Life!

Haven't posted lately, been too busy with all the glitches life has thrown at us. I have had yet another chest infection, which makes 3 since December. So I have had a chest X-ray and need to have blood tests. I am taking pro-biotics to counteract the anti-biotics the Doctor prescribed, and Echinacea to try and boost my immune system. It seems to be down to the atrocious weather we have had this year, so changeable the body doesn't know what is going on. Sarah has had several bouts of tonsilitis along with Rowan who brings back delightful germs from pre-school and playgroup.

Minnie our 3 legged cat deteriorated and we took her back to the vet where we saw a different vet. She said she thought the problem was a tumour in the leg which was pressing on the main nerve to the foot causing the weakness and loss of feeling. She was of the opinion that she would only get worse and that she was suffering now and should be euthanased. I was on my own as Phil stayed at home because we were waiting for couriers to collect parcels, so I had to decide myself. There was really no decision, it had to be done. The vet couldn't get a vein in Minnie's front leg due to the problem, so she had to inject the drug into the abdomen. She said it would take longer, so I sat with Minnie in one of the treatment rooms. It took forever, she gradually slipped into a coma, but was still breathing. After about 30 minutes the vet came back in and was surprised she was still alive. She gave her another injection straight into her kidney as she said she was so far gone she wouldn't feel it now. She went quickly after that. I cried all the way home and Phil did too when I got home. We both knew she wasn't going to come home alive. I buried her in the front garden under the willow tree as the back garden is getting a bit full up, what with  poisoned cats, rabbits and chickens. Minnie is the first of our older cats we have lost in a long time. The last ones were the poisoned ones, Dermie, Hamish and Tio. I suppose we can expect it now as most of them are over 10. Connor is much better now his teeth have been sorted out. He is eating like a horse and his fur looks much better as he is grooming himself again. He is 16 and Mollie is 17. Small is only 6 months younger.

The last problem has only just been sorted. The accelerator on the Peugeot 607 jammed on when we were coming back from the vet on Saturday with one of the chickens which had a twisted neck. Phil took it apart and found the reason why the accelerator was so stiff, which it had been from new (to us). the cable was frayed into a bird's nest where it went through the bulkhead to the pedal. When he tried to pull the cable through it snapped. He found it was only held by abut 6 strands of wire. We were so lucky it didn't go on the motorway down to Devon. We hadn't even done our shopping as we had to go to the vet first. Luckily out new neighbour Ray was going to the tip on sunday and dropped us at Morrisons to get the basics. We had to get the part which was £49. We asked Boots, our mechanic neighbour to get a price for us, but he said £54, so we got it from Lutterworth Ford. We had to go in on the Post Bus to get the part and it was a kit, you had to put it all together yourself. Trouble was, it was different to what was on there originally. Fortunately, after some time and probably lots of swearing, Phil managed to fix it. He says it doesn't feel the same and there isn't much acceleration, but I imagine it will feel different after a new accelerator being fitted.

Back to brighter things. I have started going to a drop in knit and crochet group at the church in Lutterworth. It is run by one of our friends. This Friday I am taking in a hand crank sewing machine and my spinning wheel to give a demonstration. Saturday is the Spinner's Guild meeting. I missed the last one because I had the chest infection then. I want to spin some white wool so I can start dyeing wth natural dyes. I need this for Sarah's course in September.

Talking of Sarah, I went down to Devon on the Jubilee weekend to the Garden Festival at Coombe Trenchard Gardens. It is a lovely place, beautiful old Arts and Crafts house. There were so many lovely plants and beautiful furniture, wrough iron slatted furniture with Gothic arched back chairs. We were doing bunting making workshops in the Gardens Illustrated marquee. We took about 4 hand cranks along to demonstrate. We didn't make much money, only sold some bunting and a few rosettes, but the object was advertising the Studio and craft workshops. We got friendly with the editors of Gardens Illustrated and Homes and Antiques, the magazine Sarah was in. There were so many nice people there and we had a lovely time. Even the weath stayed good until Saturday afternoon when we were packing up.

The only down side was the clutch went on Sarah's Audi and we were stuck about 6 miles from the venue. Fortunately Casie, David and Rowan were on their way over to go to the Garden Festival, so we had to wait for them to turn up. We sat on the grass verge on a picnic blanket and made rosettes until they arrived. They took us to the Gardens, had a look round ant then they went and towed the car home. David took Casie to work and then came to collect us. We stopped at the Pizza Ape on the way home for food. It's always good there. Very eventful day

Spinning and birthdays

I haven't had much chance to do any spinning in the last 2 weeks, been very busy cleaning and servicing sewing and knitting machines. Rowan was 4 yesterday, doesn't seem possible, time has really flown.

