22 hours later

My parents came up for the day yesterday, apparently it took a fair bit out of me because I needed 22 hours of sleep to recover.

However, it was a great day.  No photos, sorry, I was enjoying the day and forgot to even grab the camera before we headed out.

I did some research before the 'rents came up and we had a nice afternoon planned.  They had a stupendously early morning wake up to get the ferry, it left at quarter to six in the morning.  Fortunately our driver for the day (Dad) managed a nice nap on the ferry, Mum was amused too.  They had a good sail over, mirror smooth until past Mull and then only slight rolling.  Mum kept her breakfast so it can't have been too bad.

We spent the morning chatting at home, catching up on life and family while Pippa got lots of attention from Dad and enjoyed some new toys.  She demolished two tennis balls and fair shredded a rope toy too.  She too was worn out today, Jo didn't hear a peep out of her until she wanted to go to bed.

The afternoon was fab!

First was a visit to Blue Beyond.  I've had a few island friends say they would "kidnap" me and take me, so I took the advantage and we went as a family.  Dad stayed with the car (he's not a major art aficionado) and took a stroll along the road a bit.  Mum and I had to carry our jaws.  WOW!

I'd been  told the lady who does most of the work for sale is skilled but...wow.  She takes fabric and painted boards and makes the most amazingly colourful and realistic work.  If Mum or I even come into a lot of money we'll be going there and buying the place out!  There was also some stained glass that just begged to come home and bring colour to our windows.  I did resist, but only because my work money was already earmarked.  Mum spent some dosh though, an approximately 18" square piece and a smaller card one plus some printed cards to use as notelets.  Honestly, if you ever visit Tiree, go to blue beyond!  Even if you're not naturally an art fanatic you'll be amazed at the skill.

Next was a trip to Tiree Glass.  I'd been once with Alan and the Tiree Tech Wave gang, so I knew that even though Mum wasn't a huge glass fan she'd like it, and she did.  The lady who usually does the work was off teaching a course and I made an oops thinking the lady who was shop-sitting was her, fortunately I was forgiven.  In all fairness, I'd knocked on the wrong door (their house is next to the studio) so I was a tad flustered.

The studio is lovely, high roof, big windows, lots of space to show off the pieces.  Mum purchased a little glass star.  Amsuingly, of the three things she purchased she was only sure of keeping one, turns out a relative of ours is having their 60th soonish so Mum is dithering over what to send.

Then we went off to Chocolates and Charms so Mum could get more choccies from there.  We'd visited when they came up back in May so that was on Mum's to-do list from the start.

Alas, Beachcomber had closed the day before so that was missed again.  But I did get to visit with Fiona and Jane, so I've seen it this year at least.

After all that adventure (Tiree tracks plus short car plus three bods = adventure) we took a turn at the Resource Centre.  It was home to the various weekly and more regular groups to meet without being charged a huge sum but the body renting it had to give it back today so all the groups had to up sticks.  Cue a fortnight of sorting and then yesterday's big sale.  Stuff the groups didn't really want to find storage for but thought someone may want. The parental units came away with some books they'd not tried, I came away with a latch hook kit (I've not finished the other one that size), a knitting machine that might do sock blanks for me, a scrabble deluxe (turntable and score-keeping racks) and some other little bits.

We then came back home, had some more chatting and napping, relaxed, and then headed out for dinner.

What a dinner!

My parents stayed at the Scarinish Hotel and I had reserved us a table for the evening.  I admit, I was nosey and popped up to see the room they were in, rather nice, full ensuite, nice crisp room, very nice resting spot.  The guests also have a lounge with bar, sea view terrace and entertainment for all ages.

The restaurant had a varied menu, largely fishy things but also pizza, pasta, all sorts really.  We had a variety of starters including mushroom tart, mackerel teriyaki, pate and soup.  Mains saw two pizzas, fish and chips and pasta and pudding was divine.  Two apple crumbles with a shared pot of cream and two raspberry and white choc cheesecakes.  Yes, I snaffled some of Jo's cheesecake, yes it was lovely.

After typing that I understand why I slept 22 hours, heh.

