Tour de Fleece Finale

My last post for this year's TdF.  This was my final skein of the Falkland for the Tour :-

I spun this straight from the carded fleece (unwashed, undyed) because I've had an awful lot of waste when I've dyed the fleece first.  This turned out to be much quicker and far less bother - must try and remember this in the future - dye after spinning.  I mordanted it and then dyed with logwood chips which gave a really dark purple.  In fact, it looks more navy blue than purple.

My final photo of my achievements during this year's Tour :-

It looks quite a lot, but these are all relatively small amounts - 515g in total.  All the Falkland was made into centre-pull balls; back left are the three dyed with madder, then two dyed with St John's Wort flowers, then two dyed with grape vine trimmings*, and the final 3 are dyed with different lichens.  In front of the lichen is the logwood dyed ball. Then at the front, the top skein is the result of our 10-minute challenge, the middle one was the 10g challenge, and then the cotton at the front dyed with weld.

* I realise I haven't posted about the dye session with grape vine trimmings, basically because it was rather insignificant.  I crammed my large dye pan as full as I could with grape vine leaves and cooked it.  I removed the spent leaves and crammed it full again with fresh leaves and cooked it.  After all that there was just a pale yellow colour in the dye which gave beige (!) on the fleece.  An experiment I probably won't repeat!

Onto a brighter note, I won a prize!!!  This was donated by a fellow team member and came all the way from America (thank you Meagan).  My prize was a hand-turned cedar nostepinne, which smelled amazing by the way, and she also included lots of little extras (tea bags to consume whilst spinning, a sample of spun yarn, a cute little pin, and a button on a hair grip).

If you don't know what a nostepinne is for, this might give you a clue :-

I couldn't wait to try it out!  I already have a ball winder but tend not to take it with me when we go away in the camper van as it's a bit bulky.  I've quite often been stuck without it and have had to leave off spinning because my bobbin was full.  This will fit nicely in my spinning wheel bag and will come in very handy!

Grasping the Nettle

Recently we had a little holiday in our camper van in Spain.  We travelled all around the San Sebastian area for 10 days.  Obviously, I took my new spinning wheel (Louet Victoria) as this was bought specially for camping.  I also took the last of the batts that I bought at Le Lot et la Laine festival which consisted of merino, alpaca, silk, soy, silk noil (I think), nettle and a bit of sparkle - 100g in all.  When I bought this it was the nettle content that attracted me, never having spun nettle before.  Well, the colours were really nice too!

I also took some black alpaca to mix with it, mainly to extend the amount of wool I'd have when finished, but also because I planned to ply it with a strand of black alpaca and I thought it would blend better.  The pale colours plied with a strand of black alpaca would have given a definite barber-pole effect that I wanted to avoid.

Ready for plying :-

The finished skein -

240g, 415yds/383m

This is how it looks knitted, but I'm considering using this for my first adventure with my weaving loom - probably a scarf for hubby!

A little post script : what do you think of this gorgeous little church we found in the mountains :-

There was a wall of glass pieces on each side

which didn't look particularly spectacular until you got close up to it

but was really spectacular from the inside :-

As the church was locked up I had to take a photo through the bars on a little window in the door.

It must be lovely to sit in that little church with the sun streaming through all those little pieces of glass.

Autumn Break

After all the visitors had departed, mid-September, we decided we needed a little break and took ourselves off to the Costa Brava in northern Spain for 4 nights.  The weather was amazing and the countryside beautiful.  We'd taken our little motorbike on the back of the campervan so we could get around more easily and explore.

Sea and Rocks

We stayed in a really nice campsite within walking distance of the promenade at the seaside resort of Roses where we enjoyed some excellent meals out for very little money.

One of the places we visited was a lovely little town called Cadaques which was about half an hour's drive from where we were staying.  Salvador Dali's house is not far from here, but it wasn't possible to visit unless you'd phoned and pre-booked, so we'll have to save that one until next time.

