A couple of evenings ago I got together with members of the Hilltop Cloud community group The Fellowship of Yarn. We met via Zoom, and had a lovely time discussing all things spinning wheel. 
We discussed a huge range of wheels, some model, some antique, talked about their makers, and why certain wheels developed in the way they did. 
It was a great evening being very geeky about the tools we loved, and I had a great time. If you couldn't make it then fear not, the whole session was recorded, and you can watch it back. 

We had such  good time that we're going to do it again in October, this time taking a look at e-spinners. We're still choosing a date, but if you want to make sure you know when it's happening, and vote on the time and day please come join us in The Fellowship of Yarn.

After a very busy July, August has been a bit more of a sedate month. There's been chance to get out and about more, and to spend time on various hobbies and of course in the garden. There's been time in the kitchen turning garden gluts in to tasty food, and the gentle pleasures of a country garden at the height of summer. August is always marked by stunning heather, turning the hillsides these beautiful shades of purple. This photo is taken just above Aberllefenni, this was the last working slate mine in Wales south of Blaenau Ffestiniog, and there is still slate related work going on in the valley. A company is working through the vast spoil heaps turning it in to chipping and aggregate, and processing slate from other mines in to slabs and tiles. The slate on our drive came from this operation. These photos were taken just as the underground operations ceased. 

One of the purposes of the walk was to go round checking the geocache circuit we've put out going along the valley. If you're in the area, and want to go and see more of the valley and don't mind a bit of mud and rough terrain, the Miners Trail is the series you are looking for. 

Nellie remains a happy-go-lucky delight. So long as you are a human in her family... we're still working on the barking at random strangers, but we'll get there. She passed her Bronze Kennel Club Good Dog Citizen award this month, proving she can behave when she chooses to do so! There have been playdates with her friend Boudicca, which are an absolute riot, Meg is definitely an old dog at 13, and whilst she can be tempted in to playing for a short while, eventually grumpy Meg comes out and Nellie is told to get lost. 
​Most of her life is either spent digging holes or chasing anything that flies. The rest of the time is either spent being busy, or lying down. The common phrase in the house seems to have become "if you can't do it lying down it's not worth doing!"

I have very little spinning or knitting to show this month as most things are secrets for gifts, but I did get an enormous quilt finished off, this is Plaidish Scrap Quilt, but Kitchen Table Quilting, and it did indeed use up an awful lot of my scraps. 

I also finally got to go along to an in-person, indoor guild meeting for the first time since January 2020, the last meeting they held was February, but I was away teaching that weekend, and apart from some meet-ups in the park, we've been online ever since. It was lovely to see everyone again, and we enjoyed messing around with some shibori and an indigo vat which I even managed to transport home with only minor blue staining to the back of the van! This weekend we're doing some stitching on the cloth, so I will be back to show those off next month.

After a quieter August things are beginning to ramp up as we go in to the cooler months in the norther hemisphere, the shop is pretty well stocked, and I'm now back in the studio regularly. There's been a brand new fibre collection launched, and there will be plenty of other tempting things on the way soon. 
There will be spaces available in the Gradient Club in the next couple of month, the only place where I announce spaces is via the shop email newsletter, there's a link to sign up at the very bottom of this page. 
EU orders are now shipped using the IOSS system, and that seems to be going smoothly, so if you are an EU customer but have been put off by uncertainties about fees and taxes please give ordering under this new system a try. I'm absorbing the extra fees to pay for the registration and the intermediary, so you'll be paying roughly the same amount as you were in 2020 (the VAT rate used is now the one applicable to your own country, not the UK 20% rate). 

​

It's been busy, busy , busy here!
No sooner did the Tour de Fleece finish, than Fiberworld start. One week on and I'm finally starting to draw breath. This month has been really hot and dry, to the point where no amount of watering was keeping the plants alive, and we started having to be cautious with our house water supply. When it's that hot dyeing tends to be pretty impossible anyway, working in a metal box with various heat sources all making it hotter inside than out, when the outside is 30C  is just impossible unless I want to end up with heat stroke. 

