Patchwork landscape beginnings…

I’ve always loved making things.  One of my earliest textile projects was a hand-sewn patchwork ‘landscape’ to spread out around my little toy horse stable.  It was made from fabric and wool scraps and I gradually added to it over time (between the ages of about 7 to 11 years old).  It was huge and included fields, paddocks, paths and tracks, a section of black felt road with stitched-on stripes (for road-safety training purposes!) a riding arena and even a beach and the sea behind the stable!  It was pretty epic but I loved it.

In my teens I drifted away from doing creative craft-related things in favour of the usual teenage activities.  The craft ‘wilderness years’ ended when I took a feltmaking course about six years ago.  I found out about felt through a lovely lady at work, who’d just ‘got into it’ in a big way.  Her enthusiasm was infectious!  Making felt is a magical process that I really enjoy but I found that I didn’t really have the space or facilities at home to do it very often.  I’d caught the fibre arts ‘bug’ though and it wasn’t long before I came across something new to try.

Discovering handspun yarn…

I was lurking around on Craftster one day when something caught my eye in the ‘fibre arts’ forum.  I didn’t know what it was but it looked amazing and on closer inspection it turned out to be some stunning handspun art yarn.  The yarn was part of the weekly ‘Fibre Friday’ thread, where people post pictures and descriptions of what they’ve been spinning.  I soon became addicted to Fibre Fridays and loved seeing the incredible yarns each week!  Through Craftster, I found out about Lexi Boeger’s fantastic Pluckyfluff website and bought her little book ‘Handspun Revolution’.  The yarns spun by Lexi and the amazing spinners on Craftster inspired me to get a wheel and start spinning.

It took me a while to figure out which wheel would suit my needs (and to save up for it!) but eventually I decided on a Majacraft Suzie Pro, with a jumbo bobbin and ‘wild flyer’ to cope with bulky art yarns.  When my wheel arrived, I taught myself how to spin through trial and error, some videos on the internet and a couple of books.  I found the book ‘Teach Yourself Visually: Handspinning’ particularly useful.  Once I got the hang, I really enjoyed spinning and churned out vast quantities of slubby thick-and-thin yarn, mainly spun from dyed roving and wool tops.

I started to notice people mentioning Ravelry more and more so I joined up and discovered a wonderful new place to talk about spinning, share techniques, show off yarns and admire other people’s creations!  The online community of spinners and fibre artists is so friendly and creative; everyone is very encouraging and hugely inspiring.

A slippery slope…

As my spinning progressed, I tried some new techniques and became obsessed with corespinning and spinning curls and locks into yarn.  I started buying gorgeous batts from some of the talented fibre artists on Etsy and then started making my own when I was treated to a drum carder for my Birthday!  I love blending batts almost as much as spinning them!  Some of my favourite fibres to work with are soysilk and bamboo (particularly grey carbonised bamboo), silky soft wool such as Merino, Falkland and Bluefaced Leicester and the gorgeous curls of Lincoln Longwool and Wensleydale.  I love naturally coloured wools too, particularly all the different shades of Shetland.

One fibre-craft seems to lead to another and I’ve dabbled in weaving (mainly on a peg-loom), dyeing, knitting and crochet as well as feltmaking.  I like working with environmentally friendly or reused/recycled materials.  I’m keen to do more with natural dyes and I love it when my fibre hasn’t travelled very far (like the Wensleydale and Shetland fleeces I picked up from a local sheep-keeping postman).  I also hate things going to waste, which is probably why I’m currently knitting some bunting from an off-cut of shower curtain fabric!

Spinning into the future…

I’m lucky enough to live in a very ‘sheepy’ part of the world (the Lake District in Cumbria, England), surrounded by hills and mountains full of sheep and lots of opportunities to see the vast array of different breeds at local shows.  Cumbria is also home to a fantastic fibre extravaganza called Woolfest, which I look forward to every year.  There are lots of spinners and fibre-artists in the county and I need to get ‘out there’ a bit more and get involved in my local fibre community!

One day I’d like to have a bright sunny craft studio filled with light and fibre, where I could spin and be creative every day.  Maybe a little yurt with a wood-burning stove and a deck for outdoor spinning on a nice day, surrounded by a garden full of herbs, veggies and natural dye plants, with my own flock of sheep grazing nearby… that’s my dream!

I’ve already got far more yarn than I could ever use and so many ideas for new yarns and batts that I’m in danger of being swamped by fibre at some point soon!  I’d love my creations to go to new homes where they’ll be enjoyed so I’m in the process of setting up a little fibre-business under the name ‘flyhoof’ (using my flying stick-horse logo).  I’ll start with a shop on Etsy and possibly also Folksy (like a UK-based version of Etsy) and I’d like to do craft fairs and get ‘out there’ a lot more with my spinning and other crafts.  Watch this space!

Editor’s Notes:

You can find more of Kate here:

Blog: http://flyhoof.blogspot.com/
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skeffto/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/flyhoof
Ravelry: http://www.ravelry.com/people/flyhoof