A Cadaques cat :-

A lot of the houses and shops there were built into the rocks.  I was quite surprised when I went to the toilet in a cafe to find the back wall was a sheer piece of rock with water running down it.  They'd put in a gutter to take the water away.

Sangria was always on the menu!

Another day we visited Figueres mainly so we could go to the Dali Museum, especially as we hadn't been able to go to his house near Cadaques.

I didn't realise until we got home just how few photos I took here.  It was allowed to take photographs so long as you didn't use a flash.  This museum is well worth visiting if you're ever in the area.  It was on three floors and kept us occupied for about as many hours.

The ticket price included a visit to a separate building which contained Dali's Jewels, but unfortunately we ran out of time and didn't manage to go there.

So, if you were wondering where I'd got to for the last couple of weeks, this does explain a little bit.  However, I have been progressing with other projects and I'll show you some of those next time.

P.S.  The title "Autumn Break" is a bit misleading at the moment as we've been having summer weather ever since we got back.  The last two days have been 36 deg C in the shade - not bad for autumn!

TdF End of the Road

Only 13 days since I last updated!  I am still here, but we've had some visitors and a trip or two away in the campervan.  Well, those are my excuses put to bed, now let's get on with what I've really been doing.

For my last yarn of the Tour I decided to use all the leftover rolags from my rainbow yarn (Falkland).

This was, in fact, my only option for the team I was in which demanded that everything had to be prepared from raw, unwashed, fleece which was then dyed, carded and spun.  I simply didn't have enough time left to start preparing another fleece.

I put the whole lot into a large bag and then spun at random, a small amount from each rolag, mixing all the colours.  I was quite happy with the result, but I've no idea what I'm going to use it for.  No doubt, if I keep it long enough, something will come up and "bite me" eventually.

This is the first bobbin I spun.  I was going to do another one the same, but thought it might be just a bit too clown barf-ish.  I had quite a bit of the orange left (dyed with onion skins) so decided to do the second bobbin with that.

And the finished wool :-

I still have enough of the mixed colours to do another bobbin, but not enough orange to ply with it, so if I do another one it'll have to be plied with the purple (logwood).  I'm quite interested to see the contrast between the two when they're done.

So, the final picture of what I achieved this year :-

Ta daaaa!!

Just have to work out what to do with them now!

The other exciting (for me!) news was that I won a prize!!  One of my Ravelry teams (DIY and Dye) had a draw at the end of each week and I won the third week!  My prizes were $10 to spend online (I chose a couple of knitting patterns - a shawl and a cardigan I'd had my eye on for a while) and $30 to spend at a team mate's Etsy store.  She spun some gorgeous black yarn during the Tour, and I'm getting three skeins of that.  It's spun from three different animals : Finn sheep, Gotland sheep (both lambs) and some black alpaca.  This is something new for me because, although black features large in my wardrobe, I've never spun any black fleece.  Can't wait for it to come now!

Mini Hols

Here we are, back from our little holiday on the Mediterranean, err, except we didn't exactly go there!  We stayed instead just north of Beziers and Montpellier - lovely countryside and lovely weather too.  The whole area seemed to be laid out to vineyards or olive farms, which was just what we were looking for.

Here's Eric enjoying our first lunch in the sunshine (he is wearing shorts, you just can't see them!).  The view was magnificent (unlike my photography!) :-

The nice thing about having a camper van in France is that you can park up practically anywhere and stay for the night, and lots of farms, wine producers etc. welcome you to stay on their land for free.  The etiquette is that you buy some of their produce in return for your free night, but it's not obligatory.  Our accommodation for the whole trip cost us absolutely nothing.  The first night we stayed on an "aire de service" which can just be a glorified car park with maybe a toilet and emptying point for your chemical toilet, and somewhere to empty your waste water and fill up with fresh, but a lot of them are very picturesque.

