Might have mentioned that I'll be teaching at the Association of Guilds of Weaver, Spinners and Dyers Summer School next year...
Very broadly I'm going to be teaching a course based around my book. In short. we will be spending the week experimenting with hand dyed braids, and generally becoming better and more confident spinners who are in control of the yarn we make!

I've just finished a sample piece that will be part of the discussion materials for the course. I took the 2 hand dyed colourways that I created for the Tour de Fleece, and plied them with the corresponding colours of Merino & Silk that were used as the dye colours in the variegated braids. As usual, the results are fascinating, and really highlight the value of sampling. 

Thanks to a grey welsh winter day the photos aren't the best, but hopefully give you a hint of the sort of experimentation we're going to be having fun with. We won't just be piling with solid colours either, we're going to be doing all sorts of experimentation, and really starting to dig in to the "why's" of certain colour combinations. There will be elements of the Power of Colour article I wrote for Ply Magazine, and we'll be looking at how to use the skeins you spin from hand dyed article. 
You will be doing lots, and lots of spinning, and I'll be encouraging you to turn your samples in to something meaningful and useful as a souvenir of the week. 
Applications are open to anyone, you don't have to be a guild member, or even a UK resident. 

Both hand dyed colourways plied together. This one is really interesting to look at, so many different new colours created from the optical blending. 

Sometimes it's a mistake to go back to things you remember from childhood. They're often not quite as shiny, not quite as charming and all too often disappointing. 
My trip to Northumbria was none of those things however. Maybe to helps that I was there as a small child, and I'm not someone who has vivid memories of many of the places and things I did much below the age of 7. But there was something about the Northumbrian coast, I just knew that I needed to go back there. 

I don't have many things that I would try and rescue if I had to leave the house in a hurry, but this is one of them. It's painted by an old family friend who is sadly no longer with us. We have many of his watercolours hanging in the house, this probably isn't one of his better ones, but it's special to me. 

The two small figures in the left are my Mum and I. At 5 I probably didn't appreciate the gift of this painting, but at 33 I appreciate more than I can express with words. 

Bamburgh Castle wasn't looking at its most magnificent on the day we were visiting, but that didn't really seem to matter. Now when I sit on my sofa at home my painting will remind me not just of childhood kite flying, and running on a beech in a cold winter wind, it will remind me of a slower walk to a headland, of exploring a new town and the magic of a bamboo maze. 
We spent the evenings cutting and sewing fabric for a quilt. That age-old evening activity of women, the act of making. The photos I took were lovely, but the handmade things I have to remind me are so much more precious. 

So far I'm managing to stock pretty well to my resolution of rounding up all the things that have been happening in the valley over the past month. Maybe this is the secret to New Years Resolutions, don't make them at New Year. 
Of course this post is a bit later than usual, but that's because I took my holiday for the year up on the Northumbrian Coast. It was beautiful, and windy, and just what was needed. As usual I'll be working pretty much up until Christmas, and then taking some time off over Christmas New Year to spend time with family, do lots of cooking, and mess around with some non-Hilltop Cloud projects. 

As we're talking about Christmas, here are the dates by which you need to place your orders-

Wed 5th Dec; Cyprus, Malta, Asia, Far East, Eastern Europe, Caribbean, Central and South America
Sun 9th Dec; Greece, Turkey, Australia, New Zealand
Wed 12th Dec; Canada, Czech Rep, Italy, Poland, USA, Finland, Sweden
Sun 16th Dec; Rest of Europe, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, UK

Parcels will be going out as normal throughout the holiday period, on Monday and Thursday mornings, and I plan on sending both clubs out before Christmas. 

I've also made a start on dyeing the special fibre I posted about last month, and even managed to twist John's arm in to supplying me with a further 10kg.  The first batch went up in the shop with the latest update, and I will be dyeing small batches for every update until I run out of base.  This fibre is special, because every step of the way is done with such care and attention. First the flocks that supply the fibre are specially selected, the fleeces are first graded by the sorted at the south Molton Wool Marketing Board Depot. It then goes through a secondary grading process to remove a further 20% of any kemp and coarse fibres, or ones with too short a staple. It's then scoured, and finally combed by the team at John Arbon textiles, and combined with 20% Mulberry Silk. At the moment it's the most expensive base that I stock, but with good reason, you can't produce a base like this cheaply.

This is also the month we said good-bye to Otis, my trusty ex-BT van has carried me around the country to shows and workshops for the past 5 years, but he was getting older, and with my decision to do fewer shows I no longer needed such a large vehicle.  Our space at Wonderwool Wales has already been confirmed, and will be the only show in 2019 where I will be taking a full stock of fibres. Wonderwool is by far the most shopper-friendly of all the shows, with wide aisles, generous stand sizes, and a level floor. If you've never come then it's well worth the trip.