My friend Anne is a member of the spinners and weavers guild and today was their annual gathering, where fleece suppliers visit with their wares. The hall in Stocksfield was packed with colourful stalls and ladies of a certain age linned the centre of the room with spinning wheels. It was fascinating, there where raw fleeces, dyed tops that were ready for spinning and balls of luxurious wool for sale. Looms, crochet hooks , and every other wool and fibre accessory you could imagine. I was particularly interested in the drop spindles, they are the simplest way of spinning wool and apparently thats how spinning started. Annes friend Lynn demonstrated one and it looked relatively easy, or at least masterable.
There was a woman from Darlington selling felting supplies and I bought some very reasonably priced sheets of prefelted Merino fleece and a red Merino top for felting. They are beautifully soft and smell slightly sheepy. I am looking forward to making some thing out of them. Who knows maybe i'll revisit the spinners again, may be with Mum, she would have loved it.