The second night, we stayed on a small estate, Chateau Coujan, which produces wine and olive oil.  It was a fabulous place with a large, elegant main house plus numerous other houses for family/estate workers.  It also had its own church, which apparently dates back to Roman times.  So, where are all the photos?  Well, I was too busy photographing the other occupants :-

Peacocks!  (if you'll pardon my French!!)  The owners hadn't a clue just how many there were, their best guess was between 30 and 50.

The tail feathers look like an elaborate bridal veil from the back.  They look awfully heavy - fancy having to drag that lot around everywhere you go!

The females, by comparison, look rather dull, but they were definitely not as noisy as the males.

Ah yes, the noise!!  That was something we hadn't really worried about until we realised just how many birds there were.  But don't worry, I told Eric, I'm sure they'll go to sleep when it gets dark.  HA HA!!!  By the time night fell, we'd had a meal and a bottle of wine and settled ourselves down for a good sleep.  We watched as the peacocks took themselves off into the wood alongside the house, roosted in trees, 3 or 4 perched on the house roof and a couple more on the balcony.  Silence! - for about five minutes, and then all hell let loose again.  One would shout out and the rest would answer.  They did this every 15 minutes or so throughout the whole flipping night.  How on earth the owners manage to sleep night after night with that racket on their roof and outside their bedroom windows is beyond me.  Maybe they have good earplugs.

The last night was positively uneventful after that.  We stayed on a small farm, right on the edge of their vineyards.  When we arrived, the owners showed us where we could park and invited us for "aperos" at 6 p.m.  We bought some of their wine which, of course is the purpose of having drinks with them, but it was nice all the same.

A lovely quiet evening snack amongst the vines.

 Ooops - mind your fingers Eric!!

The next day we headed back home with a camper full of olive oil, wine and honey and Eric had changed colour, having fallen asleep in the sun!  The solar panels had been viewed and we'll probably put in an order next week, so all-in-all our mission was accomplished and we had a relaxing (if short) break as well.  The weather behaved impeccably until about half an hour after we left to go home, then we hit rain.  Who cares, we had glorious sunshine while we were there.

Who Ate All the Flowers?

These are (or were) a clump of really nice narcissi called cheerfulness.  They flower just after the daffodils have finished, and smell superb.  Only, this year someone else took a liking to them before we got to enjoy them.  Every single flower has been eaten, every last one of them.

Birds?  Slugs?  They look like they've just been snipped off with scissors.  Maybe my cat's decided he prefers greens to mice.

My knitting project is going well and I'm up to armhole level.

We're off to the Med. tomorrow in the camper van, so I'll take this with me and see if I can get the sleeves done while we're away.  We decided to have a little holiday, only until Thursday, to go and buy some nice olive oil, maybe get some wine, and also we want to visit a company over there who sell solar panels for heating water.  We get a lot of sun here, and it seems a shame to waste all that energy when we could at least be heating our water for free.  Then, when we get back, Eric should be starting on MY NEW KITCHEN!!  Can't wait.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I've been very lazy with the old blog this week - too busy with the new greenhouse (ex-swimming pool).  I spent four days last week stripping off the old paint from the inside walls, then had to scrub the lot with soap and water, then rinse down.  I've started repainting, but it'll probably take a while.

Meantime, Thursday night Eric's band had a gig in Carcassonne, which is about two hours east of here.  The deal included a free room for the night, but as I didn't fancy sharing with the rest of the band we decided to take the camper van.  The pub was right in the centre of Carcassonne and it turned out to be a real nightmare driving through the narrow streets in a camper, especially when there were cars parked at the side of the road and we had to mount the (very narrow) pavement to get through.  Then when we got there we couldn't park to unload so ended up driving out again and getting one of the other band members to come and collect both us and the gear.

