Festival of fun

Since arriving home I have been job hunting (in theory) and not really enjoying it very much. I think that's one of the reasons I go travelling, is because it's easier to leave to travel then it is to look for a new job!

In practice I have spent some time entertaining the daughter of some friends of my parents. The family was visiting from Canada, and was the first time that they had brought their daughter to this side of the Atlantic. Lian after watching me reacquainting myself with my spinning wheel announced that she'd like to have a go.

During the days Mom and Dad entertained with trips surfing, pony trekking, shopping in Plymouth, the aquarium, etc, and in the evenings, there was spinning, dyeing, felting, and Poi (The balls on strings that I brought back from New Zealand)

We used Kool AId for the dyeing, and it turned out absolutely fantastic! I took pictures every step of the way, and I'm definitely going to be having another go at this! I got the directions from here. I had read about using kool aid to dye wool before, but I couldn't find the article, and hadn't tried it before. Lian spent much time choosing the right shades for her 3 skeins of singles. Having decided on Kickin' kiwi-lime, orange, and Pink Lemonade, we set to work. We washed the singles, that had been spun from the fleece of Florence a greasy Llelyn (pronounced Clin pronounced with plenty of phlegm- she's welsh). We then left them to soak whilst we prepared our dyes. We used glass jars, so that we could pop them in the microwave, (and we would be able to throw them out afterwards if necessary). The dyes looked fantastic. We stuffed the yarn into the jars, and popped the first one into the microwave. as the skein was very small (barely worthy of being called a skein) we gave it a 2 minute blast. and decided that it was plenty of time. the green was wonderfully limey. Next came the orange, again we felt that 2 minutes was sufficient. the pink was the largest skein, and ended up a bit pale in places, so we added a bit more powder, and a bit more water, and shoved it back into the microwave for another 2 minutes. I was a little worried when I pulled it out again and realised that we had boiled the yarn, but the yarn didn't seem any the worse for it. we left the yarn to cool, and then washed it again to wash away any excess. The weather here has been abysmal, and I made the mistake of hanging the yarn outside on the washing line, but I don't think that the Devon rain hurt it in anyway. and Lian was thrilled with the final outcome. We plied the Orange and the Pink Lemonade together when they had dried out, and I failed to get a picture of the end result, but it looked fantastically bright and garish! perfect for a 13 year old!

Clean freshly washed yarn
the pink dye - pink lemonade

green - kickin' kiwi-lime
Orange - orange The final dyed yarn - isn't it gorgeous!

Since I wrote this I've also gone back to my old running club - Plymouth Harriers, been back to dancing, and have managed to hook up with loads of friends... if I haven't seen you yet, I apologise. Please send me a message asking why not, and I'll try and get slightly more organised and manage to get to see you.

Love Sueby