Winter woad

I planted some seeds from some of my woad plants in August. I thought they might germinate next spring - however, a dozen grew into fairly large plants by October. While they have not had much sunshine so probably had less indigo in them, I decided to take a chance on using them to dye 2 oz of my sheep's fleece that I had already combed into tops.

Below: strained leaves with baking soda being oxygenated

Below: sitting in a warm water pot after spectralite added

Below: wool soaked for 1/2 hour then lifted to turn blue in the air

Below: Powder blue top

I added another 2 oz and got an "icy blue" after soaking.

It's a pale blue only but rather nice - a wintery blue I suppose.

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Relearning spinning wheel - standing up

I got my Ashford Traveller wheel with it's 2 treadles several years ago and it's worked well for me but in recent timesI'm having such a lot of trouble sitting down. Sitting provokes pain around the greater trochanter of the femur and ischium on the left side.

That makes using my wheel pretty impossible. E-spinners are SO expensive that I dismissed the idea of getting one of those 'though I could have used one while standing.

I decided treadling while standing up - obviously using just one treadle at a time . Actually it works! - I alternate beet - but so far I'm successful using the right-most pedal only. I'm gradually getting my drifting similar to how it was while sitting down and plying doesn't seem to present much problems.

The picture is not great. I tried to show my left foot on the right treadle while spinning a single.

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Another bird in the hand

A few years ago, a robin came into the house and I carried it around for quire a while before it got lifted on a gust of wind and flew away. I think a link to that little vide is on my blog somewhere.
A few days ago, a finch went into the garage - probably through the cat flat and ended up beating itself against the window. Lucky for it, Rufus, master killer cat, wasn't in his lair in the garage so I was able to scoop it up and carry it out. It clung to my fingers until it got its breath back then eventually flew off.