The Celt is an Irish pub and was having a week of celebrations for St Paddy's night.  It's a really nice place which made us all feel we'd just walked into a pub in the UK.  I've not posted any photos of the band as they all start to look the same, especially as Steve was wearing the same shirt as last time!!  They played until just after 1 a.m. and after we'd packed away all the gear, Eric decided it would be a nice idea to walk back to the camper . . . only 15 minutes away (ha ha!).  When we got outside there was a light drizzle, and after walking for about 10 minutes we realised the directions given to us by the bar staff weren't exactly accurate.  We eventually found someone to ask and they put us on the right road.  Or so we thought!

By this time we could see the mediaeval city up on the hill, and knew we'd parked the camper in one of the car parks outside the old city walls.  Well, what do you know, we only walked the wrong way around it, i.e. we walked three quarters of the way round the outside of the walls when we could have gone the other way and just walked around a quarter of it.  And if you've ever walked around Carcassonne old city at 2:30 in the morning, you'll realise just how spooky it was!  Anyway we finally found the camper just before 3 a.m. after walking for over an hour!  And we were soaked.

(If you ever find yourself driving past Carcassone on the autoroute, keep an eye out for the old city - it's an absolutely magnificent sight from the road and one I'd love to have a photograph of.  One day!)

Next morning we'd arranged with Steve that he would bring the gear back for us in his car - luckily - as we'd just found that our battery was flat and we weren't going anywhere in a hurry.  Aren't jump leads a wonderful invention?

We had been planning to go down to Spain and spend a night there, but with the battery being a bit unpredictable we came home instead.  Bliss!  I got to spend the whole afternoon spinning.  I finished spinning a merino/silk mix for a secret project, then spun another ball of camel wool for Sarah's sweater (which I still haven't finished).  Then this morning I dyed up the secret wool and plied and washed the camel wool.  I need to get all my projects finished so that I can spend some time with my new 1 kg bag of baby alpaca which arrived on Thursday - lovely, lovely, soft-as-clouds white alpaca.  I don't think I'll need to card it, just spin straight from the locks.  But I can't start yet, got to finish Sarah's sweater and the secret project, otherwise they'll never get done.

By the way, when we tried the camper this morning, it started first time!!  Sods law, or what?

Marciac

Just got back yesterday from our little trip away.  We had a really nice break, catching up with friends we'd not seen for a while, meals out, and just wandering around Marciac and the surrounding area.

 

These gates intrigued me - they lead nowhere.  Maybe there was once a house here, but it's long gone and now only the gates remain.

 

And just a short distance from there, I found this bee orchid growing all by itself on the grass verge at the side of the road.  It's the first one I've seen "in the flesh" so I was quite excited to find it.

 

We spent two nights at Camping du Lac with Rob and Louise, and then went to La Maison des Chameaux to stay with Sarah and Paul for her birthday party.  Brilliant night, lots of new people to meet, excellent food and, of course, loads of wine!

This is a very bad photo of Sarah learning to play the guitar (had a bit of trouble with the flash) but hope you can make it out.

This was taken in the barn next to the house.  Eric had taken his guitar and a small amplifier and set up there to play a little bit of music, when Sarah arrived and very quickly learned to play 2 or 3 chords.  When are you coming for the next lesson?

Sarah and Paul have two dogs, a Labrador and a Briard (spelling??) who recently produced TEN PUPPIES!!!!!!!  They are now four and a half weeks old and are extremely cute.  It was very difficult not to step on one and we had to watch our feet all night.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos, but ten puppies around one feeding dish was a sight not to be missed!  And poor Mum is starting to get a bit frazzled with ten of them wanting to feed all the time.

The next morning I walked around and took lots of photos of the animals before we left and set off back home - I'll make that the subject of a different post.  As usual, we didn't leave empty-handed - there was a large bin liner full of camel wool (guess what we were doing at midnight the night before . . . plucking camels!), another of, I think, sheeps wool (very soft and fine - Sarah found a huge sack of it at the side of the road, maybe it had fallen from a lorry?), beetroot, coriander, mint, elderflowers.  Luckily, we managed to get away without a puppy!!