Needles on the Move

Neil managed to read a whole book while I played in fibre with mum, but somehow we managed to have no time to get anything done - well that’s what it seemed like at the end of the week.

I showed you Latte’s scrummy fleece in the last post (oh, and I weighed the bag I brought back - it was 1kg :-D sadly, it’s being parceled out to a few friends, not all for me) and so I follow that up with a picture of the fleece from one of the sheep:

Here it is on the wool table in our ancient shearing shed, and below a closeup in the sunshine…

It’s a Border Leicester / Merino cross, staple length about 5″ and lovely and soft. Great crimp too - it’s very bouncy!

We spent much of the week playing around with our new Golding Ring Spindles (I bought one for mum for Christmas and got one for me as well to balance the parcel in the post) and digging through piles of mum’s fibres to find interesting stuff. Icame home with a bit of blended merino, some optim (it’s ick to spin but I’m determined to conquer it), australian cashmere, angora, and something else I forgot to label.

I also managed to talk mum into buying me my long-desired wool combs for Christmas and so we spent a fun afternoon playing with some dyed Finn she had. As it is my habit when visiting spinners to divest their shelves of any Spin-Offs I haven’t read, I also conveniently came across an article on combing in an old issue (Winter 1999?). Loads of fun!

The combs in this picture are small ones my brother made for mum some years back and they are beautiful to use. The Finn in the picture is unblended, but we also had play around putting it with some other fibres and practising colour blending on the combs.

Sadly, the whole week couldn’t be spent in playing in wool (and alpaca), I did talk to Neil a bit and hung out with my sister. I leave you with a family photo - enjoying Aussie fish and chips in the traditional way, straight out of the paper in the late evening sunshine by the river.

I’ll have to parcel it up a bit I’m afraid, my intention was to be blogging regularly the whole time we were away - but, you know. Don’t tell Neil that he carried my laptop all over Australia and Hong Kong for basically no reason!

It seems a loooong time ago now and all that’s happened since is filling up my mind, but I will start at the beginning which was our four days with my folks up in Bairnsdale - four hours by train from Melbourne.

The farm has been pretty much dedicated to pork for about the last 15 years but as my mum and stepdad are thinking about retirement and my sister is looking to take over, they’re gradually moving into other areas. Goats are a growing industry in Australia at the moment and Margie is really keen on them. They are rather hilarious!

Mum also has her sheep back after a long time without any (there’s no money in wool at the moment) and a few long-legged alpacas to keep them company.

This is Latte with the sheep, he looks a bit skinny due to recent shearing but he is rather cute still don’t you think?

And his fleece. You’d be surprised how much of this I managed to fit into my suitcase (it was a big suitcase).

These two are a new addition, coming from a friend’s farm which was downsizing. They’re not as tame as Latte but didn’t mind posing for the camera as long as I kept my distance.

Finally, a shot of the front flats. Some time back I showed you a similar view under a lot of water. Rainfall has been pretty good ever since and we were amazed to see the flats so green. There hasn’t been water down there during the summer for years.

Must go now, next post will be all about what mum and I got up to while Neil relaxed in the living room and read an entire book!