Being creative in the time of COVID-19

Well 2020 is turning out to be quite an unusual year. Hate to see so many creative fibre festivals and events being cancelled and our own group in-person meetings are now on indefinite hold. But we can turn to online video chat to lift our spirits and share what we are up to. Zoom software seems to work for us and we are now setting up small web conferencing meetings to keep our spirits up while remaining safe. If your own guild or group can't meet you may wish to try the same.

Some projects may particularly lend themselves to a really long period of confinement in the craftroom. Pictured here is the first of Clare Howard's woven curtains. Weft for this curtain is handwoven by Clare using her handspun hand dyed yarn. Inspirational!

So when we do finally emerge in public again don't be surprised to see some of us showing off some impressive and extensive work made in the meantime.

Please stay safe and special thanks to anyone reading this who is spending time caring for others who are ill or isolated at this worrying time.

BRITSPIN - the event that carried on through COVID

BRITSPIN is billed as the UK Spinning Marathon. 2020 was its third year and it was not going to let a 'little thing' like COVID19 get in the way of spinners challenging themselves. Unlike other events that 'went online' this year, this event (for most participants) has always been online, primarily on the knitting/crochet/spinning/weaving platform Ravelry ). Most Britspin teams do not meet up and some may not even be spinning on the same continent. The motivation is for spinners to challenge themselves (there are a variety of ways we can do this). They also raise money for charity (this year's charity was the RNLI) and dedicate days at a time to spinning and having fun. Some teams are more serious about this than others. This year the 'local' team set the bar exceedingly high. Krys (who was a member of the Stratford upon Avon guild's Over The Rainbow BRITSPIN team) suggested a very special mascot. Barney belongs to a friend and was rescued by the RNL...

Machine knitting - watch out for the steel eye spun brigade!

If you - as we have - spent the past year generating handspun yarn, turning stash into squishy skeins and experimenting with dyepots, you may well have quite a lot of transformed yarn to use up. For those (like me) who are slow knitters, turning this into finished items is not the quickest thing. I have handnit three sweaters during lockdown but one of these was knit much faster than either of the others. It was (gulp) machine knitted. On a vintage (1980s) flatbed knitting machine. Before lockdown I had dabbled in ownership and use of various antique and modern circular knitting machines, but now I have moved out one of my looms and in its place I have a small stack of knitting machines. Several of which still require some hard work before they can knit again. Why so many? Because I am trying them out to see what will work with handspun. Also because I have been persuading some of my spin spun sisters that they too need a knitting machine in their lives. Enter Clare, Jo, Liz...

Worldwide spin in public day (19th Sept 2020)

Well its been a very different sort of summer. No Festival of Culture or Bikefest to spin at. Online spinning along can only go so far, so while we still have sunshine I decided to go and spin outdoors and in front of an audience for this year's Worldwide Spin in Public Day. Outdoors = next-door's garden and with an audience of one. But it felt nice to be answering questions about my craft again. I think others in my guild planned to do some garden spinning themselves and hope that happened - it was lovely weather for it. Take care everyone and hope to spin in public again sometime soon(ish).

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