On Our Mooring

 It's has been great to be back out on the boats finally! We've been having cold, wet and  windy weather just lately so this was the first opportunity to take our Mirror dinghy out on the water this Season. We were meeting up in the afternoon for some informal "racing around the buoys" with our fellow dinghy sailors, so Skipper and I got out there early to do some fine tuning and have a bit of practise! I say "informal" but racing sailors are always competitive!!
We sailed over to our Swing Mooring where our little Sunstar18 is kept and tied up alongside. Whenever we are aboard we always fly our club burgee and of course our Ensign flag. They flutter brightly in a breezy NE wind.

    

 The tide is still low as we have our lunch which includes a nice hot mug of tomato soup. It is lovely to see the sunshine and blue sky but the breeze is rather cool. I love spending time on our mooring just watching the river. I sit at the bow and watch the river bubbling and rolling in, happy and gurgling, slapping and sploshing on our mooring chain. The sunlight dances on the tops of the wavelets. We watch the shore as the other dinghies get rigged and launched ready for the racing,

And so we climb back on board our dinghy and  join the little red sails of the other Mirrors and have a great afternoon chasing around the course followed by the customary drink and banter in the pub at the end of the day. 

Hand Painted Yarn

At the IW Weavers, Spinners and Dyers Guild we had a "Fun Day" of Hand Painting Yarn with Dyes. It was an opportunity to mess about with lots of colour and experiment with painting techniques. First we soaked our yarn samples in warm soapy water so as they would absorb the colours more easily.














Then laying the yarn on some cling film it was time to get all creative. I love colour and although it was so tempting to dip my paint brush in all the dye pots! I tried very hard to take it slow and carefully consider the colour blending





Once painted the yarn was wrapped up in the cling film and placed in a steamer for around ten minutes to fix the coloured dye.

At home I was able to wash the yarn samples in clear water and dry in the garden.

 These are my little skeins of colour, 4x 25grms of kid angora and 50grms of hand spun wool and silk.  

Doesn't it look yummy? I'm not sure what I will do with these blasts of colour yet, I think I will certainly enjoy knitting or weaving them in one of my projects though.

 I love the process of my craft from thinking up an idea to developing it into a piece of knitted work. Whether it's spinning the wool, weaving the cloth; it's very satisfying making something unique. I shall ponder on this yarn and see what it wants to be... 

Simple Cheerful Weaving

 Back in January I blogged about wanting to weave some cloth with a nautical or seaside theme using wide stripes of colour. A basket full of oddments of coloured yarn left over from recent stock making items was catching my eye every time I entered my work room, all the colours just looked so lovely and enticing, muddled up and cheerful!
 So rather sorting them and placing them back up on the shelves where I store my yarn in orderly colour sections I set up my loom and got creating.  

With no particular plan I threaded the Warp, it was a matter of just grabbing a colour from the basket just like a "lucky dip"as I knew all the colours sat well with one another anyway so it was real freedom and pleasure to enjoy the creative process and relax and watch the cloth spring to life. 

 I selected two very pale soft cotton yarn in a cream and green to load on the shuttle for the Weft as I wanted the stripes to become the main pattern of the fabric.

There was just enough cloth woven to be able to make this little scatter cushion. A "stash busting" using oddments cheerful cloth that reminds me of deck chairs on the beach and seaside holidays! 
I thoroughly enjoyed "going with the flow" and just weaving on my loom, pure and simple is often the best. 

All About Boats

It has been a busy time over the bank holiday weekend, with plenty to do to prepare all the boats for our sailing season.
Peewit our little dinghy looks beautiful again with her varnish job finished, she was loaded on the trailer and taken down to her little plot in the dinghy park.

Our Mirror dinghy caused a bit of extra work! While Skipper was getting her ready for her turn on the trailer he noticed some rotten wood, at least the area of concern was well above the waterline (port transom). So she had to be worked on, patched up and painted before she was ready for sailing and taken down to the river too.

Photos above show our Sunstar 18 having her coat of anti foul paint on her hull and some maintenance work done on her rudder. She will be lifted back onto the river in just over a week's time.

All our little boats are waiting for the tide, sunny days and adventures!

Wool and Willow

We have just spend a relaxing few days holidaying in Somerset. Glorious Spring sunshine for the whole of our stay allowed us to fully enjoy the wonderful countryside. We stayed on a farm in a beautifully converted Coach House.
The farm has a small flock of Jacob sheep. Here are some of the expectant Mums, lambs due any day now.

The farmer has just had the first delivery of mill spun wool from the Jacob fleeces. She had all the colours blended together and this has produced a shade of soft grey yarn. This being a new venture for her I was thrilled to lend my support and purchase some yarn for my knitting and weaving projects. It is particularly good to meet the flock, know where they live and of course buy British wool.



On one of our days out we walked the Willow & Wetlands and visited
http://www.englishwillowbaskets.co.uk/

A British company that is growing and weaving willow. I spotted in their visitors centre and museum a very old spinning wheel but more interestingly a woven basket named a "Crealagh" which is used to store fleece ready to spin. I think it is so lovely, simple in design, functional and aesthetically pleasing. It is important to store natural fibres in natural containers so as the air can circulate and keep them fresh. (I store my fleece in hessian bags).
Sadly they didn't have any such items available in the shop, but I'm sure I could order one be spoke!

However I did treat myself to this pretty little willow basket which I will use for my carded "ready to spin" fibres.

Wool and Willow.

Lovely reminders of a great holiday!

The Sailing Season Approaches

Spring sunshine, a fresh light breeze, the Sea is calling us again and our little boats seem to smile in the Sun as their covers come off and they get some tender loving care.
It's time to get all our little boats ready and shipshape for this year's Sailing Season!

First job on the list; Peewit our PBO Pup dinghy which Skipper built himself 6 years ago, is in need of a new coat of varnish on her gunwale (upper edge of the boat's side)



An afternoon was spent in the garden scraping off the loose cracked coat and sanding and preparing for the varnish.
She is now indoors drying with several layers of varnish being applied over this week and will very soon be ready to rig up and get down to the water.

Hand Felted Bowl

A Spring Time Hand Felted Bowl

At the IW Spinners,Weavers & Dyers Guild I attended a workshop held by Gillian Chapman
(to find out more about her work pop over to her blog at
http://www.gillianchapmanfelts.info/2012/02/workshops-update.html )

Usually I hand knit and then hand felt my work so this was a really enjoyable learning process as it is a totally different method of felting and although my finished bowl is a little wonky I'm pretty pleased all the same for a first effort!



I made the bowl with merino tops of cheerful spring time colours and for the design I twisted and curled a wool yarn around the 3d shape to represent a growing stem and used little tufts of pink merino to denote flower buds.



The inside of the bowl is made with a lovely Mediterranean blue fibre with pink fibres in the shape of a star.

I had a lovely day making this, it's always good to have a go at something new and now I know the basic technique I look forward to experimenting with different fibres and designs.