Yesterday was the 27th Annual Massachusetts Chilli Cook Off in Winchendon Ma. The day started off for me at 5:55 am when my alarm went off. Luckily I had packed up the car the night before with all my stuff. This year I was hoping it would be different, because a friend of mine from Ravelry was bringing her Canadian Production Wheel or CPW for short to help with demonstrating spinning.
My husband Tony and I arrived around 8:15 am and began setting up the tent. Once we had the tent up, and the car completely unloaded, Tony went and parked the car. While he was gone I started up packing and setting up. Since I don't have an elaborate display it only took me around 45 minutes to get everything set up. Then I took these 2 pictures, Tony just happened to be looking off at the petting zoo that was being set up off to the left.
Judi arrived later with her CPW (her husband Pierre and daughter Jacklyn came to enjoy the day too),and sat up to begin demonstrating how to spin from the fold. I had never seen a CPW before, but had heard a lot about them. It was really exciting to see it spinning. Judi brought 3 spindles with her, a Bosworth (nicknamed a Bosie), which is a top whorl (I'm fairly familiar with top whorls as that's what my drop spindle is), a Russian support spindle, these have a little bowl that spindle sit it and is spun in you lap while sitting on the couch or floor (which ever is comfortable), and last but not least she had minature Turkish drop spindle (Judi calls this spindle a Kuchulu. It is made by Jenkins Spindles in Oregon), which I thought was really cute. I had to try spinning on that one. What thought was ingenious about the Turkish spindle was, how you wind the spun yarn on, and how when your finished spinning you can take the spindle apart and you have a center pull ball to start knitting from. I didn't get to take any pictures of Judi spinning with these different spindles though.
Later Judi started demonstrating for me how a long draw was done. So I had to snap this picture to add to this blog. It seems from my observation that while the spinning wheel is turning, and one hand is pinching the already spun yarn (near the oriface), the other hand is pulling the fiber back (for drafting), a fairly decent distance, before releasing the hand that is pinching the fiber, for the fiber to be drawn into the oriface and wound onto the bobbin. Judi said that it takes lots of practice to get the yarn looking the way your wanting to look. To me it seems that my arm would get really tired. hehehe
When both Judi and I were siting spinning on our spinning wheels, lots of people stopped by to watch. While I made out customer receipts, Judi continued spinning and it seemed that she was able to get lot of spinning done and that she was having a great time. Judi also brought along a shawl that she's knitting on from some handspun Australian Bond (sheep named Allistar), wool that she washed and spun on her CPW. This shawl is already gorgeous and the yarn is a little thicker then what I normally spun, but the shawl will definitely keep her warm and toasty this winter. The colors in her shawl from Allistar remind me of a hot cup of chocolate with whipped cream on the top. Judi says, that this is what it reminds her of too.
The day started out overcast and Tony and I thought that we'd get rained out. However, the sun came out and turned the day into a pretty day with a nice breeze. Although, at times the breeze was a bit troublesome, by blowing my items around on the table and sometimes onto the ground, all in all it was a great day. The weather held out all day, until we got home and within 30 minutes of getting home it started sprinkling and then later turned into a steady rain.
Tony and I had a great time visiting with Judi, Pierre and Jacklyn. We hope that they had a great time as well, and we look forward to visiting with them again soon. Thank you Judi, Pierre and Jacklyn for coming to the 27th Annual Massachusetts Chilli Cook Off.
Ginny
I took two pictures of this shawl in two different ways
