From the purple dyeshed...

We had an incredible month of weather during September.  It was mild, sunny, and dry.  The weather for the retreat on Tanera Mor was just fabulous.  So it was a bit of a shock to wake up on the 1st October and it was as if someone had flicked a switch from Summer to Autumn.



Autumn means much growling from Peggy during the night, as she hears the stags roaring during the rut.  The sound carries incredibly far through the hills, but we were more than a little taken aback last week when we discovered that rather than up in the hills where they belong, a stag and all his hinds had made their way down off the hill on to the croft which surrounds our house.  There must have been more than 20 hinds with one magnificent stag.  Unfortunately it was already dark and impossible to get a photograph of them.  Peggy showed them who was boss though, by charging the fence around our garden as if to scare them off.  Unsurprisingly the stag was utterly unperturbed.

It has been a very busy start to the month with a lot of dyeing to be done.  Another consignment of yarn from Knockando has arrived for dyeing.  They have sold nearly all the yarn I dyed for them earlier in the year which is very gratifying for me, as you can imagine.   I am also up to my elbows in dye pots for the next retreat which begins next Sunday at Glencanisp Lodge.  I visited the Lodge yesterday to finalise some of the arrangements and it was looking glorious in the autumn light.  However it was the leaves on the trees around the lodge that really caught my eye.  They really were at their autumnal best and I just hope they cling to the trees until all the retreaters arrive next weekend.



It will come as no surprise that some of the colours I saw around the Lodge have crept into the special commemoration colourway that I'm dyeing for those who come to the retreat.  But I'm not telling you which colours:



It will be our first retreat at the Lodge, and it will be a much larger affair than those that have been held on Tanera Mor, simply because the Lodge can hold far more people.



Some of those coming are seasoned retreaters, and some are new ones, but all in all it is a lovely group of folk with a variety of skills to share.  We'll be doing a couple of different things, including a wooden spoon making workshop, and I think we all hope to get in some good walking.  So here's hoping the weather stays fine, and the leaves stay on the trees, until next Sunday afternoon at least!