We had a lovely relaxing weekend, even the kids didn't moan that they were bored!

On Sunday morning, we got packed up, emptied tanks, refilled other tanks and set off again. We drove for several hours then had to look for another site as our gas bottle was empty and we had no method of cooking except for our induction hob. The induction hob is powered by regular plug and the regular sockets only work if we have electric hook-up! I need to look into changing the regulator valve in the van to more European friendly, so I can buy a bottle abroad next time!

The site we ended up on was huge! But the map we were given for it was very informative and stated there was a beach right next to the site. Once we were all hooked up, we all went exploring. As it wasn't a dog friendly beach, Mum, Isis and I waited while the kids went investigating.

They came racing back to inform us that the beach stretched for miles - well 6km actually - and was just like beaches at home! We raced back to the camper, Alex and I got changed and went for a sunset swim - we were the only ones there and it was great!

On Monday, we drove down the rest of the Swedish coast, across the bridges and through the tunnels of Copenhagen and down the majority of Denmark before stopping.

The site we stayed on that night is lovely! Very clean and tidy, quiet and well spaced out. There are also free showers so we've all had a good clean up before tea.

Unfortunately, I then managed to knock a full, very boiling hot, cup of tea and the tea went all over me. I jumped up and ripped my clothes off before getting scalded, but in the rush to clean up, I kicked the metal leg of the pull out bed in the van and broke my little toe!

I'm fed up, in pain and exhausted. Going for a very early night tonight. It's raining....again. We're about 900km from Calais and we have 48 hours to get there!

Tuesday - the race is on, we have to be in Calais for the 8pm train through the tunnel, we have to get Isis passed through border control first and I have no idea how long that takes! My foot is absolute agony and disturbed my sleep a lot, but I've managed to get my boot on - I can't really drive the camper in flip-flops, the pedals are high and it's rather like driving a tank; my ankles and feet need the support that my New Rocks give me!

We got under way reasonably early and decided as we drove that we'd grab a takeaway this evening and crash in a resting place as we'd used sites for the past few nights due to needing the hook up.

The day passed in much of a blur to be honest, my foot hurt a lot and I was bloody exhausted. It has rained all day and now we're back below Sweden, the roads are busier, with a lot more lorries! That's terrifying to drive through in heavy rain!

I can't remember exactly where we slept (I'd stopped making notes by this point), but it was very near the Belgium border and we all slept in the camper as it was too bloody wet to put the tent up. It was cramped, but we made it through the night ok.

I drove all day and we made it back to Calais at 3pm! We got on the 5.20pm train and we were home by 9pm!

I had a fantastic holiday, I saw so much gorgeous scenery, I drove over mountains, through the longest road tunnel in the world and had a really good time.

But I'm so glad to be home!

Wednesday - Saturday

Wednesday - Drove a lot today - more mountains! We're camping by a lake this evening off the 35. We're all tired, crabby and fed up with each other. We've agreed to go back to Oslo Fjord tomorrow for 2 nights so I can have a day of no driving before heading back towards Calais.

Thursday - We changed our mind and headed for a site near a fjord on the map. There were signs saying swimming, but when we got there; the beach was stony. By the end of the day; Alex had slipped and sliced open his hand and Jess had been stung by a jellyfish! Moving on tomorrow!!

Friday 13th - Groan at the date! Shortly after going to bed last night, a huge storm settled in above us for the entire night! It was still raining this morning and stuff in the tent was wet! The skies here lie! It was a very red sky last night!

We're heading towards Bremmen, we'll decide what to do once there. We're all a bit fed up of rain and want to go home - but even logic dictates that if I drove all day; it would still take a few days to get back to Calais and we still have five more nights to go before we can go back through the tunnel!

We found a nice quiet park in Sweden, very clean and tidy. A beach - with sand - just around the corner and a water slide in the park itself.

Perfect!

I need the rest badly! My legs ache and my calves keep cramping so badly, I can barely walk!

I added to that by standing on a bee while putting the tent up! I'm looking forward to not driving tomorrow!

Saturday - famous last words! The first thing mum said to me this morning was: "We've run out of teabags!" So, I had to get dressed and drive 4km into Lysekil and 4km back before I could even have my morning cuppa!

We went down and had a dip in the sea after I'd drunk my fill of tea and eaten breakfast, it was ok, but the water wasn't anywhere near as nice as Norway - probably because it was the sea and not a fjord or lake!

