A trip with family, a sheep bag and Tour De Fleece 2012

I have finally got my spinning wheel out of storage and up and running again after many years spurred on by the idea of doing the Tour de  Fleece on Ravelry as a challenge to get me back into the swing of things. However as it turns out I couldn't start on day one as we were in Devon celebrating my aunt and uncle's joint birthday by travelling to the beach and back on a steam train ! Given this aunt was one of the main people to teach me about fleece, sheep, spinning, weaving and all the associated crafts and knowledge as a kid I think it was a good reason to miss it.

 Treestump taking photos

I loved this view of Minehead, all those flowers above the tide line and the old buildings, in the other direction it was much more touristy.  There were getting close to 60 of us in total on the trip and all those with kids and a good few others spent the two hours on the beach before the train took us back again. It was about the only two hour slot in the day it didn't rain and in fact was quite sunny!

 Padding on the beach.

Shortly after this Treestump got so enthusiastic about chasing the waves in and out he went out to far, lost his footing and went right under the water, he was fine and went back in later once we had removed his top to try and dry it a bit, being wise in the ways of small boys I had spare clothes with me too. I didn't get a photo of him soaking wet but my aunt did so I might get a copy later because he did look a sight !

We had a buffet meal on the train on the way there and a cream tea on the way back all made by the more local family members, it looked fantastic but I took my own food so as not to make life difficult and so I didn't have to get twitchy as with 60 people there is bound to be cross contamination.

 One of the things I did do was make my aunt and uncle a present, it is a satchel style bag with an appliqué, embroidered and needle felted scene on it. They used to keep rare breed sheep including Jacobs so it seems fitting to include sheep into the scene and the darker fleece I used is actually jacob fleece. The sheep in the foreground is meant to be a Jacob which all have horns. I hope they like it, she certainly appreciated the fabric it was made from and I'm glad I picked a good one from my stash as it has gone to someone with the knowledge and love of fibre to know the difference. It's all wool or wool mixes apart from the embroidery thread.

A close up of the sheep

a close up of the tree