New Camera

A few photos taken around the garden with my new Canon Powershot G16.  They started off a bit blurry, but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it.

First a few photos of dye plants in the garden.  Above, my first double magenta hollyhock flower, seeds generously donated by Fran from Wool - Tribulations of Hand Spinning and Herbal Dying (you can visit her blog by clicking the link on the sidebar to the right); and below, Dyer's Chamomile flowers which have self-seeded all over our car parking area.

These are Bramley apples (English cooking apples) fattening up nicely :-

and a small part of this year's garlic harvest :-

These last two really were just "point and shoot" as the butterfly wouldn't stay still long enough to concentrate on having its photo taken!

So, I'm happy with my first attempts, but I really need to spend some time learning how to use this camera properly.

Swap You Too!

My new camera has arrived!!!  So now, at last, I can show you properly what my swap partner (Karen, from Denmark) sent to me in our recent Ravelry swap.

First, a lovely postcard :-

with a set of four stitch-markers.  I really needed some of these as I only have cheap plastic ones that break very easily.

This is what made the whole package smell so delicious :-

There were fluffylicious mohair locks (hand-dyed by Karen)

Close up of mohair locks

And some gorgeous bunny fluff in blue :-

and pink :-

also hand-dyed by Karen.

These didn't last long - by the time the camera arrived the chocs had all somehow been devoured.

Then there were earrings - I love earrings!!!

And finally, a mystery package not to be opened until 4th July, which is the first day of the Tour de Fleece :-

I did have a peek inside the blue bag, but haven't opened the two packages that were inside.  Only 8 days to go before I can open them!!

So I think I was thoroughly spoiled by my swap partner - what do you think?

Swap You!

Just recently I joined in my first ever fibre swap on Ravelry.  Our group, DIY and Dye, is only a few years old and was formed originally as a team in the annual Tour de Fleece event.  We do keep in touch throughout the year though and have formed quite a friendly little community.  So when our intrepid team leader suggested we do a swap I thought, why not?

We all filled in a questionnaire giving a bit of basic information about ourselves (favourite colours, if we have any allergies etc) and also about types of fleece and fibre we'd like to try (or avoid!).  We were then paired up with a suitable partner and given full permission to start stalking!  A deadline date was also given to produce and send the goodies by.

My partner, Karen from Denmark, was quite easy to stalk as she'd very obligingly put a list on her profile page of things she'd like to try in the future.  That made my job a whole lot easier and gave me lots of ideas - thanks Karen!

This post is all about the package I sent to her - I'll show you what I received in a few days hopefully.  A couple of weeks ago my camera suffered a fatal fall onto our tiled floor from the arm of a chair - hasn't worked since.  We ordered another from Amazon France and waited . . . and waited.  Yesterday, Eric found the same camera on another site - cheaper, with free postage, and they'll send it in 2 or 3 days.  No contest - we cancelled the Amazon order.  So that's why I can't show you what she sent just now.

Anyway, here's what I sent for Karen.  The first two items were pretty easy as I knew she wanted to try some merino . . .

Fluff from Maco Merinos

. . . and Falkland

Fluffy stuff direct from the Falkland Islands

Little edit here - just realised that when I labelled this fleece I put New Zealand as its origin.  In fact this was bought direct from the Falkland Islands courtesy of a friend who used to live there.

So then I added in some lavender mice to keep the moths away.

I also wanted to send her something ready to spin, so got out all my bags of fleece and fibre and produced this :-

It's made up of all sorts of bits and pieces, some hand-dyed Falkland, some sparkly commercial merino, silk dyed with woad,  Firestar, Tencel.  I  blended them all on my drum carder (I think there were three batts totalling 100g), laid them on top of each other, rolled them up and tied with a ribbon - easy peasy!

The next item was a no-brainer.  This ball of yarn was spun in last year's Tour de Fleece using Kool Aid ice cubes to dye it (Hope's Kool Experience).  Karen had put this in her favourites file on Ravelry, probably because she wanted to save the info on the dye process, but, as she'd also said she'd like to try knitting with someone else's hand spun yarn, I popped this in the box too.

There was also a section on the questionnaire that dealt with other items we'd like to receive, so in went a bar of felted soap (pictured below), a bar of raspberry dark chocolate (no camera by this time!), and a little box of home-made Orangettes.

