Alternative uses for a dyepot Number 1 .... The first of what will not be a particularly common series

A temporary home for mice

After 14 years of a hunting strategy that consisted of sitting at meowing at potential victims in the hope that they would walk into her jaws, Holly, our cat, has suddenly decided to catch mice. These are ones that were in the garden but have decided to investigate the kitchen.
We were aware of this last week when she went mad around the freezer on the evening and then proudly presented us with her first catch at 5 am. Of course she didn't kill the mouse and dropped it on the bedroom floor for us at which point it ran for cover under a wardrobe.
This led to me setting up a humane trap and eventually caught and rehomed the rodent a couple of days later during the afternoon.
However last night (2am) we were woken by Holly going mad as she had caught a young mouse that had sadly deceased and the humane trap was also occupied by an adult. Unlike previously I didn't want to go trapsing out to rehome the survivor but nor did I want to keep it in the very small trap. Now if only I had a large, smooth-sided, lidded vessel to keep the mouse in till the morning.

Ta-Dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Plus gratuitous cutsie shot

Suitably-delayed Woolfest Post

Well my plan to post more regularly went well down the swanny but I do have mitigating circumstances guv! In late January I found out I had a stall at Woolfest and then a week later I received a phone call informing me that I had been awarded the Carolyn Rawlinson memorial stall, an award for a new business set up in memory of one of the founders of Woolfest.

Due to e-mail glitches we had to sit on the info for a few months before the formal announcement for which I had to pose for publicity photos, which given my aversion to being photographed was no fun. If I look bad on the official ones they are nothing compared to the rejects, none of which will be reproduced here.

This also meant I have been dyeing like mad and this has impacted on all the fringe stuff like blogs etc. Typically I dyed too much to process (even with 18hr days near the end) and then we had too much stock but better that than an empty stall!

No photos of the car on the way there but suffice to say that my walking boots had to be squeezed in individually.

Woolfest itself was very enjoyable meeting lots of enthusiastic people an chatting about wool dyeing and everything. Highlight was meeting Carolyn’s widower Robert (piccy here) who we were presented to at the start of the event. Like me both he and Carolyn were trained scientists so it was nice to talk about the transition from that to natural dyeing.

Post Woolfest it was 6 days holiday in the lakes, to recuperate. After 1 wet and 1 incredibly close day the weather as with last year was brilliant allowing us to spend it up fell and down t’pub.

Gratuitous shot of Rough Fell sheep on Catbells

Hopefully once the ear and throat infection I have picked up clears I will have the opportunity to do some experimental dyeing and post about it in the next few months.