Not expectant as in expecting little terriers:
But expectant in terms of expecting her boss to feed her apple!
It is not often that she sits still long enough to have a proper portrait taken of her, but you can work wonders with a bit of sweet apple. However such hard concentration means a terrier tends to forget her tongue:
On the shop front, I have extended the range of colours in the na dannsairean 4ply yarn. The latest colours added to the range are Bracken:
which would look stunning mixed with Dark Chocolate
to make Tempest, a simple but effective cardigan.
Another new shade is Red, red wine:
All these are up in the shop now, but if you want a particular colour for a project and there is insufficient stock showing in the shop, please get in touch. All the colours are repeatable.
Earlier this week I was pleased to welcome Dorothy to the dye shed. Dorothy and I first met at Gardening Scotland a couple of years ago. Dorothy is a weaver, and the projects on her blog always leave me saying “ooooohhhh” and “aaaahhh” while reading. Her work is wonderful. I have been wanting to learn how to weave for a while now, so it was great to be able to pick Dorothy’s brain about looms and the best way of going about learning. I think it may be a while before I get started!
Unfortunately I didn’t take any photographs, so I can’t prove she visited, but she left me with a beautiful piece of her work as a gift:
Now the eagle eyed among you will see the label says “Tea Towel”:
and although I did promise Dorothy that it would be a used item rather than something that was decorative, I’m not sure I can quite bring myself to use it as a tea towel. I am so in awe of anything woven that right now I’m tempted to frame it and put it on the wall as a piece of art!
In exchange I was able to show her around the dye shed, introduce her to some of the basics of dyeing, and show her the surrounding landscape which provides so much of my inspiration. Andhaving a captive audience I suspect I probably did way too much chattering, for which I apologise, Dorothy. After lunch at The Mission it was all too soon time for her to leave and head home again. But it was a lovely day, and one which Stevan and I topped off with a walk to Lexies Loch – it was so still there was hardly a ripple on the water.
With our visit to Tanera Mor on Friday I got a little behind with dyeing this past week, so I had intended spending the whole weekend in the dye shed, and I did – yesterday! But today was just glorious, and I’m afraid the hills were calling too strongly for me to ignore. My ignoring the dye shed was helped along by four pleading brown eyes from two terriers asking for a good, long walk.
So I gave in and we set off. There was just a sprinkling of snow on Quinaig in the distance, adding a chill to the wind that was pretty strong as we reached the higher points along the walk:
The wind was pretty biting, so I’m not looking at my most glamourous, all wrapped, up, but this is one of my favourite views on this particular walk:
The above photo is looking north, and looking the opposite way this is the view you get:
Stunning!
And while Stevan and I enjoyed a little break and snack, Lexie decided the time was well spent looking at the view:
We now have two very quiet, sleeping dogs! Tomorrow I’ll get back to the dyeing.
And just to prove I did do some work yesterday, I’ve added 3 colours to the na dannseirean range:
The mustard/ginger shade has already sold out, but I will be dyeing more so let me know if you’d like to pre-order some.
Today dawned beautifully calm and sunny, which was perfect weather for our planned visit to the island of Tanera Mor. Tanera Mor is the island that will host the 2 retreats planned for later this year in September, a joint venture between Tanera Mor and Ripples Crafts.
We had arranged to meet Lizzie and Richard, who look after the island, at the little pier at Badentarbert. We arrived a little early, having stopped on the way to take photographs of some of the peaks in Assynt, as well as a stag with the most magnificent antlers:
Before long we were on our way on the small rib across to the island. (Those coming on the retreat will not be travelling on the rib – the Patricia, which is a larger boat, is currently being serviced).
Richard dropped us of at the jetty closest to the two houses that will be used in the retreat – Schoolhouse and Farmhouse. Lizzie explained that at one time there were enough people living on the island to need a school, which I hadn’t realised.
After having a look around the two houses (the views from all the bedrooms are stunning!) we headed inland a bit to have a walk around the island. Everywhere we looked there were wonderful views – our cameras were working overtime. Here is the view looking back towards Schoolhouse with the mainland beyond it:
On the west side of the island you get incredible views across the smaller Summer Isles:
Our walk took us past the ancient apple orchard, the graveyard reputed to date back to the 1100′s, and the herring factory dating to the 1700′s.
