Birthday party

We had a great camping trip for Simon's birthday. We went up to Lois Lake last Sunday night. We wanted to check out the new camp spots at the start of the canoe route. They have done a great job of creating some camp sites up above what essentially is the car park, but where people have camped up to now. We stayed down by the water but it's nice to know there are more private camp sites when it gets busier in the summer.

.....Oh wait ! this is summer.

Here is a shot of the fabulous birthday feast. Home made chili and rice, and of course a bottle of sparkling wine to toast the birthday boy.

The dogs really enjoyed the camping trip too. Here's Tika relaxing by the lake. As you can see it was kind of cloudy but it only rained a very short time so for that we were very thankful.

The week has passed by happily and we're getting ready for the market this weekend. Fern and I have been busy getting some more yarn ready to take to the market on Sunday. (handpickedyarn.com to check out some of our reclaimed yarns)Here's an obligitary fibre shot of the yarns drying on the washing line on this breezy Friday.

......and a close up just so you can see how pretty they are.

So that's all for now.

Summer Solstice

I always feel Summer Solstice should not pass without acknowledgement of some sort. When I was younger (quite a bit younger, actually !), I went to the Stonehenge festival a few times. An eye opening experience, I must say. Whilst the anarchical aspect of the festival was slightly scary, the highlight for me was the sun rising over Stonehenge on Soltstice morning and Druids would come from all over the UK to mark the occasion. It was always so interesting to see them dressed in Druid garb, (long white robes etc), piling off the numerous motor coaches that brought them to the site.... of course that was in the days that you could actually go into the monument and even TOUCH the stones. Not anymore I fear.

Anyway to mark Summer Solstice here at Periwinkle, Simon and I had an impromptu "campfire" in the backyard and roasted weiners !! Very fun and luckily we were partyed out by the time it started to pour with rain.

But then we saw this......

A Double Solstice Rainbow. How special is that ?

Lovely day in the neighbourhood

It started out a bit cloudy and cool but the sun came out and it really is nice out. Here's one of the visitors we had at Periwinkle today.

It's a Western Tiger Swallowtail. If you want to know more about it, this site describes it well.

http://ghs.gresham.k12.or.us/science/ps/nature/animal/arthro/butter/wtiger.htm

He, or she maybe (?) carefully circumnavigated the red hot pokers while I took a few pictures.

Another visitor today was Katrina with some of her Romney fleeces. This is what happened to some of it when it came out of the dyepot.

Sorry about the rather distracting yellow dairyland box in the top right corner, (if you didn't notice it before you will now !!). I thought about doing something creative in Photoshop with it but as you can see, the thought didn't last long.

Anyway, here is the lovely coloured fleece we ended up with today. In the middle, at the top is Katrina's gorgeous silver grey fleece that is now this fabulous blue. In the same pot we put in some white fleece. In the other pot we threw in some other Romney fleece that is now various shades of red.

Lots of fun ! Too bad you couldn't make it Fern, but I can see lots more fibre colouring in the future for us !

Better go, Tika is on her way back from the vet, (not on her own of course, Simon has driven her in the van, and Tia went along for the ride to support her sister), so I should go and see how that visit went.

Batty about batts

I've been a bad blogger lately, despite the fact there's lots going on I could blog about...... but then I guess that's why ! I've been too busy to blog.

Here are some batts that I carded recently. Simon brought the drum carder into the living room so now I have the full complement of fibre machines cluttering up the place. It does make it more likely that I use it though, so this is the result.

The violet batts are some dark and white romney fleece that I threw in a violet dyepot as locks. The dark jewel toned one is also some romney fleece that I dyed with dark colours (for a change, I have to force myself once in a while !) I do like it though, and I'm looking forward to spinning it up. The two pink ones are Babydoll fleece in my more usual colours. I blended some dark brown Babydoll with the pinks on some of it.

This is another of the pink batts that I spun up. Although the spinning is not the best in evenness etc I do like the look of it.

And here it is, plyed with some mohairy stuff that has a slight shimmer to it. I'm still working on improving the plying but now I think I'm doing better as I have a new "Lazy Fran" than Simon and I made. It works great ! I'll post a picture of it another time.

I'm planning on making some short gauntlet type gloves with it. Katrina has pictures of hers, here.. http://spinningout-katrina.blogspot.com/ She also made a pair for Julie, our Open Air Market Co-Ordinator with some more of her handpun yarn. They look really nice too and are warm and practical at the chilly Exhibition Park grounds where the market is held, so Julie will get lots of use from them !

Anyway that's about it for now. I should go and plant the peppers that I got at the Market on Sunday.