I gathered a few bits, well a lot more than shown here actually.
After a dog walk I had collected a mixed bag of stuff from the ground. Bracken, bark, pine needles, leaves, masts, moss and cones. So they all went into one bundle.
and that went into the old Hawthorn tree for a sit.
The next one had a few rusty bits, some tea bags a few dye grains, walnut crystals and some other bits I can't remember and I've managed to misplace the piece of paper I wrote it all down on. It will be a surprise when I open it! It looks like it's doing something up in the pergola on the terrace, it's quite open there at this time of year so should see a bit of weather.
Then I thought about adding some berries but it is totally the wrong time of year and thought of other dyestuffs. One of these has some madder root pieces sprinkled in and I think it was this one up in the very old branches of a Russett apple tree.
And this last one has walnut leaves and woad leaves just sprinkled in too in the prickly embrace of one of the Blackthorns. (I may do this one again at the other end of the year with some of the Sloe fruit from it.)
I know all those dyestuffs have specific needs to make fabric dye like boiling etc, but I thought I haven't anything to lose and I could already see the walnut leaves were staining before I even tied the bundle. It will be interesting and the gardener is now convinced I've lost the plot.
I didn't show in the last post the finished neck piece. I still have to work on the fastening but that shouldn't take too long.
And I've done yet another cardie in a pale gold silk but the photo is awful because of the lighting.
We are happy the 6 Nations Rugby has started again and had some good rugby matches last weekend. There's another round being played this weekend too so between being all romantic and the rugby it looks like a nice weekend ahead!!
I hope you all have a good one too.
*EDIT* It's lunchtime and we have JUST heard from Natural England that we now have our European Bat Licence!! Whooooooo!! We can finally put into action the build that we were hoping to start last June! A few bits of bending over backward are still expected and some site surveys for the scaffolding and we will then, hopefully, be enshrouded for a few months.