All too soon, after a wonderful lunch with Lizzie and Richard (we’re not going to starve when we’re on the island!) it was time to return to the mainland.
All I can say is the retreats are going to be great fun, a rather big adventure, and very, very peaceful.
On our journey home we were treated to a beautiful rainbow, which was the perfect end to a lovely day.
There are very limited spaces left on the second week of the retreats, and if you’d like further details then please contact Lizzie on the island – you can find all the details here.
Thank you for the wonderful response I’ve had via comments and e-mails and messages on Ravelry to the new na dannsairean yarn. I’m very excited about it and have spent the whole day in the dyeshed dyeing up a storm today. Here are the shades from todays work – the photographs are not great as I took them while the yarn was still a little damp, so the hanks are not very neat, but I’ll take some more tomorrow when it is dry, but I thought you’d want to see what I’d done today. I’ve decided to keep the colours fairly traditional, and they are all the sorts of colours you would see in nature around Assynt. However, if anyone wants a more non-traditional shade (pink anyone?) then please get in touch. I’m not averse to doing other colours, but I was happy to stick with these shades today as they really went well with the yarn.
I’m not that happy with the red as shown in this photograph. I feel it is a lot “warmer” than the colour shown. But as I said, I’ll have another go tomorrow.
There was a green, but it really was too damp to photograph accurately. Over the weekend I’ll be doing a grey and almost black version too. The first orders of this yarn got shipped out today, and I’ll be putting the 2 above up in the shop now.
Still on shop news, and talking of na dannsairean, mid afternoon today found me doing a merry dance around the dye shed – I received an e-mail confirming I’d been granted a stand at Woolfest this year. I was very pleased and excited and I look forward to seeing friends and customers, old and new, in June.
And finally, I haven’t got very far with Still Light, but she is coming along nicely:
ably helped by Judith’s beautiful stitch markers.
We have been treated to the spectacle of the Aurora Borealis over the last few nights. Perhaps it has not been the incredible display like you get in more northern parts, but a sight nonetheless:
 Aurora over Stoer village Na dannsairean is the Gaelic for the Aurora and means Merry Dancers.
As it happened I had a delivery of new yarn this week, and one of them is a delightful tweedy yarn with neps of different colours – beige, cream and black. I was very excited to crack open the box and see the new yarn base, and I immediately put some on to soak and dyed it in one of my favourite shades – Winter Sea, which is a deep teal shade.
When thinking of a name for the yarn base my mind turned to old fashioned dances or ceilidhs where the ladies wore tweed skirts or jackets, and I initially thought to call the yarn “dansa”, but I felt it seemed appropriate to name it after the aurora, so Na dannsairean it is. I currently just have it in 4ply, but DK and Aran will be on its way next week. It knits up beautifully:
and I’m in the process of knitting Still Light using this yarn, a lovely tunic dress which I’m sure will get lots of wear and be extremely practical.
It is up in the shop now, just in two shades, but I will be dyeing more tomorrow, so watch this space!
Last night we were invited to friends to celebrate a Burns Supper. I was slightly concerned before leaving, as it is traditional to do a “party piece” at such ceilidhs, and not being one who likes to be the centre of attention I always struggle to think of something to do. So I was offered a challenge by the hostess, which I accepted, and that was to knit a hat while merriment was made by others at the celebration.
I chose some suitably chunky yarn (cheating, I know!) and large needles:
and we set off for our dinner. I know it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but we both happen to love haggis, especially when it is well prepared by the butcher (in this case Stephen Greenlees in Lochinver) and beautifully cooked by the host of the evening. The Haggis was piped to the table by Wilson, the son of our hosts Dorell and James, and of course it would not have been a Burns Supper without the Address tae the Haggis, which was diligently presented by Clare – who was quite fearsome with the dagger in her hand:
Kia, a well known Clachtoll resident, found the whole thing rather tiring:
She somehow managed to sleep through much of the music which ensued after the wonderful dinner of Haggis, Neaps and Tatties. Our hosts are an exceptionally musical family and so we were treated to bagpipes, small pipes, whistle, low whistle, guitar and piano, and while everyone joined in the singing of Burns songs I diligently knitted, and by the end of the evening we had one extremely non traditional Tam o’Shanter:
After all the haggis and merriment (to say nothing of the beautiful meringues, trifle, and tablet) a restorative walk was called for today.