Earlier this month we drove to Welsh Lavender just south of Builth Wells for a day out. If you are in the area I can recommend their lovely brownies, and remember to take your swimming things because the pond is lovely for a dip. Closer to home walks were mostly done based on their proximity to water, often walking up the streams themselves for the ultimate in cooling exercise!

And of course trips to the quiet beaches where the tourists rarely visit. 

The Tour de Fleece has filled my crafting time this month, along with enjoying cool evenings getting jobs down in the garden. As ever I always find it amazing how much yarn can be spun just by doing a little bit every day for 21 stages! These are all pre-washed skeins, and now I just need to find the time to turn them in to fabric of some kind!

At the end of last month I said I hoped to have good news about EU VAT. I'm pleased to say that I've now set up registration with the IOSS system, and have an arrangement with a firm to act as an intermediary to do the reporting and payment. This means that all EU orders will now be charged VAT at your countries rate. I will then ship them marked with my IOSS number showing that the VAT has already been collected. If your postal system does it's job properly that should mean that your parcel is delivered straight to you, with no extra fees or taxes. Unfortunately this means it's not going to be possible for me to combine any club orders with your shop parcels as I have no easy way of correcting the VAT collected amount once it has been reported to the intermediary. This may change in the future, but for now it's how I need to run things. 

Nellie is now firmly in to the mini-adult dog and not really a puppy stage! She burst out of her puppy harness mid-walk a few weeks ago, and is now sporting a matching turquoise outfit when she ventures out in public. 
She adores anything that flies. Birds, butterflies and moths, bees, flies.... All are met with an exuberant jump and an ambition that you can only applaud. She graduated her Puppy class during which she was either the model pupil, or bottom of the class depending on how the mood took her. The week where she just lay there barking at everything was a particular highlight!

As restrictions have eased slightly we've cautiously been meeting up with friends and family who we haven't seen in far too long. Thankfully nearly everyone in my immediate circle is now double vaccinated, I'm just waiting impatiently for my second dose, along with a couple of my younger cousins. Luckily our favourite things to do is often to get out and about exploring the Welsh countryside. We thought we were pretty savvy at knowing quite a lot of our local flora, but have really been enjoying using the Seek app as we walk. It's surprisingly good at working out what it is you're looking at, and definitely makes you stop and look down as well as out at the beautiful views. 

My Spinning guild meetings have been carrying on online... we're hoping to be outside in-person in July, and maybe back in our hall in August. In June we did an online  eco-printing day, using the contents of our gardens, onion skins, and an indigo vat. I dyed lots of small pieces of silk noil, then sewed them together in to a wall hanging. 

At the end of the month I also headed over to Claire Austin Hardy Plants for her Open Garden for the National Garden Scheme. Walking through the Peony trial fields was stunning. 

I did get my St Distaff's Day project finished, it's now sat waiting for the colder weather as a pure cashmere stranded jumper is very snuggly! All the photos I have of it are dreadful... fluffy cashmere is very hard to photograph.

In just a couple of weeks time I'm hoping to spend some time with all of you at Fiberworld. The demonstration and lectures schedule for the stages has just been announced, and there are so many things I want to listen to and watch. Even for those os us in the UK there's still plenty happening at times when we'll be awake! 
Tickets are US$25, which gets you full access to all the stages, events, lounges, and vendor booths. 
This is what they have to say about the show
"Fiberworld is a completely virtual fiber show that brings the fullness of the experiences and camaraderie of a traditional, in-person show, while also harnessing new technologies to enrich experiences and expand the community. Fiberworld represents a breadth of talent and knowledge from across the globe coming together to share and celebrate the fibercrafts we love, as well as our whole selves: touching on the themes of education, wellness, justice, environment, and family that affect us every day. In this way Fiberworld explores a redefinition of what used to be thought of as "domestic" interests to a more expansive view of craft’s circles of influence."

