Woad Dye - Happy Blues

 I had a very small crop of home grown woad to harvest. This Summer in my garden it has been very hot and sunny so I was unsure if I would be able to get any colour from the dye pot, but as you can see in the following photos I'm absolutely thrilled as I managed to achieve such a beautiful blue dye with the first dip! My woad plants have soaked in those sun rays!
 
The process is done using the vat dyeing method.
 Pure magic -woad blue from simple green leaves.

 In this photo you can observe the wool beginning to change colour as I remove it from the dye bath.

 My Hand Spun Art Yarn looks really gorgeous, the soft twists and coils of yarn soaks up lots of colour giving me a wonderful deep shade of blue.

 I continued to dip and dye some more skeins of various hand spun wool, each skein becoming a lighter shade as the dye bath became exhausted. Four in total.

Happy Blues!

And some more happy blues:

August here on the Isle Of Wight means Cowes Week with plenty of sailing going on, lots to see and do, enjoying the beaches and Island life with our family coming over to stay. Getting out and about under all these lovely blue skies.

Now I do need to update you on my post of April this year when I told you about our dear old Mirror dinghy being in need of some serious attention and repairs. As she was unseaworthy in her present state we decided to let her go.
 Don't be sad- She was very keenly snapped up just as she was, taken to be decorated and dressed for a very important role as part of the Shanklin Float Procession full of happy smiling children. See photo below.
A glory few days looking rather splendid. 

So yes I'm a little blue and miss her (someone else will enjoy getting her back on the water ).
 We still have Peewit and of course there are always new adventures awaiting and our blue sailing holidays in Greece to look forward.

 Blue Solent.

Sailing on the Tide - Dinghies

A View of Wootton Creek at Low Tide.

With better weather finally arriving on the island, our sailing season begins.
But we are not ready!!
This winter we had to leave our two dinghies down at the river's edge on their plots in the dinghy park as our road trailer has broken, so we were not able to tow them home to overwinter in the shelter of our garden. This isn't usually a problem as we have left them down to overwinter at the river  before in case we wanted to use them.  But this winter has been particularly bad and it has taken it's toll on our poor little boats.

Peewit (left) Red 5 (right)

 They both look very sorry for themselves. Our Mirror dinghy has the added problem of it's launching trolley wheel has a puncture, along with it being full of rain water and generally soggy.

 Poor little Peewit had to be turned upside down  mid winter as her boat cover ripped in the winds. This has meant her paintwork on the hull has cracked and is flaking off, but thankfully she is sound.

 So Skipper has his work cut out to get these two back on the water.

Rigging, sails, boom, gaff and all the bits and bobs to fit out both dinghies are safely stored at home. I shall gather everything together, check the sails and sheets and make some sandwiches, add a flask of tea, a slice or two of cake and together we will spend some time down at the riverside getting our two little boats ship shape for the season.  

 When the tide floods in and the sea breeze calls, our two little dinghies will be ready to unfurl their sails and dance out on the wavelets of sparkling water...

 Crew's View As The Sails Fill 

Sailing Fun -Our Mirror Dinghy

A warm sunny day, a SSW breeze F3 gusting 4, an incoming tide, our old Mirror dinghy and a couple of hours free to enjoy it all!

We rig her up and get her on the water. We sail her up river to Windy Corner where the River Medina is at her widest and there is plenty of room for a small dinghy to frolic in the breeze, get very wet in the spray and bounce through the lively wavelets.

Skipper at the helm, me as crew we reached our little dinghy back and forth across the river just for the fun of it! not going anywhere, not racing around buoys but just making our way from one bank to the other.

 I planned to take a lot more photos but as the wind got up in the afternoon it became quite gusty, I needed to have both hands for the jib sheet to control the little front sail (jib) to spill the wind if necessary if the gust was a bit strong. 

Our little dinghy was flying nicely along and we were entertainment for the yachts circling in a queue for the lock gate at Island Harbour Marina. There are great advantages to having a little boat, we were sailing- they were motoring, sails away waiting for a mooring- we were enjoying the breeze.

From the shore, walkers were taking holiday snaps of the river and our little dinghy, I'm sure she looked energetic and happy taking the white spray over her bows and getting me soaked through and salted!  

 After a lovely sail we had built up a good appetite so we headed back down river to the dinghy park and The Folly Inn. The tide by now was right up to the shoreline which means no long hauls out on the trolley or wading through mud. Instead we sail right up to the pub. Of course when the pub is full of folk watching you do this I'm always thinking I'd better get this right with such an audience!

Turn into wind, lower the main, raise the centre board, have a paddle at the ready in case it's needed but much better to  use the jib to gently sail to shore, land smoothly and disembark gracefully.

 Yeap this time 10 out of 10, that felt good- I have been known to get in a pickle such as get the centre board jammed or trip over ropes. Thankfully with a packed pub watching our little dinghy behaved.

Looking forward to our next Cast Off

 

A cool drink and a late afternoon lunch.