Our 3 legged cat Minnie has managed to damage her remaining front leg. We have no idea how, but she suddenly started shuffling along the floor on her forearm, and was unable to bear any weight on her wrist. We took her to a vet we don't actually like because we couldn't get her in to see our normal vet. The vet thinks she has wrenched her shoulder and there may be some nerve damage in her wrist. She said to give her 2 weeks and if there was no improvement she would need to be euthanased as she wouldn't be able to cope with no usable front leg.

We have taken her to our normal vet and she agrees there is nerve damage and no sensation in Minnies foot. She has given her a reprieve and anti-inflammatories for another week as she had a dog who recovered some movement after 4 weeks. Unfortunately she is constipated and we are trying to sort that out now. That seems to be causing her a lot of pain.

Looms, wheels and spinning

We managed to get to Ely to collect the rug loom from Jenny. I was also given 4 bags of rug wool to practice with and a Singer 28 sewing machine in good condition. The case had been restored at some time and it was very well done.

I now have a small childs' loom, a Spears loom which is slightly larger, a frame loom, also with a quantity of wool, a Weavemaster from the Big Sheep and the rug loom from Jenny which is also a Weavemaster. In fact it is a larger version of the one from the Big Sheep, so I can see what parts I need to make to get it going. I am going to start weaving with the childs loom as I can start off very small and simple. At the moment it's all a bit of a mystery to me.

I have started carding some Shetland from Sue Bailey's Beatrice. It is very dark, but I have found there are a lot of very small second cuts which is making the spun wool a bit lumpy. I will carry on spinning a couple of bobbins and see how it plys and knits.

North Devon and Rug loom

I am writing this from Sarah's 'Green Valley' in Higher Clovelly. I am down here for a week, part holiday, part working to restore the 9 sewing machines Sarah bought last week at her local auction. Yesterday shortly after we got here, I did a 2 1/2  hour one2one class for a lady also called Sarah, teaching her to care for her vintage sewing machine and also to sew on it. My Sarah couldn't do the class as Rowan is very poorly, with a high temperature. Sarah enjoyed her lesson very much. The sewing machine was a Singer 128 which was her Grandmother's, so she was very pleased to be able to use it. She made a shopping bag and went home very happy with a clean serviced machine. Tomorrow I will start servicing the machines to go on Sarah's website.

I hope to be able to go to the Big Sheep while I'm down here so we can see if there are any bits Casie missed when he collected the spinning wheels and loom. The loom is missing one of the metal shafts and some wooden bits and pieces. We can make the wooden parts, but a metal frame might be more difficult.

Jenny on our online Spinners and Weavers group offered a rug loom for free and I was lucky enough to be the first to reply to her. After some hassle due to emails not getting through, I will be collecting the rug loom after I get back from Devon. It comes with a lot of rug thrums, so I should be able to get into making a sample straight away.

I brought some carded fleece down with me, North Ronaldsay for me and some Jacobs for Sarah to try out. I forgot the Ashford traditional had a spring missing from the bobbin tensioner, also the nylon line is too short, so I might not be able to do much spinning unless we can get some more fishing line.

Update on fleeces

I have washed 1 Castlemilk Moorit, 1 Portland, the caramel Shetland and the Boreray. I still have 1 Castlemilk to wash, the others are being sold to Spinner's Guild members. I will take them along to the next meeting.

The weather has been very warm for late February, early March, I have been out in the front garden tidying up and pruning. This year I mean to make an effort out the front as the back garden is now a chicken yard. I will grow some herbs and dye plants out there, also all the little shrubs down the side of the greenhouse will go along the fence between us and Henry's old house. Which is now wrong as we have new neighbours, Ray and Jill who are moving in today, well, they have been moving stuff in since last week. They are pretty much between me and Phil in age, with grown up children and grandchildren. It's very strange hearing people next door after nearly 9 months. Henry and Carl never made much noise anyway.

I have carded some more Jacob's fleece to finish my jacket, I hae only the sleeves left to do now, in fact I am 1/4 of the way up the first sleeve. It's quite exciting to have an actual garment nearly finished, my first with my own handspun wool. I can't wait to get to the caramel Shetland as it is gorgeous, different shades of brown and cream on the tips.

I have been clearing out various cupboards in an attempt to clear the house. I have cleared out my fabric cupboard and have a lot of fabric to go on eBay. The wardrobe in the corner is now half empty so I will fill that up with fleeces. This will make the whole room a lot tidier.

Washed the other Portland fleece today and it was part felted before I washed it. It was very difficult to pull the locks apart. I may have to dump some of it which is a shame, but I have a lot more, far too many in fact.

