rockpool candy

Dyeing, Carding and Spinning Frenzy

A few weekends ago, whilst left to my own devices, I went hell for leather on my dye box, drum carder and spinning wheel. It was almost obscene. In one weekend...

I chased away the grey clouds with some aquamarine...

fed my need for acid limes and vibrant purples.....

dyed up reds, pinks and oranges for my friends and people I wanted to thank.......

crashed ocean colours into seaside sedums....

captured the beach's tumbling pebbles' soft hues in my roving......

contrasted them with our Northern sky....

and woodland stumps...

analysed the strange lichens that grow under a bridge's rusty handrail.....

went hippy dippy and tried out all my new Landscape dyes.......

made my mouth water with boiled-sweet acids....

celebrated my love of spring bluebells....

spun emeralds...

and some of those soft rovings.....

be still my heart....
 
 

St Patrick's Day Prize

There are  a few days left to enter the St Patrick's Day Celebration competition over on Ravelry.
Knit or crochet something 'Irish' themed (you may have something you've already made that's appropriate), upload your pic and you could win a massive hall.
I've donated just one of the prizes, but there's an embarrassing amount to win.

This is the 'Northern Irish Landscape' yarn that I donated.
It’s a blend of all the colours that I saw on my beach walk the other day; blues of the sky, browns of the earth, rust of metal, mossy grass, greys of petrified wood and slate, you get the idea.
It’s merino, blue-faced leicester, texel, banana, silk, silk waste and a few other bits for good measure. The skein is about 180g in weight.

Go on, you still have time to enter...

Thursday's favourite things

Lady beachcomber that I am, I love picking up Mother Nature's little gifts of texture and colour.
So many of her combinations inspire my yarns and fibre mixtures.

The warm honeyed tones of a dried piece of kelp root beside a bleached sea potato and a sage-green urchin, ummmmmmm yum.

The slatey greys of a stone overwhelmed with soft, whipped-cream casts.

The soft, silky greens blending into pinky yellows on a piece of driftwood with a deep, rotted brown.

The bronzey, metallic charring of firewood against sugar-coated pebbles

The sprinklings of natural white deposits bursting on synthetic colours.

Warm hues of orangey, pinky, browny, reds melding into creamy, greys and green.

Zingy lime against white and brick.

And I love these things more because they almost turn my rather frightening cataract into a gently helpful  blending tool. My right-eye sight may be getting fuzzier by the week, but look what it does to the beautiful colour combos in my pocket.....

 

Rossnowlagh beach (say Ross-ny-luh)

Whilst the rest of the UK and Ireland was basking in the 30 degree heatwave last weekend, Norn Iron and the North of Ireland were being lashed by a violent downpour carying severe weather warnings. It was so bad that small creatures could be seen lining up, two by two, looking for beardy blokes with arks.

So what do normal people do in this weather? Well, chose to take a weekend beach holiday with friends, that's what! Fur-lined hoods in August? Grand!

Togged up in my duvet-warm jacket and walking boots, we hit the beach, battling through loads of keen surfers. They obviously have goose grease coursing through their veins here, as they eagerly dived into the sea, trying to tame the icy-looking Atlantic waves, whilst we shivered on the shore.

The beachcombing for rubbish was great due to the weather churning everything up. (Bitter sweetness, as I would much prefer never to find any rubbish washed up.) I brought home loads of frayed rope and fishing debris that's now hanging in my garden being washed by further copious bouts of rain.

And beautiful jellyfish, too. I always want to scoop them up and put them back in the water. Sadly, most of them have normally been diced by passing ships etc. But this one was intact.

If you want to find out more about Rossnowlagh and its kooky surfing history, then visit the gallery at
www.irelandsurfari.com/galleryevent.html I've never seen such long beards on a board.

Even the seaweed pays its homage to the grandaddys of Irish surfing.

Can you tell what it is yet?

Ahh, Sunday, nearly mid-day, middle of summer, on the beach. Just makes you want to strip down to your swimmers and leap in doesn't it?!

Even the sea anemones were closed up tight, clinging to their rocks and refusing to come out in the cold water.

But I got some great inspiration for felted seaweed and an even better hairdo, due to the heavy sea mist.

Norn Iron, we love you!