What is in the box ? Tell me, tell me ....

Spinning - I love it !
It has taken over my life.
I just wanted to do "a little bit" just to "have a go" again and get a wee bit of wool - here's how it all started........

We live in the country now.

I was desperate to do something with wool, to touch it, feel it, sniff it, in fact do anything connected with wool but there was none to purchase for miles around. After moving from the city and being able to just whizz the nearest shop this was not good.

I even considered the sheep in the paddock along the road belonging to a farmer but I knew nothing about shearing, let along creeping out there in the dead of night to give his sheep a haircut. I had a crack at a drop spindle that my husband made after listening to all the hints and that was quite successful but couldn't keep pace with my knitting appetite.

I trawled through all my craft stuff but I had give away all the wool, all the fleece, not even a piece of string to knit up ! Finally, in the depths of dusty suitcase I managed to pounce on a skein of wool I'd been carting around for years and couldn't bear to part with but what to knit ? The wool looked a bit moth eaten, like the dregs of wool skeins all joined together but I decided I still liked it. I needed something that would keep my hands and wrists warm and be easy to take off quickly. Here's what I knitted with the wool -I love them and wear them everywhere ! OK, they are not handspun yet but I plan on it being soon, very soon .......

• Wristlets
• they will keep your wrists and arms warm but still leave hands free to do things and you easily pull them off if you get too hot
• Easy, peasy to make,
• Cast on 38 stitches, knit 3, purl 2
• Rib for as long as you want and sew up leaving a thumb space
• I am delighted with how they have turned out and get compliments every time I wear them. If you haven't got this old "motheaten and decrepid" yarn just knit in stripes.

I was again desperate to get my hands on some more wool- I mentioned this to my sister who tried to look sympathetic, she said all the right things but I could tell she thought I should just get on with it. A couple of days later she turned up with a huge long black box......... what was in it ? what is it ? what's inside it...... who is it from ? ........ open it, open it ...... it was wool, a whole box of assorted wool - it really is wool -I could almost fly over the moon with delight !

Here's the box that arrived

Heres what was in it !!!!!

You won't believe how far it all went. I haven't knitted for decades - too busy at work in the city. My husband has been teasing me and asks where the knitting needles are when I am doing something else ..... ah well... he is delighted as he has already scored several items.

After casting envious looks at my wristlets I finally got the message and made him some too. Here's the first thing I made from some of the wool - (I cast on 50 stitches for the mens ones)

Next I planned a mans fair isle vest for Mr Handspun. Of courseI needed a spinning wheel now too, just to do the cream wool for the background and decided to hit the Online shopping.

How could I have forgotten that - I could have got wool. I might as well get that beautiful silver fleece I saw and I need a carder to card the fleece. Mr Handspun is now looking quite doubtful as he weighs the possible benefits against the monetary outlay .......... he took another glance as his newly knitted fair isle vest and must have decided it was worth it as I now have a spinning wheel again. When I first spun years and years ago (before my work took over my life !) I had an Ashford Traditional Wheel that we bought in kitset form and put together. It looked cool and was very easy to use. I hankered after the Ashford Elizabeth wheel as it was "prettier" but I ended up loving my Traditional wheel so I have just bought another.

I also have several more bags of fleece residing in the corner of a room I had just tidied and cleared out to give us more space .....