The next item was a bit inspired I thought.  On Karen's list on her Ravelry profile page she'd said she wanted to try natural dyeing.  So I made her a natural dye sampler kit - alum, copper and chrome mordants, cream of tartar to assist the alum, some dried logwood chips and madder root that I sent for, and a bag of dyer's chamomile collected from the garden and dried in the greenhouse.

By this time there was only one more thing to go in - a hand-made item which I can't reveal yet.  We all had to include a mystery package to be opened on 4th July, the day the Tour de Fleece starts.  I'll show you this, and the one I received, when we open them (itchy fingers here - the package kept beckoning to me, so I've had to hide it from myself!).

And here's the package half packed (again, no camera by the time I'd finished) :-

I got a lovely package in return, which I'll show to you as soon as I get my new camera up and running (the order's being processed as we speak!).  I had a lot of fun working on this project, more than I expected.  It's nice to receive, but it's so much fun to give as well!

There'll Be a Rainbow in a Minute

I've got a new project.  OK, so I know I said I wouldn't have another project until the baby blanket was finished.  Well, I lied!  This one is something for meeeeee.  And anyway, I'm still working on the baby blanket alongside this, so it's not abandoned by any means.

Remember in the summer, when I took part in the Tour de Fleece on Ravelry?  I dyed, and spun a rainbow yarn, all done with natural dyes, most of them from my garden or the surrounding area.

This is from a really nice Falkland fleece (which arrived direct from the Falkland Islands) and was spun in a sort of gradient (I say "sort of" because I'd never done a gradient before and under-estimated how much I should overlap the two colours).  Then I Navajo-plyed it, which made the overlap even shorter.  Anyway, next time I'll pay more attention to that.

On 7th February, the Sochi winter olympic games started.  Well, I'm sure you won't be surprised when I tell you that Ravelry have an equivalent event running alongside it (just like the Tour de France).  This is the first time I've joined in with the Ravellenic Games, and decided to start off with a bit of knitting.  After all the controversy that's being going on in Sochi, the rainbow yarn seemed somehow appropriate.  I'm making a side-to-side gradient shawl - the Now in a Minute shawl - which is a free pattern on Ravelry.  This is what it looked like this morning :-

but I've since done some more and it's gone into the next colour, which is a green.  I can't photograph it until tomorrow as I never get a good result from my camera under artificial lights.

I'm really excited to see how this turns out because I loved all the colours when I was dyeing it, and the wool is gorgeously soft - an anticipated hug around my neck!

The Boys!

It's a while since we had a look at how the boys are doing, so the other day I took my camera down for a photo shoot.  I didn't expect great pics as they have a habit of turning away just at the moment I press the button.

This time though, Impala came running over to see what the heck she was doing this time.

Hmmm, that doesn't look like a carrot - wrong colour

Is this my best side?

Then Jorrocks got in on the act, but he hasn't quite got the hang of this posing lark.

Yes Jorrocks, you're a very pretty boy, but next time take your nose out of the lens and stand back a bit.

Oooh, me next!!

Impala looking all grown up practicing his best smile.

New Camera

My new camera arrived with the visitors yesterday, so I charged it up last night and tried it out today.

Jak sunbathing, just like Aunty Vika

. . .

while the men get on with the important things in life :-

Note the beers!

The worms are still growing . . .

This one's just escaped from it's old skin for the third time :-

I took a video of one of the worms this afternoon and then tried to upload it to here, but it didn't work.  I'll have another try tomorrow, got to make dinner now.

Voracious Monsters!!

I've just been looking at the last photo I posted of the silkworms just a few days ago and thought how small they were.  They are eating my mulberry tree to death!  This morning when I was cleaning them out, I could actually HEAR them eating!

I'm waiting until tomorrow to post another photo because last week I ordered a new camera and had it sent to wicked stepson no. 3.  He arrives here tomorrow with his girlfriend for a week and is bringing it with him.  It's an idiot-proof (necessary!) Canon Ixus 130 which has an automatic feature that works out exactly what you need all by itself - clever.

OK, I'm off to make scones now.  I've got 3 friends coming round this afternoon for a coffee, cakes and knitting session (stitch and bitch?) so I'd better get busy making the cakes.