A day out

Last weekend I visited a beautiful old property developed in the 1840's, Tarndwarncoort in a small country town called Birregurra about 2 hours from Melbourne.  It's an historical homestead and sheep farming property.   A tour through the homestead revealed some beautiful insights as to what life was like in the 19th century with a wonderful array of furniture and knick knacks.   The Dennis family, who are descendants of the original owners, still own and run the farm.

After having a short talk about how the property was developed, a wander through the wool shop revealed some wonderful eye candy.

The wool which is from the Polwarth Sheep, a breed developed from the Merino sheep by the Dennis family, is dyed using natural organic dyes.  Aren't the colours superb?

There were a few knitted items like this delightful tea cosie.
 

A demonstration was given spinning wool on some antique spindles. 

There was even the old Knitting Nancy.  Do you remember these?  I do, but mine was certainly not this elaborate - just and old wooden cotton reel and four nails with a hair pin to work it.  Aaahh... the good ole days.

I purchased a few skeins of wool.  Hopefully I have enough to make a vintage short sleeve jumper from the aqua and white.  The multi-coloured wool will become a scarf from the pattern I was kindly given when I was trying to choose the colour.  I even got to wind it into the balls myself using this winding contraption.  I don't know what it's called.

It was very easy.  You put the skein over the collapsible wooden clothesline thingy and thread the end of the wool through a guide and onto the spindle which is attached to the other side of the table then you just wind till you get to the end.  Easy as!

Then to finish off the day they were having a door prize and I won this little pack of alpaca fleece and some bay leaves from their own garden.  A terrific prize but I don't know how to spin.  Maybe  I should try to learn one day.

Another childhood memory - I had a swing just like this, chains and all

In the meantime, I promise I am working on my sewlutions and stashbusting but everything went awry and I have to practice my reverse sewing techniques :(   Hopefully I will have something to show you soon.