I then spent the rest of the day lying in the sun, while the kids made friends with a local Swedish lad and a German family camped next to us!

Monday 9th August

I drove over a mountain today!

We had to stop on the way up as the engine was starting to overheat and then stop on the way down to cool off the brakes, but the camper made it up and over! I was gobsmacked! I honestly thought it was going to fail at the first mountain we came too!

Check out me knitting on top of a mountain!

How cool is that!?

We also drove through a lot of tunnels! The most notable being the Lærdalstunnelen which is just under 25km long and the longest road tunnel in the world!

That night we stopped at a resting place which had loads of picnic tables on all different levels and on the last/lowest level was a little circular area just the ideal size for a tent!

We had a good night sleep and in the morning we emptied the waste and chemical before setting off along the E13.

The E13 is a delightful little road! (Yes, read sarcasm there!) One minute, you'll be driving along an ordinary two lane road with a central line, then all of a sudden; you're on an extremely narrow road with no road markings whatsoever, lots of hills and sharp turns! We almost had a head-on collision with a lorry. Scared the crap out of me and I slammed the brakes on really hard!

The scenery was stunning, lots of water, tunnels and orchards! We bought cherries from a roadside seller - they were scrummy!

I wrote these notes that night:

I am so tired! I ache all over, my legs, feet, back and hips are agony! Although I'm enjoying this; the thought of driving for another week makes me want to cry!

We stayed at a site in Røldal that night and I slept like a log! We woke up to low lying clouds and another mountain!

We were starting to head back towards Oslo by now.

Oslo!

We reached Oslo Fjord early on Saturday evening. We checked out Oslo FjordKamp but weren't impressed by it so we camped in the carpark opposite. We wandered down to have a quick look at the fjord.

It was awesome! The sun was just setting and it was beautiful! There were rays of light off in the distance and the water was sooo still!

We sat and enjoyed the scenery for a bit before going to bed and the next morning got up very early so we'd have the fjord to ourselves.....which we did, more or less. There were a few people fishing, who sighed and packed up their poles once we hit the beach!

The view was just as stunning by day as it was by night!

The sun was already warm, the water still and inviting - we just couldn't resist so we rushed down to the beach and plowed into the water. It was like bathing in silk and so clear! We could see crabs pootling along the bottom, fish darting about and starfish too!

Isis was not impressed by all this, barked at us madly for being in the water and then - determined to rescue her mummy - plunged into the water to save me! She swam very well, considering it was her first try, but shook like a leaf once she'd reached me and I picked her up, so I left the water and stood on the beach with her so she could dry off and calm down.

I cast on a sock while the kids swum! Then, regretfully, we had a late breakfast and set off.

I drove for most of the day, with the obligatory loo and food stops and that night, Sunday, we stopped in a site right on the E16 by a freshwater lake.

We had a brief swim, after some discussion with a couple who would periodically emerge from their caravan, jump in the water a few times, then go and sit outside their van in the sun. He told me the water was warm - he lied, but then he declared "We are tough! We are Wikings!" He was a lovely little man, not much taller than me, balding dark hair and a little round belly LOL.

We had an enjoyable evening playing Scrabble and Canasta - Alex loved Canasta and we played it almost every evening after that!

We didn't bother with the tent that night and we slept under the camper awning, it was cold but lovely as we were very snug with sleeping bags, blanket and a duvet! Even Isis loved snuggling under that lot.

I awoke next morning to a huge muscle spasm in my right calf - of course, I couldn't get up from under that lot and it was agony (a few days later; a huge bruise appeared on my calf). We had a lovely swim in the lake before leaving!

We're off on holiday!

I am going to write a long list of posts about our holiday in Norway and I'm going to try and write them in chronological order.

This is post one!

We left home early enough to catch the 8am ferry to Portsmouth and we made excellent time to Folkestone. We arrived in time to catch the 12.50pm train through the Channel Tunnel to Calais. This was my first time through the tunnel.

It was.....weird. You drive your vehicle onto the train, then you just sit there while the train drives through to the other side. I felt slightly motion sick and my ears kept popping.

We arrived in Calais at 1.15pm and - while muttering 'drive on the right, drive on the right' - set off for our first campsite which is in Belgium. We got there around 3pm.

Everyone spoke passable English on the site, the oldest son spoke excellent English and I later heard him on the phone speaking Spanish. His mother managed to convey to me that he deals with most of the bookings as he understands a wider range of people!

