Sunday 22 July 2012

Two dry days

 Two consecutive dry days, that is - which means....
..we got the grass cut at last! The garden looks so much bigger when the grass is short (I know it's only relative - that picture above pretty much shows the full extent of the garden). There were sunny spells today; you could practically hear the plants cheering.

 Can you spot the cat lurking?



The wind was getting up and she was skulking around the garden before hiding under a bush, twitching every time something rattled in the wind.

Did you see my wool on the washing-line in the top picture? I did a dye yesterday with dandelion leaves (as there is no shortage of the flamin' things in my garden), but the results were deeply bland as you can see. So this afternoon I got out all the red onion skins I'd collected:


And topped up the dandelion beige with a quick red onion skin soak.
 

Below is the result, still wet, draped over the kitchen tap, drip-drying.  It's a funny colour - the picture doesn't really do it justice. It's sort of rust coloured with a greenish tinge. Impossible to describe and very odd, but very definitely not beige! I did once get a really pleasant rich brown from red onion skins but I've never managed to recreate it. Still, it'll be interesting to see what this one is like when it's properly dry.


And now for a bit of gratuitous colour:
The Boy and I decided to make some jelly. He enjoyed the way the cubes dissolve so quickly in the boiling water. I've got to admit it was quicker than I remembered. I keep buying packets of jelly and not getting round to making them up so I haven't actually made any for several years.  But now that we have a slightly bigger fridge we have more space for the chilling stage. I'm not very good at waiting for it to set! It's almost set now. Mmmm, raspberry jelly for pud tomorrow!

1 comment:

Mrs. Micawber said...

Dyeing with natural dyes seems like a fun kind of colour lottery - you never know what you might get.