KiwiCat's updates

The weather this weekend was great and we made good use of it.

My clotheline area is now cobbled, so no more walking on the dewy grass.

The washing got out mid afternoon and surpriningly all but three items did get dry before we lost the sun for the day. Impressive for the time of the year.

While the boys were busy cobbling, I was alternating between, cooking, dyeing wool, and yes resting as well.

I was recently given a second hand pie maker, so gave that a go with some leftover beef stew to make steak pies.

I’m still figuring out how long to cook them, whether or not to eggwash the tops, and so on. The machine only does two at a time so it was an exercise in patience waiting for it to cool down beween sets.

Fortunately I had the dyeing to fill in the gaps. It’s been nearly 18 months since I last did any, and finding all the various bits proved harder than expected as things have gotten scattered. I was hoping to use my avocado and onion leftovers – the the avocado skins and pits are taking up space in the freezer – but those have to be done in two steps for best results and I couldn’t find my alum. We found it on Sunday but by then it was really too late. I’ll do that over the next few weeks.

So for this time I’m using Ashford acid dyes. I have three colours left over from my last dye experiments in late 2024: violet, orange and coal. I suspect they’re well past when they should have been used but the results show the violet at least is still potent.

Mixing the dyes in different propotions gave me a range of purples doen to a dusky rose. That last is mostly orange with just a little violet.

I still have yarn left for the avocado and onion dyeing when I get to them.

I’ll post the results when they’re done.