We stayed in a little cabin that first night, it was quite cute really. Inside the door is the front half of the cabin which has two tables (one with a two hob cooker and one with a small fridge on) and a single bed with a pull out bed underneath. There is a partition and behind that was a set of bunk beds. The kids and I slept in there and Mum slept in the camper for the first night.

Isis was fascinated by the site and spent most of the evening peeking out from under the curtain which went across the door!

We left the site late the following morning after a good night sleep and drove along the A2 through to Germany. Unfortunately, there was a horrific 5 lorry pile-up and we were caught in a 3 mile tailback for a few hours. I hope no one was hurt badly. The Autobahns were horrendous, everyone drove so close to each other - I'd forgotten what it was like! - and nipped in and out of the lanes. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents to be honest!

We stopped in an A1 rastplatz for a dinner of bolognaise.

The rastplatz are great! We have nothing like them here! Some of them are just little alcoves off the motorway, with a lane for the truckers, but some are really elaborate and have another lane behind the truckers lane for cars, then behind that will be a green area with picnic tables, toilets, all sorts - one was even situated next to a lake! Some of them also have caravan fascilities too - you can empty your waste water tank, the toilet tank and refill with clean water! England is just so behind on this!

We camped in a few of those and although the traffic was loud, we managed to sleep once we'd adjusted to it being there!

The next day we drove for most of the day along the autobahns in Germany and through to Denmark and we spent Thursday night in another motorway resting place. Unfortunately, the traffic was very loud and it was a very busy resting place, so we didn't get a complete night sleep, then a noise (which sounded like someone jet washing a car) started up about 5am. Naturally, it stopped once we were all up!

We drove about 100 miles and stopped in Sweden for lunch at the side of the road. I was stressed and tired and Mum was snapping, so I took Isis out of the van and sat in the sun for a while. It was gorgeous! Fields of (some sort of) corn as far as the eye could see, it was a beautiful day and the fields smelled gorgeous!

I made these notes:

Corn files as far as the eye can see. No cars for the past ten minutes. I am sitting with Isis away from the van while they're eating lunch - everyone is snapping and yelling. I'm the only one doing anything tiring! I could just stay here for the next 10 days! The wind is warm, fields smell soooo good!

Of course, I didn't stay there all day and we set off again after lunch. We stopped at Bjorksgang (um, not sure on the spelling) campsite on Friday night so that I could get a decent sleep. A nice park, but very big! We saw hedgehogs!

Unfortunately, the sea smelled awful and the kids decided not to go swimming!

We reached Norway the following afternoon!

The Craftofax!

After an inspiring conversation with Sharon on twitter recently, I decided to convert my old Filofax into a crafting journal. I wanted something similar to Ravelry; a place to list my finished projects, my handspun, make notes about these specific things along with pictures so that in future years I can look back at it and remember a bit easier!

I started last night and finished this afternoon.

I did this all in Pages on my Mac. First of all I went into Page Setup and I changed the size of the paper. Then I clicked inspector and I set all the margins to 0.63cm except for the edge that have the holes for the rings, they're set to 1.3cm.

Then I created a template - one for knitting, one for crochet and one for spinning - Start date, finish date, weight, fibre, size, needles/hook size and so on depending on which section it's going in!

The picture on the right shows the page about my felted bucket, on the left is the picture and on the right is the information I've written about that particular project.

I've also added a Notes section and I'm considering a calendar section to keep a list of crafting events around the country!

I won an award!

In fact, I've won two thngs this week!

First, I won the Creative Crafting Blog of Month award from the Creative Crafting group. Go on over and have a look at their site.

A bunch of women got together and decided to create an online crafting magazine. This months magazine is only issue 6 and I'm very honoured to have been given a prize! I've also been mentioned in the magazine by Diane who's written an article about drop spindling. Go through to the blog and click the little magazine and it will open up full size, Diane's article is on page 22-23!

Then I got a message via Ravelry to say I'd won a prize in the Tour de Fleece! I've won 100g of 70% BFL/30% Silk!

Yay!

I finished my Tour de Fleece spinning at 5am this morning!

I'm shattered and I've totally overdone it because I hurt now, but I really enjoyed doing it!

Here is everything I spun!



