If you go down to the woods today

Over the Easter break I made these little gnomes for my boys. But you have to watch them all the time. No sooner do you turn your back on them they have raced off to the woods to play, and climb, and dance around the mushrooms.

These wonderful mushrooms really captured the gnomes attention.

a little more fibre in the diet.

This is the "Good Dye Day" I went to on good friday. What better way to kick off the easter break than with a bit of dyeing at tasknitters place. There were colours amany, some unmentioned people may have a little stash that would indicate a dye addiction. So many great colours and so many different ways of dyeing.

This purple is the lates of my many shades of purple I tried out while dyeing raw fleece. I am really happy with the way the colour takes to raw fleece. Now I will have to spin that up before I can start on the new dyed roving I have just made.

This one worked really well. I used food colouring and was really happy with the brightness of the colours. Who would have thought that the humble food colouring could be so great. I am still waiting for my others to dry so stay tuned for the other colours.

Beware dyeing will also become an obsession for tasknitter.

Just a girl and her carder

Well I have been a little bit busy lately doing a bit of carding. This is our boy Jack who gave me all this lovely wool. It just goes to show that even a grumpy old ram can have a fantastic fleece. Lets hope we get some nice lambs from him again this year.

Now that I have carded up all this wool I will have to find somewhere to keep it. I dont think the kitchen table is the right place for it so I will have to stash it somewhere. hmmmmm but where. And then of course I will be spinning it up. I think I will have to hang up my knitting needles for a while. I have been having loads of fun with this fleece. It has been so nice to work with, so fine and shiny. I think this is a new passion that only other fibre holics will really understand.

I came across this 2ply and have been trying to re ball it. As you can see it has been a little tangled and has taken some patience to work out. But it did give me a break from all that carding. And I wonder why I run out of time to do all those other things in life.

my latest spinning

So here is my latest spinning. I seem to have neglected my knitting for the love of spinning. I even tryied a little silver thread to ply with my reds.

Long weekend

There is nothing like a long weekend for getting away to the beach. We walked along this beautiful beach looking for anything interesting. The beach was very clean, not even any shells to pick up. But after my little stroll we stopped at this lovely art gallery. The view is just to die for. The mosaic is done by the owners daughter.

And inside I came across this knitted lady. She even had her own knitted food and mouse. What a surprise find.

our nightly visitor

I thought I should share these photos with you all. These are two of our nightly visitors. The one below is the older mother and the second possum is the 18 month old baby. We have watched mum visit us each night for many years now. Then one day we noticed she had a baby in her pouch. As the baby grew older he migrated from her pouch onto her back, clinging on and creating a grey fur patch on mums back. I loved watching the baby take food out of mums hands and even out of her mouth at times. As the baby grew up they had to fend off on older male possum who would wander through , turn his nose up at some of the food left out for him and trying to bully the mum.
They usually arrive at the same time each evening, waiting for the cat to be fed then leaving the shelter of their wattle tree. Mind you all the food I leave out for them does not stop them from eating my roses and fruit trees, and anything else the take a fancy to.
But how could you be cross with that cute little face. After all they lived here before us and deserve our respect. I just wish more people could feel compasion for all life.
After so many years I still get a buzz out of seeing my little visitors and hope you like the photos.

bothwell spin in stash

I know that with so much fantastic fiber on offer I should have been able to make an easy decision at the Bothwell spin in but I seemed to keep walking around trying to make the right choice. I knew that I wanted to buy some alpaca but which one. Which colour, and so I just kept feeling all these fantastic alpaca. Finally I decided on some light colours and then I got some silk in spring colours to ply with it. I have no idea what I will make from it but I am sure that will come to me.

But I have finished( kind of ) the jumper . This is from the first skeins I spun. But I did run out of wool for the sleeves so I have to decide if I will leave it as a vest or try to add a different coloured sleeve. So many decisions to make. I will ask number 3 child what he would like as it is for him. This means that I have started back on my muir shawl. I need to finish that as well so I will be able to start my socks. And then of course start spinning up my stash from Bothwell. Wish me luck.