Coate Water

Wandering around this tranquil oasis, searching for the places that Richard Jefferies mentions in his book "Bevis", it suddenly strikes you how much smaller it is than in the book. I had read his other book "After London", in which Coate has become an inland sea, forested, mountains, people living in settlements,a whole adventure story wrapped round this magical place.
But "Bevis" was on a smaller scale, an adventure story about two boys camping in the wild on an island. The island is there though very small; The cliff is there, an old sand quarry, the place where his father taught him to swim because of the sandy beach at this particular spot; the swampy land "and so thick with sedges and grass and rushes that they walked in a forest of green up to their waists"
Its all there but you have to look for it, a magical retracing of a story.
Ducks and swans congregate to be fed under the ugly concrete diving tower, a dear old man with his leaflets for the Jefferies Land Conservation Trust, and his board of the latest threat to Coate Water, it is to be developed in one part, people wandering round with children and dogs, a quiet backwater to the hustle and bustle of the busy roads round Swindon.
An idyllic childhood? perhaps, or maybe he idolised a place he loved so much, when the harsh realities of being grown up and earning a living grated against his sensitive soul and he looked back with happy memories.

Monday, June 23, 2008
House builders submit revised plans

Persimmon Homes and Redrow Homes have submitted a revised planning application to Swindon Borough Council for 1800 houses, 41 hectares of employment land, a university campus etc etc.

It is virtually the same at the application submitted in August 2007 and they still haven't found a university partner.

http://jefferiesland.blogspot.com/

Dyeing experiments

Two type of marigolds pot marigold ( calendula officinalis) and the hybrid 'Art shades'


The pot marigolds have just started to flower, their bright orange/yellow has been used as colourant since the middle ages, it can also be used instead of saffron or sprinkled over salads. But as a natural dye for wool or silk, it will be mordanted with alum, equal weight of flower to silk. First the flower must be soaked in hot water overnight and then gently simmered to release the colour, this done in soft/rain water. The silk will be mordanted, then when the colour is extracted will be simmered in the dyebath, hopefully to produce yellow.
The other plant to be used is dried weld, similar quantities of the rather woody material to the silk. The plant material will be soaked for several days. Again a mordant will be used, but different colours can be expected with using iron or copper sulphate this will produce greens.

Dyeing stuff

Pale green(better in real life) is weld/coppersulphate; yellow is weld/alum

reflections

Flicking idly through my photos I came across this one of West Kennet longbarrow, and was suddenly struck by the uneven line of the ridge of the barrow highlighted by the darkness of the ridge against the sky. There is the old track that was driven across, goodness knows when, it now stands higher than the surrounding field, showing how ploughing reduces the land surface. The rest of the hollows would presumably be because of quarrying of stone I suppose.
What does stand out however is the dramatic placing of the longbarrow on the brow of the hill, facing the Ridgeway, and of course facing the somewhat later? Sanctuary, another circle of stones, preceded by timber circles.

West Kennet Longbarrow from the Sanctuary

The great stones of West Kennet would have come into view to those travelling along the Ridgeway. Bare feet tramping along the chalky track, animals perhaps being herded along, WKLB is almost an engineered feat of dramatic surprise.
And again we have only to turn round from the stance of the person taking the photograph to see Silbury Hill, another engineered feat of dramatic surprise. There is a spatial awareness carried out in the landscape, the focussing of the key elements on the bare downs, East Kennet longbarrow seems to give the same message, as it overlooks the river Kennet at the bottom of the valley.
Waden Hill is of course the place to understand this overlooking both Silbury Hill and WKLB, what we see are 'statements of strong visuality', we may term it territorial but it is also visionary, though these two monuments are separated in time in their construction they both express an underlying creativity.

Silbury from Waden Hill

Twisted Yarns; A.S.Byatt

The Lady of Shalott by Burne-Jones

She left the web, she left the loom,

She made three paces through the room,

She saw the water-lily bloom,

She saw the helmet and the plume,

She look'd down to Camelot.

Out flew the web and floated wide;

The mirror crack'd from side to side;

'The curse is come upon me,' cried

The Lady of Shalott."

Alfred Lord Tennyson

"We think of our lives - and of stories - as spun threads, extended and knitted or interwoven with others into the fabric of communities, or history, or texts. An intriguing exhibition at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, The Fabric of Myth, mixes ancient and modern - Penelope's shroud, unpicked nightly, with enterprising tapestries made in a maximum security prison out of unravelled socks. In an essay in the accompanying catalogue, Kathryn Sullivan Kruger collects words that connect weaving with storytelling: text, texture and textile, the fabric of society, words for disintegration - fraying, frazzling, unravelling, woolgathering, loose ends. A storyteller or a listener can lose the thread. The word "clue", Kruger tells us, derives from the Anglo-Saxon cliwen, meaning ball of yarn. The processes of cloth-making are knitted and knotted into our brains, though our houses no longer have spindles or looms.