Top left: 70% Alpaca/30% Merino, 500g, 37WPI, 2468.432 meters or 2699.166 yards.
Top right: I added about 30g of Shetland to my Trindle
Bottom left: I purchased and learned how to use a Russian support Spindle, I spun about 15g of merino.
Bottom Right: Cheviot, 200g, 54WPI, 1992.757 meters or 2179.30556 yards!

As you can see, I've recently purchased a support spindle due to the back problems I told you about before.

It's lovely and today, my Spindolyn arrived too! I really want to practise on them both, but I haven't knit a stitch in 3 weeks and I'm desperate to get on with my shawl!

Back problems strike again

As you already know, if you read my blog, I have a bad back. I am basically in pain 24 hours a day, it never doesn't hurt and if I overdo things (stand too long, walk too far, carry things, etc) the pain increases.

Due to this, I often walk with a stick - but not all the time; only when the pain is worse than my norm before I go out (I should really use it more, but as anyone who has to use a stick will say 'I hate that f**king stick!)!

A couple of days ago, I discovered that Isis will walk quite happily if I hook her leash to my belt. 'Great!' I thought 'This means I can knit or spindle while walking (if I'm not using my stick, that is)!'

So, I tried it today! I walked from my house to Mel's house.

Co-incidentally, one of the Tour de Fleece challenges is to spin a mile - that can be a mile long piece of yarn, or you can spin while walking a mile.

It is one mile from my house to Mel's house!

So I did it. It took me ages to get there! I couldn't walk too fast or I'd kick the spindle and holding my hands in front of me really caused my back to ache!

I do enjoy spindling, but I can't spindle while sitting down (makes my arms ache holding them up like that!) and I obviously can't stand too long and do it and now I know I can't walk and spindle.

I can't sit 'properly' on a chair for very long. I think the whole being upright with my spine straight must put pressure on somewhere because it hurts in exactly the same way as standing does. Anyone who knows me well, knows I fidget a lot!

When at home, I sit with my feet tucked up beside me. I know this means I am sitting twisted, but it really is the most comfortable position for me!

After watching this video by Lisa, I realised that I would be able to use a supported spindle in any position! So I sent her an e-mail and ordered one!

I'm quite excited to learn something new and I'm hoping my new spindle will arrive in the post tomorrow. I don't know what wood she's used, I told her I liked walnut and Mexican Bocote but couldn't decide which I liked more so I told her to surprise me!

The weird thing is that I can sit at my wheel for hours though - maybe the treadling shifts things enough that I don't get quite so sore?

ETA: I've just ordered a Spindolyn too!

Exhaustion at the End of Week 2!

I am absolutely shattered! I haven't knit a stitch since this tour started and I'm really missing it.

But, I have finished my first Tour de Fleece challenge!

I have spun approximately 500g of 70% alpaca/30% merino into 2 ply laceweight!

I haven't measured the 3rd skein yet (it's just having a soak), but once it's dry I'll come back here and let you know the final yardage!

While I am sick of spinning the same colour for two solid weeks, I am also incredibly proud of this gorgeous, soft, fluffy yarn that I created!

Now, I just want something bright and garish to spin for a change LOL


OK, I'm back! I've measured the third skein and it's a biggun! Skein 1 was 781.812 metres/855 yards, skein 2 was 772.16 metres/844.44 yards and skein 3 was a mahoosive 914.146 metres/999.722 yards - that makes my total length: 2468.432 meters or 2699.166 yards!!!

Look what I got!

My first TdF Skein

This year I am participating in the Tour de Fleece. I decided to spin up the 500g of alpaca/merino tops I purchased at iKnit last year.

The fibre is gorgeous - well it would be at 70% alpaca and 30% merino, wouldn't it and naturally, it wanted to be laceweight.

I started spinning on Saturday, but only managed to do five or six hours over the entire weekend as I went out clubbing with Kaz and got very drunk on Saturday night LOL.

Anyway, I kept spinning and spinning and by last night; I had finished two bobbins worth. So today I got to plying.

My god, it went on forever! It took me all day to ply (minus eating, taking a break, playing with my new iPhone 4 {birthday gift from Kyle!} and taking Mum to B&Q).

Finally at 1am, I finished. So I wound it off onto the skeiner and I got 855 yards/781.812 metres, and 37WPI over 168 grams!



I am so proud of it and it's gorgeous. I reckon when I've finished the whole lot, I'm going to have over 2500 yards!

The winner is.....

liveotherwise!

