1: Despite the later, greyer nature of the day, this morning was all sunshine-sparkle with a brisk (and chilly, but can't have everything) breeze buffeting away at the daffs and primroses and forsythia, all of which were somehow back-lit by the bright sun and therefore a very intense yellow. Smashing!
2: This! Unreconstructed crone-relict of the seventies second wave that I am, I can't really express how thrilled I am to find this, courtesy of yesterday's Guardian. I need time to read it all, but if they have the balls (yes, ok, in a manner of speaking...) to use the f-word, then that's fine by me.
3: And this!
As is immediately apparent, I didn't manage to keep the top smooth and unruffled, but I did get it evenly dyed and to a shade that works for me. This is fustic, with alum at around 10%. I have soy silk, also evenly dyed, drying outside. I'm getting somewhere! Now on to trying other natural dye extracts, extending the colour range. I should also say that this is not by any means the best quality A1 mulberry, hence a partial explanation for the lack of sheen, but I think it will do quite nicely when suitably spun.
Next to report - the shawl has been completely frogged (this is getting a habit for me) because I had totally misunderstood the instructions on shaping. I now have it back on the needle and going right, with a few inches knitted, cooking with gas, in my terms of reference, in fact.
In hunting through my yarn stash for something to try the shawl with, I found these
The brighter orange (flame, actually....) yarn is the "Pumpkin" special from...Carolina Homespun? at SOAR last year. Then I found the slightly duller version of orange, this time in silk, from, I would imagine, Chasing Rainbows. Both very nice yarns though I says it myself. but that is all I have of them - about four ounces of the silk and six or maybe it's eight of the wool and silk mix. I want to do something nice with it, but can't for the life of me think what. Yes, it could be, and I guess most likely will be, a scarf. Not enough I fear, for even a small neck shawl. Ponder, ponder.
I was a total wuss and wimp today. I parked in town to run all the errands, and noticed a small gathering of people outside the Post Office. I realised, sharp as a tack, I am, that one of them was our MP (The election campaign has now begun in earnest. Sigh.) Through my brain ran all these ideas about what I could go up to her and say - it was such a good opportunity. Of course, I bottled out, and scuttled in to the PO. Ah, well. What good would it have done, anyway.
OK, so Blogger ate my earlier post, and my pc ate the copy I had, really had, taken of it. Lets try it one more time........
gw
1 comment:
I guess third time's the charm! I like the way the fustic dyed roving turned out. It looks like it would go with your Pumpkin yarn (at least to my monitor).
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