Huddie Horror - yuck

Look no further if you are particularly squeamish!

From the kitchen window, I saw Huddie pouncing around behind one of the raised beds. The bed is now empty, all the old growth cleared away for the winter. Went to investigate, whereupon Huddie assumed the innocent pose:

But wait, why is he shielding the raised bed?

NOOOO! What's that beside the hole?

And now he's grabbed it out and laid it on the lawn:

Yuck - it's a raw chicken leg covered with earth!

I shooed him into the house, followed him in and donned a pair of kitchen gloves to pick this thing up.

That done, I returned to find……..it's gone!!

In the space of a few minutes something - probably airborne - swopped in and snatched the delicious morsel!!

Huddie proceeded to follow me around the house, giving me side-long glances and licking his chops (his way of indicating hunger ). He thought I'd stolen his prize - I had to give him a clean piece of chicken to fill the gap in his belly.

Odd thing is, he's just been communing via email with his lady friend, Hollie, concerning his previous escapades with hens eggs (he stole and buried 4 dozen of them when I had hens - I found them in the raised bed for 2 years). It must have stirred up that memory.

Royal Cana ls still lovely

Walks by the canal near Ballymahon still lovely even now in early December .
Huddie runs ahead

Some horses on the way

And Huddie let them be :).


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Merino on the Drop Spindle

Getting around to spinning this Merino 18.5 mic. which I purchased from Wingham Wool Work.

I think it is about 150 grams

First little hank: 26 grams, 66 yarns, grist 1173 yards/lb

Hank 2 now in progress, waiting to be plied and finished.:

It will probably get dyed when it's all done - whenever that may be!

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Blue-green yarn

SO pleased with Ravelry for adding a spinners section so one can ass details of hand spun yarns!! It makes it so much easier to record those details about how the yarn was made - a pretty boring task, a little sting in the tail after the pleasure of completing some hand pun.
Added this one:

I've got the details in my Handspun store on Ravelry :).

Autumn Fire Kool Aid Batt

My washed fleece, the short made into a batt on my drum carder and dyed with several Kool Aid colors including: Lemon Lime, Grape, Black Cherry, Mandarin, Lemonade.

So, I plan to divine the batt into strips, front to back, and spin a worsted weight with 2 plus. Alternately, if it feels right, I'll spin it and navajo-ply it keeping the colors separate.

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Cat's Paw neck warmer and Green dyed Hank

I have a little Bean Neigh yarn left - it was tripled - I think I had used it like that to knit a head band. I kept putting off unwinding it into three mall ball - but eventually I got around to it but only because I could bring it to our craft groups which alleviated the boredom.

It will become a neck warmer. I wanted to try Elizabeth Lovick's Cat's Paw Scarf . I've had the pattern for a while having got it, I think, at a Ravelry event in England some years ago. It is a simple Shetland pattern with a nice balance between holes and knitted parts. I don't see the cat's paw too well in my version but I like it anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm spinning some fleece into 3 hanks of singles and plan to dye each one differently then ply then together.

The first one is a green mix, a hank (about 300 yards) of hand spun singles dyed green using a mix of yellow and blue dyes

The next hank is to be dyed blue:

The veg steamer is good for holding the yarn down in the dye pot and stop it floating out of the dye.

 And good for straining it when the yarn is taken out

Rinsing out.

The third hank (planned to be a very dark blue) is still on the wheel

Hope to add them all together by weeks end.

Hats, hats and A Few Days in Donegal

Stayed in a luxury hotel - Eske Castle Hotel, which lived up to its luxury claims. The days were rather overcast with a little rain but that didn't bother us - especially as the restaurant food in nearby Donegal town was excellent. We visited Derry (wall of etc) and Glencar too.
On the way there we stopped at the Crafters Basket in Sligo and I got myself a head - a styrofoam one that is, to model my knitted hats:
She's a bit eerie, the head, but very obedient.
I must practice taking photos - here's some anyway:

Back to Donegal:

Some of the statuary in the grounds of the hotel:

Glencar waterfall:

Other pics: 

A warm wind

Mountainy nSheep of course

and Lawnmower sheep

Into An Grianan Alleach

That'll do.

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