You can choose absolutely anything you like from the shop, or if you don't see something, let me know and I'll do you a custom dye job!

Congratulations!

So, let's see how many people really read my blog LOL

Today - 3rd July - is my bloggaversary. This year it's been two years since I first started blogging.

So much has happened since then!

My knitting has really taken off, I've learned to spin, I've learned to dye, I'm trying to get my business off the ground.

Today I came to the realisation that fleece prep is just beyond me! It makes my back hurt far too much! Now I'm going to have to decide whether to slowly prep what I've got here, or sell it on!

So, to celebrate my bloggaversary and to cheer myself up; I'm doing a giveaway!

Go and have a look at my shop - see anything you really like? Do you have any suggestions? Any requests? Any comment to make at all as long as it's something better than 'pick me pick me!' (which is all I can ever think to comment on giveaways LOL). Post your comment here and after 24 hours, I will chuck all the names into a hat (unless I can find and figure out a random number generator) and pull one at random.

The winner will get to choose one item from my shop absolutely free! No obligations, I will not follow you around the internet moaning that you took advantage but then didn't buy anything more, it will be absolutely 100%, no obligation free!

Go for it!

A competition

I've just heard about this competition over at Creative Crafting magazine. Creative Crafting is an excellent idea, it's an online magazine by crafters for crafters.

Anyway, the competition is the chance to win a free quarter page advertising slot!

I'd love to win, but don't know how I'd fill quarter of a page LOL.

Go check the competition out here

Hmmmm, I've been quite quiet lately, I haven't posted since the 12th.

OK, so since then I have celebrated my 35th birthday, remembered my dad who died 3 years ago on the same day - it was doubly hard this year as my birthday was also father's day.

I also did a lot of discount in my shop that day and much to my disappointment I only sold one braid of fibre - shame, I've recently started stocking merino/bamboo fibre and SW merino yarn - both are really fluffy and soft!

I've had an ongoing battle with my squeaky wheel - the squeak was awful and I just couldn't get rid of it. Majacraft were adamant it was the treadle hinges, I was just as adamant that it wasn't. Sometimes the creak would completely disappear, but within minutes it would be back. It got louder and louder and the creaks were longer and longer.

In the end - just to shut them up - I followed Majacraft's advice and disassembled my wheel. I took off the foot plate - no difference. Then I removed the crank assembly from the drive wheel - no difference. I put talc on the green sponge things that attach the rods to the treadle - no difference. I took the treadle hinges off, cleaned them and put them back on - no difference. The noise was definitely coming from somewhere around the crank assembly!

I removed the nut that holds the drive wheel in place (I've had trouble keeping that sucker on too - it has a bad habit of coming undone while I'm spinning!) - it still squeaked, I removed the crank assembly (again!) - I turned the wheel by hand and it still squeaked, I took my little felted bag off the knob on the front and removed the wooden knob on the front - the squeak stopped!

I triple checked and then got Alex to listen, there was definitely no squeak. I put the wooden knob back on, rehung the bag, put the nut back on, reattached crank assembly and still no squeak.

Yay me, I thought then decided to spin some of the corriedale fleece I've been carding lately. It spun absolutely fine then the drive band popped off. I got up to check and - sure enough - the nut was undoing itself and the wheel was coming apart as I was spinning. I tightened the nut up and started spinning again and the squeak was back!

I've loosened the nut very slightly, I shall have to test it to find that spot where the nut doesn't undo but the wheel doesn't squeak when in use!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Late last night - well, 2am this morning actually, I went on one of my mad cleaning binges and blitzed the kitchen because the mess was doing my head in again. It was spotless when I went to bed and I was very pleased with myself. This morning, I got up, dyed some yarn for Kerry and decided to have a shower while that was cooking.

Naturally the shower was clogged - it's always clogged! I went at it with a plunger, cleared it as much as possible then had a shower myself.

I came back downstairs to get dressed and get on with the day. I was sitting here in my chair listening to the drain outside and moaning to Alex about the amount of time it takes the shower to drain (personally I think there may be a kink in the waste pipe, but the plumber disagrees!).

I went out to turn the steamer off to find a flood in my kitchen! There was water literally pouring through the kitchen ceiling, it was all over the floor and the breakfast bar. I ran straight back upstairs thinking that my enthusiasm with the plunger had somehow caused the waste water pipe to disconnect, but the shower was empty. There was also the sound of running water coming from behind the shower!