A fantastic end to the week and the month.  I've got some ideas buzzing around my head for September, and I will try to update this at least once a week.

Anyway, Dad bought me a new radio that can pick up more than BBC Alba and Radio 1 so I'm going to go read the manual for that and have a play.

Night night.

Shawl progression

This week yours truly has been knitting up a storm, well, actually, just knitting a lot.  I've been participating in the Ravellenic Games.

The Ravellenic Games are hosted on Ravelry, they happen during the time of the Olympics and encourage folks to push themselves in their crafting pursuits.  In my case, I joined in a knit-a-long of a gorgeous lace shawl in doubleknit weight yarn called "Tsuga".  It took me 5.1 balls of yarn, approximately 628yds and a fair few beads (exact count to be fathomed in future).

The shawl was released in 4 "clues", each using about the same amount of yarn in theory.
This is the end of Clue 1:


Clue 2:


Clue 3 didn't get photographed, what with it looking like, and here I quote my husband, "the fleece of a particularly pretty sheep".

Clue 4 done, and shawl bound off but unblocked:


That was last night.  20:30 GMT on the 9th August 2012.  It then went to soak in a bucket of water and "non distilled condiment" (vinegar) for a few hours:


After that it was removed from the bucket (mon dieu!), the bulk of the water squeezed out, then the shawl was plonked in a bag, two cups of dye were poured in, the whole thing was mushed until all the cream was blue, then the bag was steamed for 25 minutes and left to cool overnight.

This morning I got up, rinsed all the excess dye out (not much), then got to blocking.  Thank goodness for blocking wires!  Thread them through your edge stitches and you get a lovely straight edge with only 4 pins rather than 40.

Blocking: (the ruler at the top is 36" long)


As it's a wonderful day here on Tiree, it dried in about 2 hours.  Here is the finished article:




And my ugly mug.  I really must smile more often!  this looks more like a grimace.

(the ends have been cut off after being woven in, I assure you)

So, that's the progression of a lace shawl.  Knit lots, soak, dye if wanted, block and dry, enjoy!

I'm calling this one "Tiree Tsuga" as a friend pointed out it has the blues of sky and sea, and she's right, all the blues we get here on Tiree.

Ah, apparently I failed to share these two photos:

Our back view now I've hacked the bush there into cooperation:





That path wasn't useable before, you had to detour onto the grass by about three feet to get round.  Now, it can be used.

This is the carnage from all that trimming:


Madam had a go at it, video was taken and I shall upload.  But right now, I go to prepare for Friday knitters :)

just a little post

Just a little post to share some photos...


My peg looming, this one is where I just changed colours when I felt like it.


This one I alternated which colour went over the central peg.


We've had sunshine!  Madam cooked herself happily


food?



An early morning walk allowed us to catch this rainbow


It seems July/August is the time for purple flowers...these tiny little ones and...


Thistles!


So, what do you get when you combine these with a husband and an active imagination?


balancing acts!




The bottles did survive, even with yours truly stood atop, although some lids were very flat topped afterwards.

Anyway, I have ravellenic knitting to do.  TTFN.

Busy weekend

This past weekend (starting with Friday the 20th, ending Sunday the 22nd) was one heck of a busy weekend!

Friday was the agricultural show.  A chance for the locals and visitors to show off their animals and their handicrafts.  While I did take photos of animals, I completely forgot to take the camera to the handicrafts tent, oops!

Giant horses




This black one was apparently being moody.


Jo and I loved these little ponies, they were pretty much barrels with legs.


A very warm ram


Highland calf



Saturday and Sunday were afternoons only, so I did get some kip.  I was helping out with showing off weaving, this is the table with the little looms that attracted a young girl (well, nearly 11yo) who pretty much spent the whole TMF (Tiree Music Festival) weaving with us.  She has a real thing for neons, the yellow and the multineon are mine that I donated so I told her to keep them, she was so thrilled with the brightness!






Every time the big loom came free she was on and adding to the banner.


Jane having a play


Proof men can weave


So can kiddiwinks


In fact, any age!















Much fun was had, many hands took up a shuttle and wove.  Sunday 6pm was the grand reveal!

