Off to the Royal Show

This week the Royal Show started.  The neighbourhood is full of cheerful people and cars.  One strand of my bunting is gone… it looks for all the world as if someone decided to souvenir the best part!  It has been completely removed.  So I’d better make some more.

I spent some hours on my Guild’s stall, selling things made by members and showing people what spinning looks like.  I took my spindle and some roving dyed with eucalyptus bark, but in the end when I was demonstrating I was on the Guild’s wheel spinning greasy fleece from a bag of locks.  It was interesting to see how many people had some idea what was being done and wanted to show their children.  It is always obvious that people from some parts of the world are much closer to a tradition of spinning in their country of origin than many Anglo-Australians.  I had a great conversation about spinning in India with a couple of people who were surprised I knew what a Charka was… and I am in awe of anyone who can draft with one hand!  Last year, someone took my picture drop spindling because he thought there was no way his mother in Iran would ever believe a white woman in Australia could do this, without a picture.  I heard lots of stories of mothers and grandmothers who were/are spinners, and we joined up a few new members, too.

And, I decided to begin on my tea cosy project.  I have spun a lot of art yarn in the last year and some of it is very bulky.  I think tea cosies would be perfect and I’ve already knit one, which went home with a visitor who thought it was too cute!  That is the kind of home knitting should go to…  I have four teapots I’ve bought second hand.  I decided to start with the smallest one and work up!  This tea cosy bears some relationship to the Fun and Fast tea cozy by Funhouse Fibers, but I’ll have to claim responsibility for its defects as, while I’ve used the central concept… I haven’t exactly followed the pattern… there just wasn’t enough yarn in my smallest skein, and this teapot is a tiddler.  The yarn is corespun, and contains merino I dyed with Earth Palette dyes, tencel and mohair locks.