Cotton Prize

My prize for winning the cotton spinning competition arrived just before Christmas - perfect!

This is what spilled out of the box when I opened it :-

In more detail, I asked Joan for a copy of her book on cotton spinning on a wheel, and also her dvd "Cotton Spinning Made Easy".  I'm really looking forward to getting into these, hopefully to improve my rather strange (I think!) method of spinning cotton.  It works, but there's probably a better way.

Also, I couldn't resist this rather handy looking bobbin winder.  The bobbins can be used to ply from as they fit most lazy kates, and, as an added bonus, the bobbins can be inserted into a weaving shuttle to use with a loom (if I ever get that far!)  The little green ruler at the bottom was an extra.

There was also lots of cotton to spin, some of it ready to go, and some to play with whilst carding.

Another extra was this cute little bag, perfect for carrying/storing my current cotton spinning project and accessories!

And, last but not least, even the packaging material is spinnable (I had to ask her that, because I wasn't sure).  This is Acala cotton lint from her neighbour's fields.

A fabulous prize and I can't wait to get started after Christmas and New Year.  Thank you so much Joan for organizing the competition, and especially for donating such a brilliant selection of goodies!

If you would like to see the other entries, you can view them here.

2016 Cotton Harvest Photo Contest

Earlier in November I entered a cotton harvest photo contest run by Joan S Ruane of www.cottonspinning.com.  Joan has been teaching spinning for almost 30 years and now lives in Arizona.

2016 is the second year this contest has taken place, and this year was judged by Cary Ann Ely who works for the US Department of Agriculture in Wilcox, Arizona, assisting cotton farmers to improve their crops through soil management practices.

I trawled through all of my photos of the cotton I've grown over the past few years, but finally decided on one from this year's harvest :-

I called it "Stranger in the Crowd".  The sienna coloured boll was grown from some seed cotton I bought earlier in the year from Sally Fox.

There were some really good photos entered into the competition and, to be quite honest, I really didn't think I had much chance of winning.  Imagine how surprised I was, therefore, to return home from holiday (just had 2 weeks in the UK visiting family and friends) to an e-mail from Joan saying my photo had won $75 to spend on anything I like from her shop!!!

A couple of hours later I'm still feeling pretty gob-smacked.  Very flattered also that Cary Ann would like to enlarge the photo to put on the wall in her office.