I panicked, I've never had to deal with anything like this before! I ran next door and woke mum up (she works nights) and we ran round the house trying to find out which stopcock would shut off the torrent. In the end I went outside to turn the supply to the entire house.

I couldn't turn the tap and ran to the pub to drag a man back to do it for me in the end LOL.

We had called Graham, but he wasn't around although we were assured he would be told immediately on his return home.

I surveyed the damage; my lovely clean tidy kitchen was absolutely swimming and I had no dry towels! I had washed some the night before and had another load in the machine, we found what little we had, raided mum's house too and mopped up as best we could.

I suppose it's really a good job I blitzed it last night - imagine how bad it would've been if there'd been stuff all over the breakfast bar like there normally is!

* * * * * * * * * *

Alex and I walked the dogs tonight and we saw these strange lights in the sky, there was no discernable sound of a motor and they were really shifting. Unfortunately, I only had my iPhone but I did try to record them!

What do you think? Are we being invaded?

A First FO with Fluffosity Yarn!

My friend, Rita, has bought yarn from my shop and has made a gorgeous little shawlette with it and I just had to show you all!


It's modelled by her beautiful daughter, Charlotte, who refused to give me a shot of her pretty face too! Shame, it looks lovely on her!

Creaking

My beloved Rose has developed a creak!

It's awful and sounds like a door in a really dreadful horror movie!

At first I thought it was the hinge (which is a recurring problem), but the problem didn't go away after I oiled it.

After some investigation; we discovered that the squeak is coming from the bearing in the crank assembly.

One of the ladies on the Majacraft forum on Ravelry - fleece4me - and her husband have both listened to the video below and they think there's a problem with the bearing.

So I've had to e-mail Majacraft and I daren't use the wheel until I've heard back from them!

Advertising on Ravelry

Last month, I applied for an advertising spot on Ravelry.

My ad went live today! Look!

Not sure what to look for, let me help you!

Things I have learned...

...when preparing fleece.

I have managed to acquire quite a bit of fleece over the past six months. First I bought some Corriedale and some Merino from James, then at Wonderwool; I bought Ryeland, BFL, BFL X Corrie, Alpaca and so on.

I decided this week to start cleaning the merino fleece - anyone who has worked with merino knows that it is incredibly greasy.

I did a lot of research and asked a lot of questions. Unfortunately, I got a lot of vagueish answers. Such as 'put a bit of fleece in a laundry mesh bag' - erm ok, but how much is a 'bit' and what size laundry bag??

Eventually I decided I would just have to jump in with both feet and have a go!

Well of course, I stuffed far too much into the bags and then didn't use enough hot water and so on and so on.

So, I got some of the small laundry bags - they're about the size of a standard laptop - I separated the fleece into locks and arranged the locks in a row along the bottom of the bag, with the tips all facing the bottom of the bag. I then folded the bag over (with merino locks; you can fold it twice!) and secured either end with a pin.

You should now have a long thin mesh package. I filled up an orange B&Q bucket (12 litre bucket, I probably filled to 10 litres) with water from the hot tap and a kettle's worth of boiled water, then I added a squirt of Fairy liquid.

I gently placed the packages on top of the water and pressed them down ever so gently. I put 4 packages in one bucket. I left them in there to soak for about 20 minutes. Then I filled another bucket - again with the hot water and water from the kettle (no Fairy) and moved the packages into that bucket for a 20 minute rinse.

Do that twice!

Then I took them outside to dry.

They are still a little greasy, but I can live with that and once I've spun the yarn; I can gently boil them to get out any remaining grease.

They look gorgeous now I've carded them though!

I want to thank James, Jan and Sue - especially Jan (who spent an entire day answering daft questions via PM) for all their advice.

In between washing and combing/carding merino, I've been putting the Corriedale fleece through the drum carder. I've quite a few lovely floofy batts and the batts are getting better and better in quality.

I'm separating the locks, then I align them up in a row and just drum card them, but again I have learned not to do too much. A smaller amount cards a lot better than a large amount: it really opens the locks up and makes a much better batt - if you just chuck a load through; you end up with a batt that is just a lot of locks loosely held together!

When I've put enough through to fill the carder, I take the batt off and separate it into strips and put the whole lot through again! This gets everything that slipped through first time around and gives me a much floofier batt!

So what have I learned? Patience sigh and that you get further, quicker if you just slow down!