Winter Lay Up

The end of another sailing season in our little yacht. This weekend she was lifted out of the water and tucked up in dry storage for the winter months.
Although it is the end of October the weather here has been very mild, dry and sunny, so it was rather a treat to be on board on Saturday motoring her up the river to Newport with a warm light south westerly breeze on the bow.
We usually have to don our waterproofs and woolly hats for this trip!
On the Sunday the weather was still mild but drizzled and then it rained all day! this made no difference to Skipper- as he spent most of the afternoon getting thoroughly soaked to the skin with the jet wash scrubbing off the mud and old anti foul, with most boat owners doing the same the Quay was a very wet and noisy place to be.

I feel it has been a short summer we haven't been on the boats as much as we would have liked. The dinghies are next to bring home, but if this mild spell holds out a little while longer Skipper and I might be whizzing around the river Medina in our Mirror dinghy for the next couple of weeks.

Then when our " little flotilla" is finally tucked up for the winter. We like to put on our walking boots and explore the Island- looking out to sea we have salty tales to tell and plan our new adventures home and abroad.

Jacob Fleece- Follow The Process Part Four

Here is the finished sample of Jacob, which over the past months I have endeav0ured to share with you the process of working the freshly shorn fleece into a beautiful knitting yarn ready to use. So far I have told you how I washed, carded and handspun the fibres (please read previous posts) and now I show you how I make a skein, wash and ball up the yarn ready to knit.




I unload the bobbin from my spinning wheel and wind the wool onto my niddy noddy.
This is a really useful tool as it enables me to make the wool into a skien.



When all the yarn is loaded up, I loosely tie the skein in four places and then slip the yarn off the niddy noddy and twist the long looped skein to stop it tangling.

For Yarn Finish the skein is then washed in hot soapy water, rinsed in clear water and left to dry without tension so as it can develop it's loft and elasticity. It becomes bouncier, shorter and wonderfully soft.

It is now ready to make into a ball of knitting yarn.

I have a wool winder for this task. It is important that it is not too tightly wound into a ball as you want to keep the softness and bounce of the wool. I usually store my handspun yarn in skeins and only " ball up" when I'm ready to use it.

I am pleased with the result with this sample, I do like the effect of spinning dark fibres and pale fibres seperately and then plying them together into a yarn. It will be interesting to see it knitted up.

However I think I prefer spinning the blacks and browns into skeins and keeping the creams and whites for knitting up in their natural colour tones and keeping some back for when I have another go at hand dyeing some yarn.

Sailing on Sunny October Days

The Isle of Wight has been enjoying a wonderfully warm start to October, so where else would you find us? but down at the boats.

Skipper took a few days off work and I put down my knitting needles (currently cast on with winter woolly hats!) and we donned our summer sailing gear and cast off

The river Medina was very busy with lots of little craft all enjoying the mini heat wave. These dinghies were having a race, it is always fun to watch others and it was especially interesting to see how they do in "our racing waters".

The tide was high with a light SE blowing, so it was more of a sedate slow procession for them.

We watched them as we sailed our Mirror.

Another day we took our Sunstar 18 out on the Solent. a beautiful early morning sun made the water glisten and sparkle as we motored down to the mouth of the river.

Raising the mainsail once clear of the navigation buoys we sailed on a very light NE breeze heading East.

We made 2 occasionally 3 knots of speed using the tide to take us East. The kind of sailing when you can set your course, cleat off the jib and main sheets and hold your sandwich in one hand, coffee cup in the other.

She bobs along happily in the warm sunshine.

When the tide turned we had sailed far enough East for me to take a photo of Quarr Abbey
A view from the Solent, you can make out the tower and Abbey nestled in the trees.

Next month I will be taking part in our Christmas Crafts At Quarr event.

I will blog more details on this soon.

And so home, a simply lovely day.

Jacob Fleece- Follow The Process Part Three

I am experimenting with my Jacob fleece and spinning a two tone yarn. In Parts one and two I showed you how I prepared a small sample ready to spin (please view previous posts).
Here you can see me spinning with the black rolags on my wheel and then on another bobbin I spin with the cream rolags.

The cream sample naturally wants to spin to a thicker texture and was harder to work than the more silken feel of the black.

This should make for an interesting yarn with some strength, but also with a lovely warmth and softness.

The two bobbins are loaded on my Lazy Kate ready to Ply.



I rotate the spinning wheel anti clockwise and feed the two threads onto the bobbin together. This plying allows the two parts to twist together in the opposite direction from which they were first spun. This releasing some of the twist and give a balanced and lofty yarn.




