Update

I am coming to after a hectic time. First we had ITV Wales filming the garden as part of National Garden Open in Wales. For those of you not from the UK this is a uniquely British event where people open their gardens sometimes just for one day sometimes for groups visiting . All the gardens are listed in a famous yellow book. The visitors fee goes to Charity. Most of the gardens are absolutely stunning and often very grand stately homes but also little tiny cottage gardens too. My parents were very fond of visiting gardens and when my father moved up here he and I went round gardens together although mostly I think because my father was very partial to the home made cakes that so often feature! Quite where I found the courage to propose the dye garden to the organisers I don't know. I think it came from the day when we opened the garden last year as "Shopping for Colour" and it was so obviously enjoyed. Someone said to me you should open under the National Garden Open Scheme and here we are. We are open to groups visiting when Enys and I talk about the plants and I talk about dyeing and then conduct them around the garden. The solar pots have been a very good way to introduce people to the colour of the garden especially the madder , birch and golden rod pots.
So last week -was it really only last week?- ITV filmed. I forgot to ask Enys to take pictures of me demonstrating woad dyeing and I only took a few of her but it gives you the flavour of the day. We both enjoyed it it very much and it was a fascinating experience. I picked woad leaves six or seven times while they filmed it from different angles-amazing that the woad leaves held up. I kept finding another little plant hiding under something else as it has self seeded around the dye beds.
Two days after that we loaded the car, squeezing an unhappy dog into one tiny corner and set off for Woolfest. "Don't buy anything will you" said DH "there is no room even in the top box". Not buy anything! Go to the Woolfest and not buy anything. The poor man obviously had sun stroke. Fortunately a good friend with an empty car came to the rescue and took back my two fleeces and a swift and I sold some big bulky items such as all my new solar pot kits complete with 2 litre Kilner Jars which took up a lot of space. We could have sold these twice over they were all gone by 10.am of the second day. Another great success of the Woolfest was my inks of which I sold a lot. These inks designed by me for painting and writing turnout to be excellent fabric paints too. I painted some pre-mordanted silk with them steamed and rinsed. No colour came out at all

In between ITV filming and setting off for the Woolfest my new Aura wheel, the fantastic new spinning wheel from Majacraft, which had arrived but was sitting tantalisingly in it's box was set up. My original vision was that I would sit spinning some fantastic textured yarn at Woolfest to advertise both my fibres, my packs and my new Beyond the Twist Yarns. A good friend ( I am very lucky in my friends) recovering from a hip replacement carded me some batts to spin and some batts to sell. Did I get a chance to spin? Well I expect you are smiling as you read this . Of course not- except for a few minutes here and there. Plus the fact that people bought the batts which were meant me to spin so at the end I had no batts at all! The wheel attracted a a lot of interest. I directed them all to poor Martin of PM Woolcraft who imports them and from whom I bought mine. I say poor because none of his ordered wheels had arrived. I was very fortunate to have mine as it is at the moment one of only three in the UK. What is so good about it? Well it spins like a dream. The huge flyer and fantastic threading system (no hook pulling the yarn through a tiny orifice) means it will spin from laceweight to bulky yarn. A hugely versatile tensioning system with two different tensions means it is very flexible. In the picture you can see some fine yarns ( some of my cashmere and silk plied with a laceweight merino) and an over the top yarn with teeswater curls spun in whole.
What am I doing now?Getting ready for the student coming on Monday for two days. Which means tidying up my studio. Sigh! (And I still have not fully unpacked the car)

Tagged and colours

I have been tagged! I have been tagged by Tumbleweed. I did not know what I had to do but apparently I have to list 7 little known facts about myself and pass the baton on towards 7 others. It seems a bit of mild fun so with apologies to the next seven victims I decided to pick up the challenge

Now I have found some more rules for this elsewhere and here they are:

The rules of this Tag are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Write seven little known facts about yourself.

4. Tag seven people at the end of your post and link to them.

5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog

6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted

7 little know facts about myself

1. My favourite hand stitch is a french knot but I am too lazy to hand stitch much
2. I am 4ft 9 inches and my eldest son is 6ft 2"


3. I feel colour.


4. My eyes are hazel


5. If I am feeling tired and down I will retire to bed with a Georgette Heyer -writer of regency romances or Dick Francis's racing thrillers



6. I have a dog called Walnut and here is a picture of her on the sofa with her head on an expensive cushion inspired by Miro we bought at an exhibition at the V&A on surrealists.


7. I have always secretly wanted to be a helicopter pilot
   
   Here are my seven, Leena, Bettina, Anne Robin, Sue Nina Cedar

The merino's below have been dyed in golden rod overdyed with indigo, golden rods, green extract, madder, logwood, cochineal and cochineal /madder exhaust

I have also posted photo of all the fibres I dyed for my most recent workshop, Felt Mittens, I dyed dyed a range of merino ,merino/angora cross and merino/silk The merino in this case being 18.5 micron ( ie very fine). The swirls of fibres have silk cap layers stuck in the tops. I fully intended to show you a picture of the finished mittens alongside but alas for my good intentions I was so busy rushing around and helping a few at the end to finish their mittens it did not happen. As it was one of the students made tea and handed around chocolate cake. It is the story of my teaching life, I never have a chance to take pictures ,or if I do they are hasty snaps which tend not to do justice to anybody. So you will have to just take if from me that the some fantastic mittens were made. One lady made a very long one in lime green that came nearly to her elbow. It looked just like one of those evening gloves people used to wear with long evening dresses. It was so finely moulded on her hand I thought we might have to cut it off but no she managed to pull it on and off. Another was a pair made with cochineal dyed merino and silk. Enys was made up because she made a bright green pair to go with her green velvet coat.

The red photo is red teeswater which a patient customer has been asking me to dye for her for the last three months. The really bright red is cochineal /madder, the red is brazilwood/madder cochineal extracts which as you can see has given some rather pink shades.