Ever since I started my beginner’s cabinet making course I’ve been intrgiued by the differences between modern woodworking techniques and the the more traditional methods such as Green Woodworking (like chair bodging).

Why use green wood?

Well Mike Abbott who is, as you’ll read, the guy that ended up teaching me explains in his article of the Summer 2009 edition of Permaculture Magazine that:

Green wood is wood that has not dried or seasoned. Green woodworkers usually start with a fresh log rather than a dry plank for a host of very good reasons. They can be categorised as follows:

• Enhanced strength and quality.
• Better workability.
• Simpler and faster seasoning.
• Much lower cost.
• Numerous advanteges to society.
• Many environmental advantages.

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Dear old Bealers sourced and bought a beautiful spinning wheel for my christmas present, hid it in his office for weeks and even managed to somehow stop our chatty office cleaner from spilling the beans to me whenever I bumped into her in the village or when she helped us move house. On Christmas day I was presented with an enormous box which contained not only the wheel itself but a huge bag of Jacob sheep fleece and the necessary additional equipment needed to get spinning fleece into yarn (combs, extra bobbins and a ‘niddy noddy’).

For a few months it has been a pretty ornament in the porch until I recently attended a wonderful one-day ‘learn how to spin’ course at the very cool ‘Spinning Weal‘ shop in Clevedon, Somerset (the website has a very good online store for wool, yarns, dyes and quilting things it also has a calendar of forthcoming courses and events).

It was a fascinating day. I discovered that spinning is a rewarding, meditative passtime which seems to bring one back in touch with an activity which must have been essential to  many of our ancestors. For the duration of the course I was learning to spin with some really interesting women and our course tutor Sarah had loads of insight into the history of spinning.

By the end of the day I had been taught not only how to spin yarn but also how to ply it with another yarn and then to make a ball of something which could actually be knitted into fabric. We were also shown how to blend dyed yarns with one another and how to make different textures of yarns.

Since coming back from the course I have been keen to do more spinning but I have not been able to make the time as we don’t sit down to eat until 8.30ish. Perhaps it is the sort of activity I will have more time for when the nights are long and the fire is lit.