Fiona carefully releasing the banner, all 2.69m (I think I remember that correctly)


Going from right to left, the start:


The end:


The whole banner, closer and in more sections:

















Even the birdies were being artistic at the weekend!  I saw this deposit on the window and just had to get a photo.


This week has been me recovering.  I've also discovered a liking for very milky coffee which is having some interesting effects (I can finally sleep like a log, but the timing is still off).

Tomorrow evening the-games-that-cannot-be-named start and so do the Ravellenics!  I need to swatch the shawl to check I like the fabric and I could really do with finishing the scarf sitting next to me to free up a cable and tips.

I've got photos of my peg weaving from the TMF weekend, but you'll have to wait for those, my PC went on the fritz (power supply went wonky and corrupted my Windows install quite impressively) so I've reinstalled Windows AGAIN, backed up a clean install this time, after spending 6 hours sitting with updates.  So I'm not really in the mood for image adjusting.  oooh, I do have some videos...

Jo flying the kite:


Me flying the kite (with Jo's sarky comments)



Finally, a little video by Jo of night on Tiree.

This week we've mostly been...

Mowing.  Firstly let me say: if you ever move into a house where the 'lawn' hasn't been trimmed for years, we can highly recommend a Mountfield RS100.  I kid you not, this tiny thing (only 100cc engine), when pushed by a person (it can propel itself) can slowly, and steadily, work down a meadow.

realises she's missing an up to date photo, nips off, comes back 5 mins later with photos and video<

Okay, the video's not worth the effort, but let me share photos.

When we moved in, the house and garden looked like this:



Since then Spring crept in and turned all that brown grass into two foot long meadow.  Lovely for the frogs, crickets and birdies, bit messy looking to us and playing merry heck with my hayfever!

Well, the front lawn now looks like this:


This was my humble effort over the week:



And Jo has even started down the side of the house!  We are taking turns mowing, but my hands and wrists complain about ripping the start cord fast enough, plus all that mown grass seed is making my eyes itch like billy-oh.



And here is the little device that's making all this happen:


and this is the grass mound we're making:

Yeah, the garage is starting to get a leeeetle crowded now!  Doesn't help that there's a dead electric mower in the corner behind the bike too, not sure what to do with that, it was here when we moved so I'm wary of advertising it for someone to come take incase the NATS folks ask for it or something.


So, the rest of the week.


Tiny purple flowers down at the resouce centre.  I've got no idea what they are, but they're cute.



This is my spinning wheel, an Ashford Traditional.  It was sitting outside because I'd just spent some time brushing it over with linseed oil then wiping off the excess.  It stank to high heaven but it's now looking very happy and well fed.  Fiona and I are doing a little spinning demo at the agricultural show this Friday and the consideration is if we only have enough room for one wheel to take this one as it's more what people expect.



What else?
Alice sent us a kite!  I admit to being a bit bemused to begin with, but it is rather fun to fly.





Jo showing his skills.


Me managing to stay aloft.


A fairly common scene.  Less so with Jo, but when we took it to the beach the second time he made up for it ;)



I think this seagull had a similar accident:



I finished my Inkle weaving.  I think I might stick some D rings on it and have a new belt, but for now it's just sitting about.  My grandparents did send me some money and I spent a fair bit buying some finer threads for playing on the inkle loom, this thick cotton makes nice stripes, but anything fancily patterned looks loose and blah.



Yesterday saw me in receipt of two zwartble fleeces from the farmer up the road.  Apparently he'd like a scarf for each of his daughters I think it was, four scarves I've been told!  Last night I sorted them, pulling off the poo-ey bits and the matted bits and the bits that weren't really worth the effort.  I still had a good bit left.  Here is about 1/6th of what I have soaking in a hot bath:


The water afterwards:  Impressive what one sheepy picks up in a year.


And out drying.  The hockey sticks are to keep it put.  It'll stay in place initially because of the weight of water, but when that gets too low the wind tries to steal my fleece!  There's about 3x this now washed, the rest was nearly dry so I put it back in the mesh bag and peggd that on the line to air dry.



And that's about it.  I do have some videos too, but one of them is nearly 50MB so I'll post those later.