Hobbits

It was the annual Tolkein weekend at Sarehole Mill just gone. That’s near where Tolkein was boy and allegedly the mill and the Bog gave the lad ideas for his future writing. I have tried to read Tolkein but gave up after only a page or two, and have never seen the film. So this weekend was devoted to people with velour cloaks, pointy ears and swords, and to top it all there was a Wand Workshop for the kids.

I wanted nothing to do with this but my Guild goes there to do its crafts and so I spent two days spinning and batting off the Sleeping Beauty comments. And contradicting the parents who were explaining to their offspring that I was spinning sheep (I was onto the angora rabbit by then). I do enjoy explaining to men (and believe me it’s the blokes who think of the engineering) how the wheel works, or showing off the softness of the fleece to small friendly looking children. Two were stupid enough to put their hands near the flyer when it was going round, and I managed to resist swearing at them.

So I produced in total three variegated skeins of Navajo plied wool as part of my planned carpet bag for the Guild competition in November. Plus 3 skeins of chunky white fleece (breed unknown – it turned up on my doorstop with 5 others in a bin bag courtesy of friends of friends), and some finely spun angora singles.