In addition there are also classes, with world renowned instructors, you get $15 off your first class with your entrance ticket, and until midnight tonight you can get $10 off any 2 classes with the code FWFLASH. 

​In other business news the shop is being kept steadily stocked up, so you can hopefully find something to catch your eye whenever you choose to take a visit. I have at last managed to get some more Cambrian Wool, so will be back to dyeing that gorgeous base regularly, the mixed colour packs have already been restocked (and I will be dyeing another restock  of the sold out colours tomorrow). As ever, if there's something in particular you want for a specific project just send me a message and I'll try to help!

EU customers, as of July 1st there's no longer a threshold below which you won't have to pay VAT. I had hoped to have a solution ready for you that means I could collect the VAT, and send it through the IOSS system so you wouldn't pay any extra charges to receive your parcel, but all the current systems are overwhelmed with businesses trying to set up via intermediaries. It's complicated, and expensive for a micro business like me, but I do hope to have good news in a few weeks time. I've been trying to do this for months, but it's just been impossible as nothing was ready.  When I do have a system in place it should make ordering much simpler, and you will know exactly how much an order will cost at the time you place the order. I know this particular affects club members, under the new system it is possible to pause your subscriptions, and then restart them once I'm set up with the IOSS system. If you need any help with that, just send me an email. 

Can I join you Nellie?
The past month has been bit of a whirlwind. 

And at times I wish I had the energy of a 4 month old puppy. I'm currently working away like mad to get my St Distaffs Day challenge finished. Luckily the sleeves have lots of plain knitting and the end is in sight. Over in The Fellowship of Yarn we're busy getting ready for the Tour de Fleece, one of my favourite times of year. Lots of daily posts have been researched to share some information about the route the race passes through each day, and thi year as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations I'll be releasing limited stock of lots of different fibre from the past 10 years. Blends from The Birds, Queens, Ceilidh and Hiraeth all make appearances, as well as favourites from the Time Travellers Club. 
If you've never done the Tour de Fleece before it's great fun, and very simple. We spin for every day that the riders race. You can spin as much or as little as you like, set targets, or just see how much you can achieve. We all cheer each other on, and generally have a lovely time. 

I did manage to get another warp off the loom though. This is the shadow weave draft from Jane Stafford School of Weaving. Looks really fancy, but definitely isn't that hard. 

Nellie has been having a great time exploring the Welsh countryside. She is a proper farm dog by nature and loves being outside, even when the rest of the household are sat indoors out of the rain!
Mum and I took a trip to Bodnant Garden to see the Rhododendrons and Azaleas, it's such a beautiful place to walk around, we've been before in high summer, and it was just as lovely in late spring. 

The shop is thankfully looking a bit more full... the first post-brexit order from my suppliers in Italy has arrived. Not without complications, but it is here! Another is on the way very shortly. 
​I'm also busy getting ready for Fiberworld  the online fibre show that's happening from July 21st-25th. I'll be having an interactive booth at the show... I have a few exciting things planned, and will be hosting a lounge slot. I'm also going to be back on the stages with talks and demonstrations, and this year I'm teaching classes to. Two are spinning based to help you get better at controlling yarn thickness and twist levels, and the 3rd is focused on dyeing cotton fabric using procion dyes. There are so many great looking classes that I only wish I had time to take some of them!

I am in denial about it being May... I have written April on multiple occasions so far.
You can't really blame me, the weather also seems to be in denial about the present season. April was incredibly dry... so much so that we had to water the garden to stop all the newly planted summer flowers from dying. It was also much colder than usual. So much so that we got a sprinkling of snow!
​

I have been very quite on the crafting front. Turns out being required to spend 90 minutes a night acting as puppy amusement severely eats in to your creative output! 

