Monday, May 28, 2007

Highways and Byways

I love walking along our country lane. We live on the edge of a forest and there are always interesting plants that grow on the side of the road. Here are just a few of them I spotted today as I took the dogs for a walk.





This is wild orange honeysuckle.(Lonicera ciliosa for the botanists !)









And here is a pretty wild rose. Possibly called a Nootka rose too. I'm not sure of the latin name for it.




And hiding in the shade, these little red columbines. (Aquilegia Truncata)

It's really a very nice day on the coast. Warm and sunny with a light westerly breeze. I'm going to spend some time outside.

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Shearing the shepherd








I recently went for a hair cut and was able to donate 12 inches of my hair to a program that uses the hair for cancer patients.

Here is a bad picture of what it looked like beforehand. Thank goodness I can crop most of the messy room out,(but not all, you'll notice !)






And here's what it looked like after Suzy at Eclips in Powell River had finished.



You can find out more about how to donate hair here, http://www.cancer.ca/ccs/internet/standard/0,3182,3172_14519_84874484_langId-en,00.html.




I'm having a busy week, with Simon away, just caring for the critters takes up a lot of my time.




......Talking of critters, here are some recent visitors to the Powell River Museum, where I work part time.



They are very cheeky and take a daily tour of the neighbourhood. They enjoyed the tulips at the museum recently as well as helping themselves to peoples' gardens !

If you are interested in finding out more about Powell River Museum, you can click on this link.



so that's it for today, I'm off to get some chores done.




Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Shearing Day



.....is one of the highlights around here. It's the day that Tom, our fantastic shearer comes over from Vancouver Island and turns our sheep into baldies. I had aspirations of being a sheep shearer at one time. After working with Jennifer up at Jay Springs Ranch in Kamloops, BC. http://www.jayspringslamb.ca/, and then a grueling, (at least for me !), weekend course in Edmonton put on by the Woolgrowers, http://www.wool.ca/ I decided a career in sheep shearing was not for me ! I have a lot of respect and admiration for Tom, who makes it look SO easy, when I know it really isn't. I'm happy to watch a master at work.


Here he is, working on Cashew, our Babydoll/Romney cross.


And this is what we're left with.


Marmite looks like she's wondering where her jacket went.


And here's one of the fleeces laid out.




When Tom left I skirted all the fleeces and packed them up into coffee sacks until I get to processing them. I'm still working on last year's !!

All in all a very good day.

I found this quote relating to sheep shearing

Friday, May 11, 2007

Feeling Blue



.............That's how I've been feeling the last couple of days since Simon left for the UK yesterday.
Added to that none of the animals have co-operated with me today. All the sheep escaped and ran amock through the yard. The rams too, so that was tricky to get them back in with out being butted by the butthead Womble. The dogs were in funny moods too and we had an unsuccessful walk, ending up iwith one going one way and one the other and me being mad because they wouldn't listen to me. Grrrrrr........

Nothing like some retail therapy to help rise above the doldrums !

Here's a pic of the dyes that I ordered from http://www.maiwa.com/.



I can't believe they arrived so quickly. I ordered them Tuesday and they were here yesterday, (Thursday). How speedy is that !


I can't wait to try them out. My friend Fern and I are going to do some yarn dying for our recycled yarn business. Check it out here, handpickedyarn.com We have some great yarns at great prices.


To continue the blue theme, here is a pic of the finished basket I made for my Mum. I sent it to the UK with Simon. I also sent some of Natalie's soaps for both of our Mums.



Sunday, May 6, 2007

Dyed in the wool




Yesterday I got to play hooky from the open air market and went to a dyeing workshop with our local fibre arts group. What a great day !
We used Ciba dyes.

Here is some of the yarn we used in the dyepot. We turned the centre pull balls over and used a different colour for a variegated effect.





Here is the yarn I brought home.

The colours are all really bright and lovely. My favourite, though, is the darker one here. I couldn't make those colours again I don't think. We dropped the dyes onto the skeins of yarn in the dyepot which gave a more diffuse effect because it cooked on the stove top and the colours mixed together.


I'm looking forward to making something with the pretty yarns I brought home.


At the moment I am making a little basket for my Mum with this skein of hand spun (Cashew, our Babydoll/Romney cross), dyed with food colouring as a batt then spun up to get more heathery shades. Hopefully, I will post a pic in the near future when it's finished !

Incidentally, this is the definition I found, when I looked up this well known phrase.
"dyed-in-the-wool"
adj : dyed before being spun or woven into cloth.
Well, I guess that makes sense !

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Hey I'm a blogger


Well, this is my first blog post. I was inspired to do this by my friend Katrina, over at http://spinningout-katrina.blogspot.com/. She writes a very interesting blog and has a pretty turn of phrase, (as well as lots of colourful fibre shots). I don't pretend that life at Periwinkle is always exciting but hopefully I can post some pictures and write some snippets that someone on the planet might find remotely entertaining.
So here's a lamb pic for today. This is Cicely.As you can see life at Periwinkle is pretty relaxing.