After a long and largely sunless Winter, SPRING is finally here! In my garden here in Reading, there is an apple tree with new growth bristling in its twisty branches; the papery petals of the hellebore flowers are in bloom; a scattering of vivacious green leaves are sprouting along the hedges; and neat little clusters of grape hyacinth stand out of their crowns of leaves like jewel-encrusted turrets.
It’s a veritable feast of greys, greens, and purples.
The actual sunlight we are now experiencing means that I have FINALLY been able to photograph the last of the WOVEMBER prizes, and to notify the winner, Janis Reuter. Congratulations, Janis!
Your exuberant, home-grown sweater embodies the very essence of CELEBRATING WOOL, and your own-design spinning wheel is a fitting testimony to the connections between the beloved animals from which fibres come, and the tools we use to turn them into garments.
Here’s my Coopworth sheep shorn, washed, carded, dyed, spun and knit to wear anywhere. The first soak in a big rubber outside tub, PG hand carder, natural dyes and my sweet spinning wheel all contribute here.
Also HAD to throw in a pic of my custom designed and made wheel.
– Janis Reuter
I hope you can all forgive the long delay in the delivery of this prize, but it is so beautiful that I really wanted to share it with all you WOVEMBER readers before shipping it off. The required combination of good light plus me being in the country and not gadding about for my work did not coincide until TODAY.
This is yarn spun by Cecilia in the process of producing her beautiful, inspiring blog posts for WOVEMBER on handspinning. If you didn’t read them back in WOVEMBER, here they are again:
Cecilia Hewett on Working with Wool, Part I
Cecilia Hewett on Working with Wool, Part II
Cecilia Hewett on Working with Wool, Part III
…the yarns you can see in those posts were created especially by Cecilia to show how many ways there are of working with wool, and you may recognise them from the posts, here in their finished glory:
Fibre: 100% Wool from Blue-faced Leicester Sheep
Colour: ‘Vivien’ by Freyalyn
Fibre: 100% Wool from Blue-faced Leicester Sheep
Colour: Ash Root – inspired by WOVEMBER 2012
I believe these images were the inspiration for the lovely Ash Root yarn…
The collection is a veritable feast of greys, greens, and purples.
…and in case you needed further proof that Spring has well and truly sprung, check out my yarn photo shoot assistant!
Cecilia Hewett who spun these wonderful yarns is a member of The Woolclip whom we mentioned in our post about WOOLFEST. A Cumbrian co-operative of extraordinary women all working with wool in one way or another, members of The Wool Clip are especially connected to the distinctive landscape in which they live through their work with textiles. This connection manifests in everything from a practical dependence on local sheep for WOOL through to drawing inspiration from the colours and history of local places for textile projects. Many of Cecilia’s gorgeous handspun yarns are both from the landscape and about the landscape. You can read more about Cecilia and The Wool Clip here!
On behalf of TEAM WOVEMBER, Happy Spring and Happy Spinning (Happy Springing?)
F x