I did get this finished however. Begun sometime in January and then worked on in fits and starts ever since. It's a smaller style so I experimented with lots of different blocks, and tried out English paper piecing for the first time. Plenty about it that's not perfect, but a lot of fun, used a lot of scraps and protects a sofa from grotbag dogs, and humans!

Many of my interactions with Liz, known to any of us as Greensideknits were via Twitter. It therefore seems somewhat appropriate that via Twitter is how I heard of her unexpected death at the end of last week. 
I'd known Liz for years, I have no idea where we first met... but it was probably online, and probably via Ravelry. We then met up at various other events over the next decade. We probably didn't talk regularly, but the joy of places like twitter is that people can pop up in conversations in the post unexpected moments. So it was with Liz. I'd probably have a moan about something, and she's either appear in my mentions, or send me a dm. 
Like me she loved her cricket and her cycling, and we'd often share moments of triumph and disaster through our keyboards. 
It was through her love of cycling that I think I best got to "know" Liz. Because one of the things that became apparent after her death is how many lives she quietly touched, and just how many interests she had. I don't think any of us realised just how many people she was in touch with regularly.
Liz loved France, and that love of cycling, France, fibre crafts and writing coincided every year with the Tour de Fleece. 
For each stage of the race Liz would write beautiful summaries about the area of France the race passed through each day. These posts took weeks in the researching and writing, and she did it for the pleasure she knew it bought to others. They were often the highlight of my day. Initially the posts appeared in the Archers Lovers forums on Ravelry, but as time went on she very kindly popped in to the Hilltop Cloud group and wrote some for us to enjoy.
This summer she duplicated those posts in the temporary home we used for the Tour de Fleece after the Ravelry site redesign. I went back to read them yesterday morning and they seem like the perfect way to remember her.
So pour yourself a glass of something French. Here's to you Liz. You were taken from us to soon, but by golly we enjoyed having your company whilst you were here. 

In terms of the race, Nice got in quite early - they were part of the 4th *édition* in 1906, as a finish town for a 345km stage from Grenoble, before the riders started on a 308km stage to Marseille... Stages were longer then...
 
The last *Grand Départ* from Nice was in 1981 - so long ago that the Tour that year was won by a Frenchman, Bernard Hinault. (I remember watching some of that Tour with my French penfriend's dad, the pair of us in the darkened living room of their summer house in Provence while everyone else was taking their afternoon nap... that was the summer I properly learned to knit, too... After that there was a 30 year hiatus in the cycle-watching, not so much in the knitting...)
 
Nice is the second most visited city in France, but has only been officially French since 1860, when the city was handed to the French as thanks for their help in the second war of Italian independence (and the year before Italy became an actual state). Before that, it was conquered by France a few times. It has its own dialect, Niçard/Niçois/Nizzardo (reflecting its local/French/Italian history), and since 1912 its own anthem *Nissa la Bella*. Here's a version with a choir from 2017
 
Nice Anthem
 
and, in these lockdown times, here's a bloke with a uke in his house
 
Nice man playing the ukulele
 
The old town, particularly around the *Cours Saleya*, is beautiful and a maze of small streets. ​

And then the rather extraordinary Tourte de Blettes, a Swiss chard and fruit pie which also incorporates Pernod, raisins and Parmesan... Here's a recipe - I've also seen versions with apple instead of pear... ​

Looks faffy - but if the Tour actually happens in August/September, we have 3 days in Nice, so I might be tempted to have a go...
 
Alors; à vos rouets, à vos broches (to your wheels, to your spindles), mes ami(e)s!

Saturday 11 July - A tale of two cities
 
I asked for today specially because the race should have been going between two of my favourite cities, Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon.
 
Clermont is an odd place, or at least it was in the late 80s when I spent three summers visiting it regularly, on our day off (usually a Sunday) from excavating in the area. I wasn't an archaeologist, just a teenage linguist who discovered a talent for classifying pottery finds, and has spent most of the rest of her life sifting, sorting and putting things into categories as a result. But it was France, and although the work was hard (8 until 7 with a 2 hour lunch break when the weather got hot), the living was easy. This is the house we were based in, with people washing finds outside in the evening...

