** NEEDLEWORK'S PLEASURE** SPINNING & FELTING FIBRES, HANDSPUN & HANDPAINTED YARNS

On Saturday my sisters and I went to the very popular medieval spectaculum in Worms. It was my first medieval market since my return from the UK, and it was ABSOLUTELY AWESOME!!!! One thing is for sure: Next year I will have my own medieval robe to wear! Man I swear, about 3/4 of the visitors wore medieval garments from all sorts of periods and countries, I was completely overwhelmed of the dedication and passion of these people. You could tell that they had put all their love and lots and lots of detail into the clothes they wore, so amazing!! I took as many photos as my little memory card would hold. And in case you are missing pictures of a handspinner's stand...there wasn't any!! My sisters told me that last year there was a handspinner present and selling her handmade yarns and fibres, but I do admit, I wouldn't have wanted to sell any of my yarns and fibres there yesterday,  I mean, it was about 30 degrees Celsius, and who on earth would be in the mood to sell or buy warming wools???? There were several market stands of feltmakers though, and I loved their products! Here are the photos I took from the spectaculum:

A gargoyle in making!

...and even the tiniest feet are participating :o)

Yep, any country, any period...which clan would the man wearing this kilt belong to, I wonder?

There was also a stand selling CD's and books, and I bought the latest CD of SAVA, a German artist and singer of mythical/medieval/traditional music, and anyone who likes Loreena McKennitt will truly truly love SAVA. Every single song is marvelous, her voice is beautiful and candy to the ear!!

So before I turn on her music and go back to my spinning wheel (still working on a very time consuming and labour intensive new elf yarn design!) here is my latest handspun Merino summer yarn design that I finished 2 days ago. I have called it "Charade", and it will be displayed in my Etsy store at www.alltheprettyfibers.etsy.com tonight ;o)

I have taken two photos with the strand being turned inside out, so all the colourways can be viewed properly. The skein looks quite different indeed on each photo, but it is really the same design :o)

Everyone have a great weekend and

HAPPY FIBRE CRAFTING!!!

This time I am really going to display ALL the photos I took from the area where I now live. It took several goes until I finally remembered to take the camera with me on one of my walks with Sam. It is a very beautiful and green area, and yes I have already found several farmers and hobby farmers who will be more than happy to sell their fresh fleeces to me this month, once they have started shearing. Fingers crossed I will be able to introduce some wonderful German breed handwashed fleeces and some supreme German baby alpaca fleeces , due to arrive around June. If I am happy with their quality I will certainly display photos of them here on my blog, wash and sort them and then put them out for sale in my ebayUK store and in my Etsy store ;o)  As to my regular updates of new fibres and yarns I have been sort of giving up being on time because I have been working around the clock for the past couple of weeks and moving in 6th gear!! That way I produced a lot of new drum carded batts, handpainted rovings and handspun yarns that are now all out in my online stores and on my website. So please do have a look there too, everything has come out just beautifully and yummy.

Now, here are the photos of the beautiful Rothenberg area located in the vast Odenwald in Southwest Germany. They just show an approximate 2 mile radius around the house:

The sheep above are from a neighbour, who keeps them as natural lawn mowers. The blackfaced one is indeed a beautiful Suffolk sheep (yes, they also exist over here!), and the whitefaced ones are German Merino. Of those I will be getting their wonderfully clean fleeces, hopefully some time this month.

I will be going back to my dyepot now because I am not finished with today's tasks yet....and it's already 19.00h. So let me go and do some painting!!

Everyone, HAPPY FIBRE CRAFTING!!