I now have a new yarn of two tone colour on a bobbin. It looks and feels as if it will be varying in texture as well as subtle shades. I look forward to completing the process to discover its potential.

Part four will show you skeining,washing and balling up the sample ready to use.

September Sleep Aboard

When it get into September our sailing season is beginning to draw to a close, so any days or nights on board are precious and always special.
Skipper and I went to our little Sunstar 18 to sail and spend the night afloat.
The weather forecast for the weekend was SwF3-4 with a heavy hail shower expected 07.00hrs . As we would be tucked up in our bunks at that time of the morning , that sounded rather fun!

We motored up the river Medina, turned around raising the jib only and we sailed casually back down river. Eventually picking up our swinging mooring around 18.30

Look who ate our fishing bait! a little mud crab, he was very lively, we threw him back in.

As the sun began to set we cooked our supper on board; a delicious chilli and opened a lovely bottle of red.

The wind died and the river takes on a magical quality as the tide goes out and the wading birds feed along the riverbanks and mudflats.

The sunset is beautiful colouring the river in the warm soft hues of pinks and mauves.

And when it is dark the crescent moon reflects in the water which has become so still and quiet.

I was amazed to see so many birds feeding at night, I suppose to them it doesn't matter what time of day it is as they need to feed by the ebb and flow of the tides.

It was lovely just to sit at the bow of my boat, snuggled up in my woolly, a glass of wine in hand watching the river,wildfowl and enjoying the stars filling the sky.

The hail shower at 07.00hrs on Sunday never arrived! The day dawned leaded skies and it started to rain around 09.00. We cooked breakfast and ate in the cabin. We hoped that the wind would blow in and clear the skies so as we could have another sail, but it just got wetter with little or no wind so about midday we made for the shore.

It was a great mini holiday all the same!

Today as I write this the Island is being battered by a gale with F7-8 winds. A good day to be ashore, a good day to stay indoors and get on with some knitting I think!

Jacob Fleece- Follow The Process Part Two

Finally got started on my Jacob fleece!

First I wanted to prepare a test skein so as I could determine the spun quality of the wool, but mainly I wanted to ply a two colour yarn using the lovely natural creamy white with the lovely rich deep black/brown.

(In the first photo you can see the prepared rolags ready to spin).

If I liked the effect I have been thinking of spinning up a reasonable amount of the fleece like this to produce a yarn.

A Test Sample.

Washing and Carding.

Taking two handfuls of the fleece one of cream the other of black.

I soak each sample in hot water using a really generous amount of "Original Fairy" washing up liquid, this is a good quality safe detergent that will remove the dirt and cleanse the wool without doing any damage.

Always place wool into a prepared bowl of hot soapy water, do not agitate or pour hot water over the wool as you don't want to felt it! Just allow the heat and soap to soak away the dirt with a little lanolin.




Leave to soak until water is cool, then gently remove fleece from the dirty water and repeat the process if required. Rinse in clear fresh water. I like to leave some grease in the fleece so as it is easier to spin. Allow to dry.

Doing this task on a sunny day means it is quick to dry and smells sweet.
Spread on the branches of my little olive tree, they were ready in no time!

Then the fleece samples are carded so as the fibres are combed in the same direction and any small lumps or bits of straw etc are removed.


Light airy rolags.
Now I'm ready to spin my yarn.

In part three I will show you the spinning and plying process and hopefully the yarn will be a lovely blend of the natural colours.

Cowes Week 2011

We have been enjoying the Spectacle of Cowes Week Sailing Regatta.

It has been a really good week of steady breezes, in fact quite windy on some days! so it has been great to be on shore watching all the action.

With hundreds of boats racing everyday there is always plenty to see from the starts at The Royal Yacht Squadron line to the finishes both at this line and over at Shrape (see previous blog post).

Something special for this year is the Centenary year of the X One Design(XOD) boats so a record number of these lovely wooden sailing yachts were racing, they make an amazing sight with tight racing on the start line- my photo only captures a small mass of them imagine a white fluttering line of sails stretching across the Solent!

One hundred years on and the Extreme 40's are fast Catamarans flying around a short course at high speed.

It is always wonderful when the yachts are on a spinnaker run home for the line and they come in really close to shore this makes for a fantastic view for spectators and entertainment off the Green, especially if it is low tide and a few keen sailors get stuck on the rocks as they sail in too close.

Skipper has raced as crew at Cowes Week over the years and I think with such a good week's racing this year he is hankering for another race, on the helm would be his dream now!