... and this is the Bar des Sports in the neighbouring village, where we'd wait for the bus to come and pick us up in the evening.  You could get a small Duralex glass of rosé for 1F20, which was the equivalence of about 10p at the time. The first time, I was paying for the privilege of learning - the following two summers, they offered to pay me the equivalent of jobseekers' allowance and provided me with a tent, if I'd go back and work on the pottery classification project. It was pretty idyllic.

​This is the song that reminds me of those summers - "petit Christien" from the village used to bring his guitar down to our weekly barbecues/bonfires by the river, and he'd always sing this.
 
San Francisco, by Maxime le Forestier
 
Clermont the city was at the time quite run-down - the Michelin factory was shedding many employees although its headquarters are still there. Many of those employees were the children of the Algerian families who'd been courted by Michelin to come to France after WWII to work; France's Windrush generation, if you like; and at the time the best restaurants were couscous restaurants, which as impoverished students we loved. 
 
The city view is pretty much dominated by the cathedral, which is built from the local black volcanic rock.

​My favourite building in Clermont was the basilica of Notre-Dame-du-Port, built to commemorate returning Crusaders, and incorporating elements of North African design. Which is, in retrospect, interesting given the number of Algerians who were living in the area several hundred years later. 
OK; so I seem to have had a lot to say about Clermont. 
 
I'm not going to say much about Lyon in general (although the old town on the left of the Presqu'île is gorgeous; and the Fourvière basilica is a must if you love neo-Byzantine as done by the 19th century French). It has a superb museum of the history of printing, a great archaeological museum, and the new and incredibly French Musée des Confluences at the meeting of the Saône and the Rhone, which combines high-tech immersive experiences with good old-fashioned "here are 25 stuffed deer from all parts of the world" experiences.
 
And I love this: a "flower tree" made by a South Korean artist, on the banks of the river. Each flower is probably a metre or so across. (I have this as my desktop image at the moment... you can see much more sunny images of it on the web, but I love colours-against-grey... 14 Quai du Dr Gailleton, if you're ever in Lyon.)

(One of the strangest things I encountered was that I'd go into a restaurant or bar in France's Second City, and someone would say "oh, are you here on business" and I'd say "no, I'm here on holiday", and they'd look at me a bit oddly. But Lyon is still pretty industrial - aerospace and chemicals, mainly...)
 
My favourite things were the Textile Museum, which is *amazing*. I've been back three times, and a huge amount of the collection had rotated each time. But this, for example, is a piece of tapestry weaving from *2nd-4th century* Egypt.

When people think of Lyon, they generally think of silk. A whole section of Lyon, the *Croix Rousse*, was built around silk, to the extent that you can see the silkweavers' houses because they had three very tall floors, so that Jacquard looms could be accommodated in the rooms.
 
The second time I went, I went on a tour to the *Maison des Canuts* (Canut being the local word for a silkweaver). A young apprentice on a national scheme did us a demonstration of weaving the sort of silk Lyon became famous for before the French revolution.

He started off weaving plain-weave fabric for shirts; then he moved to weaving Jacquard fabric for curtains and upholstery; and then towards the end of his career, he wove carbon fibre for use in Airbus nose-cones and for police batons. A whole industrial revolution in one career.
 
Going to finish off this post by showing you a combination of all this; this is a wedding dress in the Musée des Confluences; made partly of silk and partly of optical fibre; using an 18th century Jacquard loom.
 Happy Spinning All...

Saturday 18 July - Time Trial
 
So today was meant to be a mountain Time Trial up to the Planche des Belles Filles; not really sure who this would suit but presumably the guys who've made it thus far.
 
Time Trials in the UK have a very particular history. Michael Hutchinson (AKA Doctor Hutch - aside from his career as a time-triallist, he also has a PhD in Constitutional Law and used to lecture in it at Cambridge) wrote about it at length in his book *Re:Cyclists: 200 years on two wheels*. 
 
