The English Paysanne

A moment from the week at La Singlarie Winter coat making

The November meeting of spinners and weavers of south west France was held in the groups new location 5kms out of Caussade. As this is a building owned by the council the group has had to become an association, Luckily I wasn't at the last meeting when a committee was formed (my days of being on committees are over). It's now going to be run mainly by French ladies so there may be a few changes a foot. Eve, who formed the group many years ago,  now in her nineties still comes to each meeting with her  Ashford box of goodies to sell they are pushed and squeezed into my car as she only lives up the road and when wheels and looms, along with her husband having to come too space can become limited. So Mondays workshop was on needle felting, I had dabbled a bit in one dimensional so onto 3D came over me. It is one fibre craft that doesn't need a lot of equipment or space, no water or soap is needed like wet felting. Just a thick foam base to work on and special...

A errand run to town with shopping and lunch included today. We went for a pizza in the centre of Villefranche passing the talked about water feature which in my opinion still looks pants. I wonder if the Marie will get re voted in at the end of the month when municipal commune elections take place all over France. don't embroider but you never know when you may start. I Was allowed to go to Emmaus where I found some lovely used  off cuts , jute material and a few embroidery cottons. I don't embroider but you never know when you may start. Bargain of the shopping trip was a huge cabbage, €1,30 and 3kg of carrots for € 2,50. Guess what were eating for the week!

The weather here has been amazing this week, dry, sunny and warm working in long sleeve t shirts, only hope it stays this way till spring. The cows over 2 years old had their annual obligatory blood tests, this time it all went smoothly with no tears (from the vet not the cows). We also had our annual organic check to make sure we are complying within the organic regime. This is a little stressful a few days before hand as I should be a little more organised with the filling of paper work, of which there is a lot here being in France. Receipts with up to date licences from organic feed suppliers, abattoir forms, prescriptions and health records all have to be in place as well as animals, hay and cereal are checked. All in order we have our licence for another year and no telling off of not completing forms properly. With a week to go now our pregnant sows enclosure is so muddy we have had to get ready to move her to an empty pen. A bit of cleaning and mending wa...

We have woken up each morning to amazing coloured skies Have enjoyed amazing weather mid 20's each day and ate lunch outside all week. Enjoyed seeing changes of the season on dog walks.                                               Collected chestnuts for us and the pigs. Dug up the artichokes in the veggie patch for Gorgon to enjoy. The sheep were moved to new pasture. Saturday morning was spent moving the cattle to ear tag the new calf who turns out to be VERY lively, this involved temporary electric fencing, herding whole herd into hanger, getting them in, locked down to eat hay (especially mum) while calf was lassoed to have ear tags put in place.                                            ...

I finished my wall hanging project for my show and tell at the spinners and weavers group I belong to. I tweaked   this  pattern adding more stitches and rows and a pair of ears. The only animal eyes i could find were  €4,60, a tad expensive so I opted two black buttons. The frame was found at the recycle shop , material needs to be tweaked a bit to make it tighter but I am pretty pleased at the way he has turned out. On the farm sadly disabled chicken passed away in her sleep, she was pretty old and had a free range life so a nice way to go in the end. Three of the cattle went down with foot rot, caused by a bacteria found in the soil which enters via a cut. Makeing their feet painful to walk on and swell so a course of two antibiotic injections for each has cleared it up. Being organic antibiotics is not what we normally use, the last being back in Dec 2012 so we are pretty lucky to have a healthy herd. To stop more cases they were moved to a new field...

I am a bad weather spinner, spring and summer months are outside working months. It feels right to spin wool in the cooler, darker evenings whilst sitting by the far and multi tasking by watching TV. As a part time spinner it takes me a while to get back into the flow. My wheel is an Ashford Joy , being a travel wheel it folds into its on bag - very portable to carry around and spin at friends. My skeins (wool that has been spun, plied and tied in a loose knot ) started very chunky and bumpy.It felt spinning was completely out of my control, the wool sped itself into the wheel in one great lump, gradually the coordination of controlling the pedal and feeding the wool came to me. This is the start of my wall hanging project. Any ideas? hopefully it will be finished tomorrow after I can find some eyes.

Pre washed fleece was finishing being dried in the sun bearing a resemblance to one shaggy dog. Glancing quickly it had farmer J thinking he was on the table. After my fleeces have dried and before mice make a cosy nest for winter I am going to try and prepare the wool for spinning. This means carding the wool to untangle and open up the fibre - but not the cat who seems to enjoy it as much as the dogs who go bonkers over a fleece, the dirtier the better. An Ashford drum carder does the job well, a little extravagant treat to myself making the process a lot quicker or you can use hand carders. Small pieces of fleece are feed into the feed tray catching the fibres through the small roller by turning the handle on the side then wrapping around the larger drum, both have metal teeth to tease the fibre into a long batt. Bits of unwanted debris like hay and plant seeds as well as rubbishy bits of fleece are suppose to be removed from the wool  fi...