On the shop front, I am waiting with great anticipation for the delivery man tomorrow, as I am hoping he will be bringing me some new yarn to dye. Unfortunately this is not the silk which so many of you have been asking me about – that will be another week or 10 days before it arrives, but this is a donegal nep tweed yarn which I am very excited about. So I will be dyeing up a storm this week. In the meantime, to keep you going, I have added more colours to the bluefaced leicester / nylon 4ply in the shop for you to enjoy.
This blog entry was supposed to tell you that I had put some of Judith’s stitch markers which I blogged about a few days ago in the shop, and that they were now available to purchase. But ….. I put them up in the shop this evening, and my stock all sold out in 30 minutes!
But fear not! There are more in the post to me from Judith and I will add them to the shop as soon as they arrive.
So …. as I can’t promote the sold out stitchmarkers, I will, instead, tell you about some new colours of bluefaced leicester 4ply that I have put up in the shop. There is Assynt Jewels:
Memories of Summer Skies:
Summer Roses:
And Inspired by Orchids:
In other news I am very excited to tell you that we are planning an Assynt Festival this year. There is a new website to keep you up to date with information (www.assyntfestival.org.uk) and you can also follow the festival twitter feed @assyntfestival. The dates of the festival are the 3rd to the 10th October 2012.
PS: At my nagging request, Stevan has been tinkering with the look of the blog. We’ve not made any major changes, but I do hope you like the subtle changes we’ve made.
It has been a very busy and eventful week, and I’ve had my head down all week doing different bits and bobs, but I was reminded very clearly by a piece in our local newspaper, The Assynt News, that we live in a remarkable part of the world and we really should not take it for granted. The writer is talking about having to get down to Inverness in the early morning and on the road they saw “47 deer, four rabbits, a fox and zero vehicles”. It struck me that I’ve been so busy over the last few months that I haven’t regularly been taking note of everything around me.
Yesterday we went for a shopping expedition to Tain, on the east coast, and I tried hard to be more observant of the abundant nature here, and my diligence was rewarded. We saw two different types of deer (red and roe), 4 buzzards, a heron and (drumroll………) an otter. And that was just the animals. Stopping to let the dogs stretch their legs we were enthralled by the display that the grasses put on after a frosty night:
Even the view over the Dornoch Firth from the supermarket car park in Tain takes some beating:
After a number of very windy and wet weeks, Sunday dawned beautifully sunny and clear, so taking full advantage we set off on a lengthy walk with the dogs. We climbed quickly, and before long we were looking down on the lovely Water Loch, where our household water comes from:
And although some of the hills were very steep, and it is some time since we took on quite such a long walk, the dogs took it in their stride:
And fortunately there was so much to photograph that the opportunity to stop and catch your breath came often!:
 A rare event - Me caught on camera And even though the predominant shades are currently brown and green, there are still flashes of other shades around including the purple you can see in the tops of the trees on the island in the middle of this lochan:
We now have two dog-tired humans, and two dogs stretched out in front of the fire to warm their weary muscles and bones. Sensible dogs!
After what feels like weeks and weeks of wind and rain, today dawned crisp, sunny and ice cold. It was lovely! We had blue sky for the whole day. And of course one of the benefits of being self employed is that your boss never complains when you decide to take some time off for a walk.
We set off with the dogs, and I decided to try the panoramic feature on my camera again – it has been a while since I tested it. So here is Lexie’s Loch – usually you just see snippets of it in various photographs. Here is (almost) the whole thing, bathed in glorious sunshine and covered with blue skies:
On the shop front, I have restocked the bluefaced leicester sock yarn shelves with Heather, Peat and Rock (as featured in The Knitter magazine this month):
 Heather, Peat and Rock as well as Assynt Hill Tartan, Red, red wine and Saltire – a perennial favourite:
 Saltire
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