On 21 July 1894, a cyclist called Thomas Bidlake was being paced by two other riders in a road race on the Great North Road (now the A1) near Huntingdon, when they overtook a carriage being driven by a lady. There's some confusion as to what happened next, but in any case, some permutation of horse, carriage, cyclists and lady ended up in a nearby ditch, and the police were summoned. At this point, the budding National Cyclists' Union shot itself soundly in the foot by banning its members from any road racing activity, lest they be thought of as "scorchers"...

Bidlake staged a polite rebellion against this by arranging time trial races which were unannounced and held almost in secret. If the authorities didn't know they were happening, they would just see a lone cyclist "scorching" up the road every couple of minutes. Within a couple of decades, time-trialling became entrenched as the purest form of the sport, with no tactics, just a test of one person's strength.
 
Bidlake was killed in a road accident 40 years after his brush with the carriage; his ashes are scattered at the site of the accident near St Neots in Cambridgeshire, and there's a memorial sign to him.

The idea of massed-start road racing (as opposed to the occasional events on racing circuits or in parks) was further delayed in the UK by the fact that the Olympic road race (until quite recently the Olympics has been the only time British people remember there's such a thing as competitive cycling) was also a time-trial from 1906 to 1932. The (infamous) Berlin Games, however, re-introduced the idea of a bunch start and finish, and the Establishment registered its displeasure. Dr Hutch says:
 
The whole idea of a tactical road race went against what had become a deeply held principle that the strongest rider should always win, and if that irked those who were looking for entertainment, then those who were looking for entertainment were welcome to go and find another sport to watch.
 
Eventually, for the sake of the Olympics, road racing started again in the UK; but we weren't really in the habit of the thing...
 
I'm going to cheat here, because although time trial is not my favourite discipline, there was one notable exception in 2019. But it was at the Giro.  However, there's some lovely stuff here about how teams prepare for time trials. And it could not have been won by a nicer chap - Chad Haga. In 2016, he was very nearly killed by a driver in Spain (you can see the scars on his face and neck) and lost his Dad. In 2019, he won the final stage of the Giro and became a Dad. It feels as if you can see all of this in this video... It's also a lovely illustration of how important winning one single stage of a Grand Tour is for many of the *domestiques*...
 
Chad Haga wins the final Giro stage in 2019
 
Haga is also a talented pianist with a mechanical engineering degree. He writes very nicely for Cycling News.
 
Happy spinning, all!

It still feels somewhat surreal that these are the last posts that Liz will write for us... and I am so sad that I will never again need to roll my eyes at the obscure sounding recipes she used to find for us to enjoy, or to hear of her plans for navigating France by public transport for her summer holiday. 
At times she could make me roll my eyes with frustration, but my life was infinitely the richer for having known her. 
Cheers Liz, we'll be spinning and watching the Tour in your honour this summer. 

At last venturing further afield than our own doorstep has become possible. For now travel is only meant to be within Wales, and people shouldn't be crossing over the border from England, so it's been peaceful. 
Or as peaceful as it can be with one of these newly arrived in the house!

Nell arrived with us 2 weeks ago. We said goodbye to our oldest dog Gwen earlier this year, and the house felt too empty with just one dog, and in the manner of many other people, all the time at home seems like a good time to teach a puppy how to be a good dog, particularly as things start top open up again so we'll be able to go and do all the appropriate socialisations to make sure she's a happy reliable pet.
She's a border collie from working farm stock, her Mum was also called Gwen and her Dad was called Gilbert! 
Meg is unimpressed with the new arrival, though is starting to mellow towards her!
Almost nothing in the house is safe from her desire to play with it... so knitting has bee rather slow. However I have done the swatch for my cashmere jumper, and cast on!

