Sunday Spinning

I had the most amazing day on Sunday. My Dad wanted to buy me something I could keep forever for my 21st birthday (which is the beginning of June), and my Mum came across the most amazing shop one day. We travelled to a beautiful little Yorkshire village to visit this place:

This is Wingham Wool Work, in Wentworth, which is a very cute village, where every building looks like this. It may not look like much, but this is what's inside:

This is only a tiny selection of the shop, which also comprises 4 sheds behind the front building. They have 125 different colours of Merino fibre, as well as fibre from almost every breed of sheep in big bins. Along with that, they have pretty much any kind of fibre you can think of, custom blends (which they can make for you), handspun yarn, knitting needles, needle felting, dyes, and the reason I was there, spinning wheels and supplies:

I had my very first spinning lesson, on this Ashford Traveller. It was a great introduction to spinning wheels, and I came out with this.

After getting a good appreciation of how a spinning wheel works and the basics of use and care, the shop owner, Ruth, taught me how to control the thickness of my yarn, and we span a little bit of several different fleeces into singles, and then plied them.

And the best bit?

My own Ashford Traveller, Niddy Noddy, and the bags of fibre that came free with the spinning wheel. I was just let loose in the shop to grab £15 worth of whatever I liked to take home, which ended up being 500g of fibre.

3 bags of coloured Merino, a bag of Jacobs and a bag of Swaledale.

Of course, I don't actually get it until my birthday, and even then I won't be able to use it until after exams, but I'm really excited to sit down and practise when I can!