February Fibre Clubs - the pics!

As promised last week, here are the pics of this month's Roving Medley Fibre Club and the Fibre Adventure Club. The colourway is Hyacinth, inspired by the imminent arrival of Spring (we hope!) and this month the Roving Medley was Merino/Tencel, lightly blended to give clear, distinct stripes for interesting spinning effects.

Fibre Adventurers received a parcel of silk noils, Merino/Tencel roving and gorgeous Jacob fleece.

The Jacob, one of our British Rare Breeds, is kept by a local handspinner and is just beautiful. It can almost be spun straight off the back of the sheep! As Jacob fans will know, the breed is a coloured sheep, but I was lucky enough to be able to bag an almost entirely white fleece for this month's parcel - one of the benefits of buying locally!

Look out for another scrumptious British fibre next month... (and if you haven't signed up yet, I've opened up some more places here)

Locking horns at Dunham Massey

Spring is sprung!

Nick, Clare, Jack and the family labrador, Toby, came to visit on Sunday and the crisp, dry day inspired a short stroll round Dunham Massey, along the canal, finishing up at the Axe and Cleaver for coffee and cakes (well, okay, we started at the National Trust cafe for lunch and cakes too, but we did walk off at least some of the calories, honest!).

Now I have worked out the cropping tool in photoshop I can share a couple of the pics. Will took this one of the young deer jostling for position in the herd - isn't it fab?

These are new wood sculptures made from some of the older trees which had to be cut down as they were becoming unsafe. The whole area is enclosed by fencing so I hope this means there will be more. They are really quite magical, but it's hard to appreciate them properly from the other side of a fence!

Pancakes!

Yay, we had pancakes, cooked in style (including a few impressive flips), by Pete. No pics as we scoffed them too quickly, sorry : )

Oh, and we went for a lovely walk at the weekend, but I can't make photoshop resize images properly for some reason at the moment. When I work it out, I'll post the pics of the new wood sculptures at Dunham Massey.

Natalie's meme

Natalie sent me the following meme (showing my ignorance here, but how do you pronounce that? Is it meeemee, or meem or something else altogether?).

Anyway, here are her questions (and my answers)....

1. What can you hear, right now?

The prodigy's new album - very loud! Gutted we missed out on tickets. Last time we saw them live I was right at the front - so cool!

2. What will you have for dinner tonight?

No idea. Just had brunch at the Lakeland shop (veggie brekky and coffee - halloumi cheese - my favourite!), so not in food-cooking mode at the moment.

3. Crossword, Sudoku or Boggle?

Guardian crossword, DS Sudoku (or Facebook), Boggle "old school" original but also the Facebook version. Love Word Twist, Word Challenge and Scrabble, too, on Facebook, so come and challenge me to a game (you will win, I am rubbish!).

4. Favourite biscuit?

Dark chocolate digestive (must be McVitie's)

5. Which magazines do you read?

Spin off, Wild Fiber, InKnitters, Knitters, Slipknot, Vogue Knitting, Interweave Knits, Simply Knitting, Let's Knit (mmm, detecting a theme here....)

Lastly, my question: Why is this in bold?

No idea, but can't seem to switch it off!

Here are Natalie's answers, would you like to share yours? (what the &*@, the bold's gone now - computers huh?)

Summer School - we are good to go!

Just got my student list for Summer School and I only have one place left on my course! I'm so excited! I think students are getting their confirmations this week too, so if you've had yours and you'll be joining my course, drop me a line, post a comment here, or come along and say hello on Ravelry. I'll be emailing too, to say hi to everyone, but my pc is poorly so I can only access web stuff at the moment and not emails : (

There are places on some of the other courses, so do go along and check out what's available. It is an absolutely fantastic experience, so if you can make it, you'll have a great time. And if you can't make the Summer School, there will be a trade fair at the end of the week with some great traders who will be more than happy to tempt you with their goodies.....

If I can find some photos from the last Summer School (pc permitting), I'll post some so you can get a feel for what goes on. Skipping off excitedly now to start preparing samples and testing out some interesting new ideas I've been working on.....