We dropped in to see Sue and Jeff Bailey on our way home from Hoar Park Farm the other afternoon. They have had a tragedy, Maddie, their very expensive white Leicester Longwool ewe (1 year old) had to be destroyed after giving birth to a ewe lamb. She had a really bad prolapse. Jeff said she'd never been right and was much smaller than she should have been. There wsas no membrane round the lamb either. Jeff said it was as if everything inside the ewe had disintegrated. They think it may be down to inbreeding.

They are both understandably very cut up about it, especially as Jeff had to shoot her. What a terrble thing to happen. Apparently rare breed sheep have much more difficulty lambing than commercial sheep. At least the ewe  lamb has survived, Sue is bottle feeding her. she is really sweet. They have 9 lambs so far, including 2 sets of twins.

I had Maddie's shearling fleece last year, so I will spin some finer wool and crochet Sue a scarf in Maddie's memory.

Feeling poorly and a trip to Derbyshire

Been very poorly the last couple of days. It came on very suddenly, hacking cough and difficult to breathe. Also no energy so poor Phil has been feeding my bunnies at night. I can manage it in the morning, but by night time I'm exhausted. I have been taking lemon juice, glycerine, honey, garlic and cayenne pepper in hot water which helps a lot. I usually use fresh chopped ginger as well, but have run out. I fnd it frustrating to be unable to do anything as I have so much to do, sewing machines to finish restoring. other stuff to put on eBay and a lot of new fleeces to clean.

We went up to Derbyshire on Tuesday to try out our Peugeot 607. You need to go for some time at over 40 miles per hour to clean out the Diesel Particulate Filter. We went to Carsington Water briefly, but as it was 4pm by the time we got there, we decided not to stop as they charge £2.50 for parking whatever time of day it is.

On the way to Carsington, we found a rare breed centre (Riddings Park Farm) and went to have a look. It was closed for the Winter, but they kindly showed us round. They have lots of pigs, Gloucester Old Spots, Large Blacks and Tamworths. They had several litters of piglets, from 3 weeks old. The sheep they had were Castlemilk Moorits, Hebridean, Shetland, Portland, Soay and Boreray. They had fleeces going spare so I got some for a donation to Charity. I didn't have much cash left as we stopped for lunch in a cafe in Wirksworth, called the Country Kitchen, The food was lovely, and the vegetables not over cooked. We will be going back there again. Anyway, I digress, I had only £10 left, so gave them that, and when we go back, I will give them some more. I have Castlemilk Moorit, Boreray, Portland, Caramel Shetland a lovely dark Hebridean.

Phil was disappointed as we didn't have enough cash to buy him some sausages. They make their own, lots of different flavours, their own bacon as well, and they have a butcher come in to do the meat. They do lots of different markets locally. They also have cows (Dexters) and goats, both Angora and Bagot which are very rare(these roam free during th day as they are impossible to contain). The chickens scratching around were nearly all crosses, they keep the pure breeds in their pens during the Winter. They also have accomodation, B & B, a cottage and yurts with woodburning stoves.

All in all, it was a lovely day out, and we particularly enjoyed it because it has been a long time since we went out just for a day. The new car is very comfortable for long journeys and the fuel consumption is good. It should be ideal for trips to Devon.

Sewing machines

I bought a small treadle cabinet last week. As we have a very small courtesy car while ours is in for repair, Mark and Cheryl brough the cabinet over to us in their much bigger car. The cabinet is walnut veneered and plain but very pretty. We brought the machine head and accessories home with us. The machine is a 201, always desirable. It is missing it's Singer badge, but as I intend keeping it that doesn't matter too much. I Fenmanned the cabinet anbd serviced the machine the day I got it so it is ready to use. The treadle belt is a piece of curtain wire with the hooked ends bent right in, not a bad idea as I usually have lengths of that about.

I am about to buy yet another treadle, offered to me by Jill who we know from the auction. Her friend wants to sell it and Jill knows I collect old machines. We went to look at it several days ago. It is a Wheeler & Wilson no 1, which you sew on sideways. The cabinet has a fold over box top similar to this one, except
 

there is an extra drawer on the left of the machine in mine. The condition is not good, there is no finish left on the woodwork, the treadle irons are rusty and there is light rust on the metalwork of the machine. On the good side, there is decoration left on the machine, no damage to the woodwork, a few accessories and a mouse chewed manual, plus, a bonus, 4 curved needles which are now unobtainable. So if I get it sorted out I can sew on it. There is also a sharpening stone for the needles. These machines were never French Polished, just waxed, so I need to clean and sand all the woodwork and rewax with a hard wax polish. The belt is not like other treadles with a narrow round strip of leather, this is a wide leather belt and a new one needs to be made from a man's belt cut to length and stitched together. I need also to remove the rust from the treadle irons and refinish either by painting or using black stove enamel.