A special treat on Christmas Morning (or Holiday Day as I call it).

 Does anyone else get this obsessiveness?  An idea in the head and the whole of life and cleaning house and everything cannot happen until that idea actualizes?  

Just me then.

Well, I don't know where it came from but one morning I woke up needing to build a thing.  I had no idea how to do it.  But it infested my every waking moment.  

So I made the thing and I made a video about making the thing.

It's not perfect.  It's not even close.  But I made it.  I ate it.  It was DELICIOUS! 

It's amazing how much you can learn about a thing by making it out of gingerbread.  It also inspired me to learn some special effects for the video.  

Happy Holidays everyone!  

Madder

When I think of madder, I think of rich, earthy reds and deep, mysterious browns. I think of walking into a deep woods and smelling the soft smell of leaf mulch and Grand Fir.

I don't tend to think of madder as being orange.

I read that if you mix madder with ox blood, the lining of a cows second stomach, and a whole host of minerals, than you might be lucky enough to get Turkey red or a red-orange. I never imagined that I would manage it by accident.

The yarn is handspun Cotswold, true-worsted singles. I used 20%weight of fibre (WoF) for the alum mordant and 100% WoF for the madder dye stuff. I didn't heat it much about 50C, and cooked the yarn in the dye for 1 hour. I should have heated it up more to get a browner colour.

I dyed some other stuff after to exhaust the dye vat.

Now it is very pretty; but, sadly, this colour is totally inappropriate for the project I have planed. I think I'm just going to give up on the whole thing and stash this orange yarn.

I have just enough fibre left to try spinning another warp. But to be honest, I've lost my enthusiasm for this project. Natural or synthetic - dye stuff never seems to do what it promises.

Mulled apple juice

A whole 6 inches of snow this morning when I woke up, with another inch fallen before I had a chance to finish my coffee. So much for going down town today - even if they only got a light dusting of snow.

Even the chickens won't venture out of their home.

I had to shovel them out as the snow had all blown against the side of the house and blocked their door. I needn't have bothered.

I might as well dress my loom. It looks cold.

Mulled Apple Juice

• 2L apple juice (the real, cloudy stuff works the best)
• 1tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp grated nutmeg

Heat in a sauce pan on medium until boiling (this cooks the spices and makes it so much better than serving just spiced juice). Reduce heat and serve. Careful, HOT!

If you like, once the juice boiled, then put it in a slow cooker on medium/high, and drink throughout the day. Yum!