I'm not doing Virtual Wonderwool as a business this year. I don't have an excess of stock I need to sell, and I dislike using Facebook. However I am still taking part in a different form. As part of the Welsh Guilds of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers we've organised a series of talks taking place that weekend. 

The speakers are all offering their time for free, and we're asking that you donate to either the Welsh Air Ambulance or Macmillan Cancer Support in exchange for attending. 
The full details of all the talks, and links to book your ticket (which is essential) are on the All Wales Guilds website.
​There's a huge variety of topics, some on historical textiles, natural dyeing, contemporary yarn production, hand carding...
They're being hosted on Zoom as seminars, and we hope to have an automated closed caption system in operation as speakers are talking. 

In the last post I promised that I was working on my next Spinning with a Purpose Course focusing on Twist. It's now live and ready to go. Here's the full course outline so you can see what's covered in each lesson. 
There's lots of technical information on twist, but there's also lots of practical advice to help you get better at judging twist as you spin. You're encouraged to experiment and sample to find the level of twist that works for you, rather than a prescriptive instruction. 

It's available to buy in my Payhip store, once you purchase you'll be sent 2 pdf files. One is the course outline, the other contains your link to access the course in the Fellowship of Yarn Mighty Network group. 

Lambs are starting to appear in the fields here, our upland sheep lamb later in spring and out in the fields. The daffodils have been looking stunning, and the tulips are growing their flower buds. The other sign of spring is one we can watch right through our window with a telescope. Whilst eating breakfast a few weeks ago we spotted a pair of Red Kites repeatedly landing in a tree. A closer look with the binoculars revealed a part built nest. She's now been sat on a clutch of eggs for about 10 days, so by the end of April we might have some Red Kite chicks to watch. 

I'm not saying I have a problem....

But these things seem to be breeding. 
I have done next to no large project knitting since Christmas, but instead have just been transforming scraps in to these freeform creatures. Cast on some stitches, knit some form of hat with very gradual decreases to make it pointy. Pick up body stitches, knit downwards adding some increases to give them fat bellies. Decrease rapidly to give them a flat bottom to sit on, stuff and add some lentils at the bottom to stop them falling over. Add in some i-cord arms, a variety of beard styles, and tiny little bits of stockinette for a nose and the potential for experimentation is endless. 

I've not wanted to start anything new because my St Distaffs Day Challenge project is approaching the knitting phase.  I've nearly spun all of my cashmere, and then it will be full speed with the knitting part to get it completed in time. 

After a year of very little teaching this spring has seen me busy nearly every weekend with talks, lectures and workshops. It feels very nice to be talking to people about textiles again, even if it is only over a screen. I've had to do lots of fresh photographing, because when I do things in person I can just hand things round to touch, but I'm very please with the set of talks I've now put together. 

Whilst we're on the topic of talks I have also put together this... which is for something coming up in the future that I am very excited about. It combines my love of colour theory, making practical items, and dyeing. For now the precise details are under wraps, but hopefully this wets your appetite. 
I'm buys working on the next Online Course focusing on Twist. It is very nearly finished... except I keep coming up with interesting things I want to include, and the RAF jets have been flying incessantly in this area for most of February, and you really don't want to hear me trying to talk over the horrendous noise they make. As a result I've only been able to do some of the video filming. 

We had some cold weather in February which put the garden on pause for a while, but I filmed this on a sunny afternoon at the end of the month. The spring flowering heather is always covered with insects at this time of year. If you have a garden it's well worth planting some, it starts looking great in February and is a really valuable early nectar source for butterflies, bumble bees and honey bees. The summer flowers get all the publicity, but actually the biggest difference you can make for pollinators with garden plants is to fill in the gaps in early spring and late autumn. 

Speaking of the future....
I may have mentioned that Hilltop Cloud dis celebrating it's 10th anniversary this year. 
As part of the celebrations I am asking you to go and vote for your favourite blends from the past 10 years. The full set of links are here, so please come and cast your votes. 

