Gloom and greyness

January has been a particularly gloomy month, with the general greyness in the weather only being lightened a few times and the gloom of approaching deadlines now too close to ignore. I am trying to convince myself that Things Will Get Better and that the sun WILL come back some day.


But despite the rain and grey skies, I've been out and about doing things that have been sunny in aspect, if not in the physical sense. A visit last weekend to a friend who wants to start spinning prompted me to sort out my stalled spinning stash and to finish spinning a hank of gorgeous yarn from some Bowmont fleece I picked up ages ago at the Vauxhall City Farm spinning group. It was quite difficult to spin because the fleece was not very well shorn and I had trouble picking out suitable bits to spin. But the resulting yarn is glorious; as you will see if you Google Bowmont, it is a rare breed cross of Shetland/Merino, bred for its exceedingly high quality fleece which makes a light, lofty yarn. Devon Fine Fibres has a lot of information here.

I've already made another hank which was dyed blue in an indigo dip, and I hope to combine the two into some kind of Scandinavian hat or hats. Alternatively I might just carry the yarn around with me and stroke it occasionally - it's gorgeous!

I've also been indulging in a bit of creativity at the Crazy Glazy ceramics cafe in Huntingdon - you'll get to see the results in due course, assuming that the kiln doesn't eat it and it survives the journey back to London! It was good fun but a lot more difficult than I thought it would be - even though I chose a very simple design.