Off to St Abbs in the morning, for the wool festival. Looking forward to a great mix of stalls with old friends and new - felters Laura and Anna, weaver Janis, fibre dyer Jon, wheel builder Rod, yarn dyer Alice (and her stylish Wensleydale sheep), rag rugger Jane, spinners Jennie and Gill, and the Borders Textile Group, and stacks more talented makers. And rather fine refreshments at the Ebba Centre too. All set on the most dramatic piece of heritage coastline, with a great gallery five minutes walk away., A glorious way to welcome Spring!
Read more about the wool festival and The Woolscape Project here - then you'll know what the whale is all about!
On Sunday, I'll be at Springwood in Kelso for BOG Potato Day! In amongst the amazing selection of tubers and seeds and all things veggie, will be some quality stalls. I am delighted to know I will have Gill of Savour the Flavour on one side of me and the Great Northumberland Bread Co on the other!
I've shown this image before but I am just celebrating the fact that it's on the back cover of the new What's On, with details inside about my Stitching the Blues exhibition at the end of March :)
It is mouse weather - the attic space resounds to the sound of pattering feet. Well it does if you are awake but I am generally oblivious in the wee small hours when they are at their most scurrysome. We'll draw a veil over their fate, though, as sadly there are too many electrical cables up there to just let the beasties multiply undisturbed.
It's also hens deigning-to-lay-again weather. Two or three have started and with luck the others might catch on. After eating their weight in pellets many times over through the winter months it's the least they can do, to my mind.
And, it is quite definitely soup weather. Tonight's was a silky smooth sweet potato/carrot/spice conconction by Hugh. But on Sunday 16th March there will be several homemade wonders to choose from, accompanied by breads baked by real people...and in aid of a very good cause.
Hugh is building up his biking and hiking in preparation for 3rd and 4th May - a 31 mile cycle followed by 23 mile walk along the Great Glen between Fort William and Drumnadrochit
Probably includes some of these
Meantime I am pedalling too, though in rather more comfort. Legs a veritable blur as I spin up new yarns in time for St Abbs Woolfestival on 1st March
And more indigo dyeing of lovely BLUE MOON yarns, of course, but I will spare you yet more blue wool pictures
And lest you think that every member of the household is being productive, I give you Ash and Midge, pictured from above as they focus on nothing very much in front of the stove
* contrived? moi?
= an opportunity to photograph fibre and yarn!
I love using my Classic Carder to produce batts of blended fibres ready for spinning. Yesterday afternoon was fibre prep time. These giant rolags will be spun up tonight, and I blended several other shades for working on the rest of the week.
I restrained myself on Friday morning. Only skeins of yarn went in the dye pot. No extraneous lengths of fabric, scraps of unidentified fibre or experimental bits got dropped in. I even timed the whole process. Dyeing is fun. Rinsing and clearing up is not and takes forever.
Sunday afternoon and the yarn is now dried, tidied up, twisted into neat skeins and labelled.
I've added new yarn bases to my small but select range. Blue Faced Leicester in dk and a lovely laceweight - images above and below - (at a generous 800m per 100gm, this is not for the fainthearted knitter!).
