. . . Father's Day!! Wicked stepson no. 2 (Dan) is here at the moment and has just presented his Dad with a very nice bottle of Old Poulteney malt whisky - could be a good night!
He might be wicked, but he does do the washing up!!
This badge was on the Father's Day card so we decided Eric has to wear it all day :-
. . . harvest day. Garlic is out of the ground and strung up to dry, onions are out and maturing in trays in the sun, rocket seed was ripe so that's been collected, parsnip seed almost ready to collect, and I picked lots of these :-
Dyer's chamomile which now grows like a weed since I introduced it about 5 or 6 years ago. I normally dry them so they're available for using all year round.
It's been a beautiful day here - gardening in the morning when it was cool, spinning in the afternoon while it was hot. I was tidying my cupboard yesterday, and came across two lots of sheep's fleece which I dyed last year, one lot was merino and the other (I think) is British Friesland. I really must remember to label everything once it's done. I always think I'm going to remember what it is and what it was dyed with but, of course, I don't! However, I do know that some of it was definitely dyed in a madder exhaust bath (i.e. the leftover dye after the main dyeing was completed), and I think the other is woad pink. For those who don't understand "woad pink", woad is grown to produce blues, and it's a bit of a complicated process to extract the blue from the leaves, but once the blue has been extracted, the leaves can then be boiled up as a secondary dyebath and produce pink.
Anyway, this is the first bobbin filled. The fleece (this, I think, is the Friesland) had taken the dye quite irregularly, and I really wanted to keep that quality in the finished wool. Carding would have lost those irregularities, so I decided to just spin it straight from the fleece. It's lumpy and bumpy, thick and thin, but that was really what I wanted. Most of my spinning is very smooth, and this time I just wanted to be a bit "freer" (if that's a word) and see what happens.
This is the other fleece - merino - which will be plied with the Friesland when I've finished it.
Unfortunately this photo doesn't really show the true colour as it was taken at night with a flash. The picture below is more like the real thing :-
Hope you all had a good Sunday, wherever you are.
He might be wicked, but he does do the washing up!!
This badge was on the Father's Day card so we decided Eric has to wear it all day :-
. . . harvest day. Garlic is out of the ground and strung up to dry, onions are out and maturing in trays in the sun, rocket seed was ripe so that's been collected, parsnip seed almost ready to collect, and I picked lots of these :-
Dyer's chamomile which now grows like a weed since I introduced it about 5 or 6 years ago. I normally dry them so they're available for using all year round.
It's been a beautiful day here - gardening in the morning when it was cool, spinning in the afternoon while it was hot. I was tidying my cupboard yesterday, and came across two lots of sheep's fleece which I dyed last year, one lot was merino and the other (I think) is British Friesland. I really must remember to label everything once it's done. I always think I'm going to remember what it is and what it was dyed with but, of course, I don't! However, I do know that some of it was definitely dyed in a madder exhaust bath (i.e. the leftover dye after the main dyeing was completed), and I think the other is woad pink. For those who don't understand "woad pink", woad is grown to produce blues, and it's a bit of a complicated process to extract the blue from the leaves, but once the blue has been extracted, the leaves can then be boiled up as a secondary dyebath and produce pink.
Anyway, this is the first bobbin filled. The fleece (this, I think, is the Friesland) had taken the dye quite irregularly, and I really wanted to keep that quality in the finished wool. Carding would have lost those irregularities, so I decided to just spin it straight from the fleece. It's lumpy and bumpy, thick and thin, but that was really what I wanted. Most of my spinning is very smooth, and this time I just wanted to be a bit "freer" (if that's a word) and see what happens.
This is the other fleece - merino - which will be plied with the Friesland when I've finished it.
Unfortunately this photo doesn't really show the true colour as it was taken at night with a flash. The picture below is more like the real thing :-
Hope you all had a good Sunday, wherever you are.
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