Frisian Frillies

For at least a year (probably longer) I've had some sachets of Landscape dyes lying about. Use them? Eh... No. I've wanted to a few times, got out the yarn I spun, got scared, put the yarn away again and pushed the dye sachets back into the drawer. But after seeing all those luscious colours of homespun yarn on Ravelry, the dyeing bug got the better of me. I got my spun yarn out and got to work... The undyed homespun yarn I slightly rinsed out the yarn again, and then it was time for magic: I put the kettle on with some dye and did some witchcraft... My best witchy recipe... Two pots on the stove with a lovely luscious aubergine soup (combination of Plum and Clematis)... I was pretty proud of myself having gotten this far! After half an hour of heating the yarn, (carefully) turning it over a few times, I started to get a bit panicky, because the dye didn't seem to 'catch'. After a quick chat with my Twitter yarnies, I realized I should have actually degreas...

It was supposed to be a nice outing, to see some more sheep being shorn, enjoy the glorious sunshine, buy some nice goodies, sit down and knit and spin with some of my homeys, chat some more as well, drink coffee, have cake, blah blah. And then the day came. And the heavens opened. Even though it rained, we did go, me and the little Mermaid. See, we had seen on the good old tinternets that the rain would subside and it would become nice. It was just a bit of a shame that the good old tinternets was slightly accurate in that respect. The rain kept falling, although it was just a drizzle, and the wind kept blowing. But isn't it weird that when after three hours of tramping around on a field in your boots, when you don't even feel your toes anymore, you look at each other, smile, and go: THAT WAS GREAT! It was great! We had a great time. And yes, sunshine would have helped, as the rain had scared some of the stallholders away (I didn't blame them, some actually got blown awa...

Some days you don't see any sheep, other days you're surrounded by them... Last weekend, we went camping with our new tent, quite close to home (an hour away) at a lovely nature campsite at Langedijke. In between the potato fields was a small field with high grass and some camping areas set out. We almost felt like we were in the south of France, it was that idyllic! We looked out on to the sheep enclosure, where two black sheep were living the life of Riley. They obviously were used to people, because every time someone even walked along the fence, they would come up to you, in the hope you brougth them some nice food. Little scoundrels! The weather on Sunday was glorious, and we had great fun at Doldersum, where there was a small sheep shearing fest. The shepherd took his time shearing the animals, doing only two and then taking a break to flex his (very brown) arms and wave his locks about, but in the mean time we could watch the sheepdog show off his tricks, felt a nice ...