This very much feels like the current mood. 
Turns out that when you can't go anywhere, and when you have walked the muddy steep fields around the house, and practically nowhere else for the past year even the beautiful Welsh countryside stops filling you with joy. Particularly in this, the dullest time of year. There's hints that spring is on the way, but they're teasers, and only remind you of what you're looking forward to in March and April. It's  bit like looking at posts in your social media feed from those living in Australia and New Zealand. 

It's so wonderful to see older people and those who are more vulnerable being vaccinated, but for those of us who are low on the priority lists it all still feels very worrying. I suspect the pressure is going to mount for lockdowns to be lifted soon, and meanwhile the younger generations, those who are most likely to be working in low-paid, yet high risk jobs are still unprotected. Yes, the risk of fatal disease is lower for these groups (and that's why it's right that they are vaccinated later), but even "mild" versions  can have some dreadful long-term consequences. I am very fortunate that I can carry on working from home, my social life has largely shifted online, but for many of my friends and family members that's not the case. 
I've no plans to go back to doing in-person events until I'm vaccinated (which will basically be the completion of the vaccination programme). If you have been vaccinated, keep wearing your mask, keep abiding by the rules, and if in doubt about wether something is a good idea be more cautious rather than less. 

Sadly Wonderwool Wales has been cancelled again this year. The past few weeks have been slightly nervous for me. I was quite willing to loose my stall fee, because I would not have been attending if it had gone ahead. The organisers made the decision to cancel last week (and will be refunding stall fees held over from last year). I'm sad not to be seeing you all in person, but a crowd event with people travelling from all over the country just isn't wise right now. There are plans to do another Virtual event, and unlike last year, when we were all still trying to work out what on earth we were doing, this year we've all had a year of practice!

Speaking of online, my diary is rapidly filling up with online talks, lectures and workshops with guilds all over the country. It's been great to get back to teaching, it makes up such a small part of my income, but the enjoyment I get from it more than makes up for that! I can probably squeeze a few more sessions in, so get in touch if your guild/group want know more (international inquiries welcome!)

Meanwhile, if you're not a member of a group I am continuing to build up the catalogue of online courses. These are self paced, available "forever", and still have the ability to ask questions and get feedback. In addition to Spinning with a Purpose: Thickness I've now added Corespinning and Beyond!

Spinning these techniques were just the sense of fun I needed this month. It was often a workshop that people were unsure about when I taught it in-person, but by the end of it so many were converts to this great method of creating usable yarn, and recognised the increase in skill that could be applied to their other yarns. If you fancy finding out more then there's a full course description on the Online Courses page.

Whilst the weather is cold and icy I'm going to be getting on with writing the next course, the water pipes are frozen solid, so I'm inside in the warmth. 

I have finished off next to nothing this month, after clearing the loom and the sewing machine at Christmas. But I did manage to finish off the red and yellow warp from last month...
And have warped the loom for the next big project.. a somewhat ambitious plan involving my own handspun as the weft and the thought of turning the yardage in to a garment of some kind. I can even call myself a proper weaver now because I actually sampled!

The Mighty Networks group has had a bit of minor tinkering...
It's still where there is lots of Hilltop Cloud chatter, but the name has had a tweak to The Fellowship of Yarn. 
I'd been missing rambling chats about anything and everything, and I just like seeing things that people have made, regardless of where the supplies have come from. I like hearing about recipes that are tasty, and books that are great. I want to see pets, and gardens...
So if you have something you want to share, if you're feeling lonely and just want to talk, if the world is getting too much then know that you are not alone.
One of the good things about the current group is that there are no algorithms, you get to choose what you see. If you have a topic that doesn't interest you then you can change your preferences so you don't follow those conversations. It's also easy to find people who speak your language, or who share you specific interests. 
Over the past few week people have been developing their ideas for the St Distaff's Day Challenge, and it's great to see how such a small set of photos can develop such a wide range of ideas. 
If you have friends who you think would like to join in then send them in an invite, or if you're not yet a member come and join us.

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