Saint John's Eve

On the evening of the 23rd of June every year, strange and magical events on are happening all throughout Cornwall, and around the world. Descended from pagan times, one Saint John's Eve tradition is the lighting of special bonfires on the tops of hills, from Lands end, right up to Kit Hill near Plymouth. Bonfires were often lit in the past on midsummer to ward of evil spirits and Witches, who were said meet to this time. They also used to jump over the bonfire with the cry of "Meigas Fora" (Cornish for "Witches Off!"), but somehow I didn't quite fancy jumping over this one.

 Right off in the distance you could even see the next bonfire in the chain all the way down to Lands End, a bit like in Lord of the Rings!

I thought this image was quite interesting because to me it looks like there is a huge face leaping out of the flames, like one of the midsummer spirits it is said to protect against.

I also made some Midsummer charm bags embroidered with the solar cross and using some of my turmeric handspun wool. Saint Johns Eve was also the traditional time for women to collect magical plants and herbs for a variety of uses, such as fennel, rosemary, yarrow, and elderflowers, and little charm bags like these are a good way to use them.

Plymouth Ravens

Theres a place in the heart of Plymouth where creatures like rabbits, buzzards, and crows thrive. A place that is so wildly overgrown its easy to pretend you have been transported to the edge of some country village.

Central park is also the home of two huge ravens, who roost in a tall dark tree overlooking the cemetery. I just couldn't believe it the first time I saw one,  I always thought they were only found in places the mountains of wales. And of course the tower of London. One reason for their success must surely come from a woman I met today, who says she has been feeding them raw chicken every day for 19 years. Apparently they wont go near anyone else but they come right up to her, along with the buzzards. What an amazing and expensive hobby! 

these first two photos are of a raven in their special tree and the last two are of crows. I hope one day to take a picture of both ravens and crows in the same photo to show the amazing size difference, but today they seemed a little wet and grumpy to do anything other than huddle in their tree. And to be honest I was a little too wet and soggy to stay out that long.

Day Trip to Cornwall

With my new batch of earrings all packed up and ready to go, today I made the trip to the Upcycled Home Co where they are going to be sold. Its a fairly long journy (by foot) taking me through Plymouth to a quaint little edge with lots of little old houses, on a ferry accross the Tamar, and up through the lush green Mount Edgcume with its cows and rooks and swallows. Oh poor me :)

 Whenever I come here in the summer, I always see the swallows skimming the same hill for insects and marvel at their almost bat-like, otherworldly glide.
As I had a good half an hour to kill I decided to try and photograph them as they sped around, but soon started to wish I knew how to change the shutter speak because they are extremely fast. I had to take 283 photographs just to get these extremely blurry images. 283!

 There is a tiny little pebbly beach down by where the ferry picks you up, that I have noticed not only had a lot of brightly coloured sea glass, but also lots of coins from where people have been getting their purses out and dropped into the sea. I've found all sort down there, lots of penny's the occasional 20, 50 and pound coin, and then today I found a tiny half penny. Now half pennies went out of circulation in 1984 so this one must have been in the sea for at least 32 years, unless my maths is totally crap!

More Turmeric Dying

Apparently you can get different colours from turmeric by using other chemicals such as soap and baking powder. I thought this sounded pretty good as they are household ingredients anyway, maybe I'm just too lazy to try using some of the special mordents like allum and things. I suppose you can probably buy them on the internet, but theres something so satisfying about using things you have in your cupboard or can find in the wild.
I decided to try and get a redish colour using baking powder and turmeric, so I boiled about 2 pints of water with 3 teaspoons of turmeric powder, then added about 3 teaspoons of baking powder. I was pretty amazed by how quickly the mixture turned red, I was half expecting it to not really do anything.

 Eddie seemed intrigued by the strange mixture and asked if he could tie dye one of his old greying T-shirts. There wasn't enough room and he thought anything orange or redish might clash with his auburn hair, so we made him up a fresh batch of yellow turmeric dye. I hadn't done tie dying since I was about 7 so I was a little apprehensive about ruining his top, but good ol' Pinterest came to the rescue and showed us how to do it! Using elastic bands and little bits of sea glass and coins and things we tied lots of knots and bobbles all over.

 I used a but of my handspun, which instantly turned a gorgeous crimson colour.

 Wooohooo! It worked! The colour got a bit lighter as it dried but I'm still pretty pleased with the result, and Eddies well chuffed :)

The Yarn turned out pretty amazingly too, with a gorgeous burnt orage colour I never thought was possible to achieve with just turmeric and baking powder.

Im still deciding what to do with most of it but I did use a tiny bit, along with some plain turmeric dyed and tea dyed handspun, to make this little friendship bracelet. I think this would be a great activity to do with a class of kids. They could seperate out into a few groups and all dye some wool with a different natural dye, and then they could be taught how to make friendship bracelets using the wool they all dyed. They could even spin the wool on drop spindles!

Messy Mossy

For an adorably cute and fluffy bunny, Mossy is remarkably goatlike. I mean don't get me wrong, I love goats. I just don't love them when they chew on anything and everything, pull up the carpet and eat all your favourite books. Note to self: Never EVER rent a room with carpet in ever again!
I have been trying to distract her from the carpet by giving her lots of cardboard boxes filled with hay, and by putting books on the places she loves to dig, but she ignores the boxes, and destroys the books in her furious attempts to get back to digging the carpet.

Its so hard to take pictures of a dark coloured rabbit, but I thought this picture perfectly illustrated my point!

Its hard to stay angry at her though, especially when she flops down next to me in a big puddle of fluff waiting for me to stroke her, she is quite sweet really... Even if shes back to nibbling my shoe.

Mount Edgcumbe Earrings

At last, I have finished melting down the sea glass from Mount Edgcumbe into little droplets and transforming them into earrings. It took a while, especially since I couldn't get the blue ones the same size for aaages. I had to keep on chipping a little bit off one droplet and re-melting it onto the other to make a matching pair, but I think it was worth it.

Lots of Socks

I have a weakness for making one sock, getting distracted by some lovely new wool, and then going strait onto the next pair without finishing the second one! To be honest I probably have enough knitted socks by now, but I can't seem to stop making them. I think when you know the pattern off my heart its so easy to just sit down in front of the TV and then before you know it, a new pair of socks magically appears before you! I think I need to learn another easy pattern, maybe a hat? Or some fingerless gloves? Something quick enough that it doesn't become boring, but also something that feels like a bit of an achievement. 

I recently found a load of wool in a charity shop, 4 hanks of 100% Shetland wool for £2! Bargain! Its 2ply so it actually looks pretty like my handspun (I'm a tiny bit tempted to say it was). So here me finishing off the first sock using two of the hanks. I think these subtle colours give a really nice earthy look, perfect for those autumn days in a few months time.

 Love love love! Seeing as I have finished neither pair, I am tempted to just start wearing them together as I think they look pretty awesome, but I think I'll save the left one for a present. The one on the right is one I spun and knitted a while ago then the yellow was dyed with Turmeric.