If you've not received your club parcel yet you may want to skip this post and come back later when your fibre has arrived. 
There are lots of new fibres in the club parcels, so It bought some video clips to give you some ideas on where to start would be helpful. 

If you want to see step by step instructions on how to attach a leader to your bobbin with a loop at the end then the blogpost is here. 

I recommend starting with the Tussah Silk. I like spinning it with a short forward draw from the end of the top, that way you get a super shiny yarn. The other way to try spinning silk is from the fold. You can use a short forward draw as before, or try doing a point of twist draw.

Viscose is shiny fibre like the silk, but much more slippery.  Try spinning the silk first! 
You can use a short forward draw to keep it smooth and sleek, or you can spin it from the fold. 

For the Baby Camel, check the staple length, that's what will catch you out after spinning 2 long staple fibres. ​You can spin it with a short forward draw, and it will also work well as a thicker yarn. Don't be afraid to use a good amount of twist with this short stapled fibre. It will also suit being spun from the fold, and this would probably be the method I'd pick to spin this fibre. ​

And here are the fibres in the parcels this month. 
Tussah Silk in the Antilles and Violet, Viscose in Fog and Shell, and Undyed Baby Camel. 
The club is full for this 3 month block, but I will be doing it again in the summer, and spare fibre from the parcels will go on sale in the shop in 1 months time. 

Tussah Silk is one of the more textured form of silk, if you're interested in knowing more about silk then I wrote a summary here a while ago. Viscose is an extruded cellulose fibre, it's also sometimes called Rayon. Celulose fibres are dissolved using chemicals, and are then extruded out in to very fine filaments that make up the fibre. This Viscose is made in China, but is purchased through a supplier who is committed ti ensuring environmental good practise. Both fibres were dyed to Okeo-Tex 100 standard in Italy.  Baby Camel comes from the undercoat of young camels, and is incredibly warm and fluffy, most of the fibre comes from the Bactrian Camel (the one with 2 humps), and is sourced from China, Tibet and Mongolia. 

The busy months keep on rolling round. It was lovely to meet so many people at Devon Guild, and even better I got to take a few days off after the workshop exploring Exeter.  I can thoroughly recommend it as a pace to spend a couple of days. The cathedral is magnificent, the museum delightful, and the Underground Passages were fascinating. 

I've been spending quite a lot of time on the computer this month doing lots of very dull behind the scenes work. The end  is in sight however, and the work now should hopefully minimise a lot of the routine tasks I'll need to do in the future. 

The Non-Wool Club is nearly full, but I can still squeeze in a few more spaces, you've got a couple more days to sign up as I shall be starting to pack up the fibre next week at which point subscriptions will close. I'm also in the middle of transitioning the existing monthly clubs to a new payment system. The Gradient Club members are in the process of swapping over, and I'll be moving on to re-organising the Time Travellers club soon.

I've also been dabbling in a new fibre craft. Tapestry weaving and woven wall hangings seem to be everywhere at the moment, and they're a great use for odds and ends of fibres. This cloud shape uses a frame loom from Weft Blown. I used lots of spare pieces from the Colours of Cambria packs, and some undyed Cambrian wool. Sometime I spun a length of 3 or 4m and used that to weave, in other places I used pieces of unspun combed top. 

I've also had a go at making a more traditional wall hanging. 

These little hangings are great fun to make, and really not that hard. I used a small frame loom I bought from Ebay for around £12. The rest of the fibre is a selection of colours from the Superfine Merino & Silk (Paradise, Thyme, Cinnamon, Fog and Cappuccino) with a piece of Silk Chiffon Ribbon (colour way Moss).
If you're on Instagram then take a look at the hashtags #wovenwallhanging and #weavingloom to get lots of inspiration. 
If you want to have a go and don't know where to start then I used YouTube to teach myself most of these techniques. This playlist is really clear, she also explains how to make a loom using a picture frame and nails if you want to go down the DIY route. This playlist is another good one to use.
If you're coming by the stand at Wonderwool I expect there might be quite a few of these on display!


If you don't want to get sucked in to the rabbit hole of yet another craft then we're having a lovely time over in the Ravelry group doing an informal lace knit along, or crochet along if you prefer. You can pick any pattern so long as it has yarn-overs, and use any yarn, does't have to handspun, or Hilltop Cloud fibre. 

We've had poultry drama over the past few days... I came home from Devon to discover that Trotty had completely gone off her legs. Still bright and bubbly and wanting to stuff herself with tasty treats, but completely unable to walk. Two weeks in the house and she gradually got better and is now back out with the main flock. Unfortunately one morning we found  the other newest chicken, Pippa, looking very unwell and she died a couple of hours later. The day before she had been running round with the flock very happily, but they're very good at disguising illness. Clarissa the duck has also been causing trouble (again), in addition to having escape skills that rival the Colditz prisoners, she tried to lay her first egg and couldn't, requiring an emergency trip to the vet and a paraffin enema. She's currently making her disgust at all things human known by absconding as soon as it gets light and spending all day as far away from the garden as possible. Sigh, that duck....

Yesterday was  St Davids Day, the patron saint of Wales, so I celebrated by going for a bit of a jolly over to the coast, and had a thoroughly Welsh lunch out. It seems insane to say that 1 month on from my last blogpost I still don't know what will be happening with Brexit, and for now all I can do is keep on running the business as normal. I plan on sending out the Time travellers Club as early as possible to avoid any hold-ups at the ports, and also to make sure you don't get charged tax twice when you receive your parcel. I am still hopeful that this whole process will be halted and that common sense will prevail.