My Shop Launch, Visiting Farms, Spinning Yarn, Festiwool and Playing With Pottery

I have big news! I launched my very own website this month. :-)

Spin City Fibres and Spindles

 I bought a domain and spent a few weeks tweeting and adding products, and I am pleased to say that Www.SpinCityShop.com is now live! 

I will be selling all my pretty fibres, spindles and kits on my shop, as well as a few new products like felting kits and hand dyed roving. I'm really happy with the look of my new website, I love photography and my website has allowed me to put my pictures up as large as I like so they really made a big impact when you arrive on my home page. 

I've had a really unexpected good response in my first full month of trading, so thank you for helping to support my wooly career. :-) 

After the hectic run up and week of The Knitting And Stitching Show in London during October, and my shop launch, I took a few days off to recouperate and do a little spinning. 

Handspun art yarn

I visited a farm in Suffolk who had some Llanwenogg fleece for sale and gleefully picked up a couple to take back home, where I instantly and greedily started to dye some in big fluffy handfuls. Lanwenogg has a nice, long staple and good crimp, and took the dye really well. I spin the yarn above by simply holding the fleece to the wheel without carding and letting the twist grab up the fibre which ever way it wanted too, while I let a sewing thread auto wrap around it. 

Lanwenogg Sheep

It wasn't long before I started to make preparations for my next show, Festiwool in Hitchin. It's a one day show set in a very modern college, made from mostly glass! There were lots of great exhibitors and a nice, relaxed feel to the show. It's not as big as some of the other wool shows that I usually take part in, but I loved being able to spend more time with my customers and actually walk around without bumping into towers of yarn or other shoppers. I really can't wait to go back next year. 

Here are some batts that I made for the show- called Crushed Petals, made from merino, alpaca, Wensleydale and soya silk. 

hand carded batts

Here are my spindles on display in a new teapot! 

drop spindles

My stall all set up at Festiwool

Festiwool Spin City Stall

I had a really good day at Festiwool and it was a real success for me! Thank you to everyone who came to see me. :-) 

Drop Spindle Kit

This week I have been working on my new drop spindle kits, which my brother and his lovely girlfriend helped to make! 

My new kit contains 135g of luxury fibre, including hand carded batts, blended roving and pure merino and fin sheep roving, a hand made wooden spindle and a hand screen printed project bag- which my brother and girlfriend made for me on their impressive screen printing studio. Aren't I lucky to have such a talented sibling? 

The kits come in lots of different colours and have full instructions which I created myself. 

The Project bags being printed in my Brother's studio.

Finally, this month I have been totally bitten by the pottery bug. It first got me this time last year, and since then it has gradually wormed it's way into many aspects of my life. I decided to save up and I am now the proud owner of a potters wheel of my own!

She lives in my utility room and I love nothing more than to throw pots after my work had finished for the day- apart from watching The Great British Pottery Throwdown! 

Potters wheel

Here are my latest pots- Yarn bowls of course! 

It won't be long until Christmas and I have quite a few present ideas that I would like to make for my family in clay, we will see how I get on. I hope you all had a good month.

Yarn Bowls in the making