants which we may be able to use for our dyeing in October - Solidago (golden rod) and Tansy

The museum is very interesting in itself - with the Roman history of Harlow, bits on the Anglo-Saxons and a room full of exhibits for each decade of the 1900s - you will see stuff your grandma was using! The old bicycles are worth a look too.

There were only a handful of us yesterday but it was still a nice meet - we had a few newbies which was really nice and I continued to spin the yarn I started last weekend at the Sammy Rally - a blend of pink silk (from the travelling tea box) and Samoyed fur from last year's Sammy rally.

My In-laws visited the pups yesterday - they were all very good (the pups that is).

Here are number one, four and five looking much more grown up now.

Dunmow Christmas Tree Festival and Craft Fair

This weekend there's a Christmas Tree Festival being held in my local town and a friend & I were invited along to demonstrate hand spinning.

Yesterday we went along for a day of spinning and chatting - all very enjoyable. We started at 10am and were immediately surrounded by children from the local schools who were fascinated by what we were doing - especially when we told them we were spinning dog fur!

In fact we were both spinning Samoyed fur which spins into a beautiful white fluffy yarn. We had a selection of samples on the table - including German Shepherd hats, Newfoundland scarves and little samples of Poodle, Labradoodle, Bichon Frise, Border Collie and others.

We were there for 6 hours - spinning fairly continuously - when I got home I measured the 2ply yarn I'd spun and plied, and it was 82m in length, and weighed 30g (approx 1 oz) which means it would be approx 328m per 100g or roughly a 4ply weight yarn.

I took photos of the chrismas trees on my mobile - if I can work out how I'll post them here later.

The Samoyed Rally

On Sunday a friend & I went to Potten End for a Samoyed Rally and fun day. We arrived early to set up, and were immediately greeted by the sound of excited sammies! The first ones we saw were in a heap at the entrance - one on top of the cage and two inside.

We each received a big bag of fur to spin and got straight to work - my it's lovely stuff - pure white and soft and fluffy.

The day went off well with lots of competitions - many of which were very entertaining to watch, like the sausage competition where the dogs had to fetch a sausage and carry it back to the start line - the winner was the dog who had the most sausage (or any sausage) left!

The owners of the dogs at the rally were very interested in our spinning, and we had a lovely day talking to them. Many wanted to buy things made from Samoyed fur, or even just the yarn - sadly, as it was our first time, we didn't have anything available for them - maybe next time.

The rally was organised and run by Linda Brasier who organises a rescue centre for neglected Samoyeds - where people have bought dogs not understanding what is involved in keeping them. There were some awful stories, but, in this case, all with happy endings. This largely explains the excitement of the dogs, as they've all come back to their rescue home - and many of them know one another. Having said that - it was suggested that they are 'talkative', and there certainly wasn't a quiet moment the whole day! even when the rain came down for about half an hour. But they are beautiful, happy dogs and it was great to see them having fun with their owners.