The Greeks had the Moirae, the Fates, one to spin the yarn, one to draw out the thread, one to cut it. They are sometimes confused with the Graiae, three grey old women with one eye and one tooth between them, sisters of the Gorgons. There is a beautiful and surprising tapestry from a Henry Moore drawing in this exhibition, depicting the three Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, as grave swathed figures, with Atropos standing between her sisters, pointing the fatal shears at the life-thread moving between the two. Their faces are solemn and sad, the first two apprehensive, Atropos almost appalled. Milton confused her with the Furies, in "Lycidas", when he wrote: "Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears, / And slits the thin-spun life." This is unforgettable partly because of the way those thin-sounding words - "slits", "thin-spun", "life" - mimic the dangerously fine thread.
The Norse, too, had their three Fates - the Norns, who spun the thread of life at the roots of the World Ash, Yggdrasil. They are sometimes young, mature, old, and sometimes three crones. They sing wildly in Wagner's Götterdämmerung, as the plot of the world unravels. Their thread is a golden rope that was once attached to the destroyed World Ash and is now precariously anchored on other trees and sharp rocks. It rips apart; they wind themselves in it, and go under the earth; the Twilight of the Gods has come."

Taken from

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2286840,00
.html

Velazquez - Las Hilanderas 1644-1646

Taken from Wikipedia;.....

The spinning wheel, introduced into from India between the 13th and 14th centuries, improved the hand-spinning method. The spindle was set horizontally in a wheel turned by a foot pedal and produced a single thread. Spinning by hand is still the principal method used in many developing countries."The spinning wheel replaced the earlier method of hand spinning with a spindle The first stage in mechanizing the process was mounting the spindle horizontally so it could be rotated by a cord encircling a large, hand-driven wheel. The great wheel is an example of this type, where the fiber is held in the left hand and the wheel slowly turned with the right. Holding the fiber at a slight angle to the spindle produced the necessary twist The spun yarn was then wound onto the spindle by moving it so as to form a right angle with the spindle. This type of wheel, while known in Europe by the 14th century, was not in general use until later. It ultimately was used there to spin a variety of yarns until the beginning of the 19th century and the mechanization of spinning.

Sun and Colour

One of the problems with taking photos of dyed silks is that the colours do not come true, often appearing much darker on the photograph, but the following are fairly close.

Moss feeling hot on the terrace

Untidy Ashford loom with the early morning sun on recently dyed silk

The five colours - silver is natural 50% alpaca/50% silk; Next comes cream, one in weak henna, the next in henna with dash of chestnut; Greens are chartreuse, the other dash of chartreuse with chestnut.

Knitted cushion cover with handspun/dyed olive merino wool


Early morning sun highlighting the wood

Woven runner

Basket of last dyed colours, probably good sock material

Essex

A place I once lived in a long time ago, it has changed but I had forgotten how pretty it was, with its villages, storied timber houses, pargeter work and old churches. We had moved from Chigwell to Great Dunmow, my grandfather to run a small engineering business. At first we had lived in a rented cottage at Ford End, and then he had bought three old cottages at Shalford Green, and they were turned into one with a great thatched roof, and it was from here that my first marriage took place at the church.
Mostly I remember of this time is the fields alight in the evening as they set the straw alight, a dramatic picture as I drove with my labrador back from a walk somewhere. My pride and joy at the time was a small Austin Healey sprite, with the hood down and Kim sitting in the back with his ears blowing in the wind we would find places to wander in. Dim memories of riding in Hainault Forest on Sue my horse, spooky sometimes in the evening, and getting lost one day and taking a long, long, path that never seemed to end. The horse was also spooked in the gathering gloom by the dark path and in the end she bolted, giving me one of those hair-raising rides as I ducked beneath branches as she fled through the forest.
Visiting such places as Thaxted and Coggeshall and taking photos has reminded me of Alec Clifton-Taylor - The Pattern of English Building Book 1972, and I see he was struck by the view of the Thaxted church and houses for he says..

"At Thaxted in Essex, Newbiggen Street leading northwards from the church has many timber-framed houses, of which all but one, in the usual Essex way, are wholly plastered. The use of colour wash here is spectacular, and one is tempted to add, very un-English. Applied colour has turned into what is, in my view, one of the prettiest streets in the country"


Though there is hardly any colour there today but it is still a pretty view.

The other place I visited was Paycocke's house in Great Coggeshall, a delightfully pink timbered house that fronts the street, here he says of Paycocke's House
"'The appeal of the front here, despite the fascination of its discreetly restored silver-brown wood-carving , is quite seriously comprised by the unattractive bricks introduced about 1905 (before the National Trust took over) for the renewal of the nogging"




Perhaps he was a bit of a pedant, it still looks gloriously decorative.

This is a photograph of the more elaborate pargetting (post restoration) Crown House, Newport.

Sutton Hoo

The greatest of death-fires

wound to the clouds,

roared before the mound;

heads melted away

wound-gates burst open,

the body's loathly cuts,

as blood sprang forth

flame, hungriest of spirits

Swallowed all those whom

battle took.....

Cremation from Beowulf

A visit to Sutton Hoo; One of the greatest Anglo Saxon treasures of this country, an exotic collection of finely wrought gold, great wealth and also a touch of homeliness in the gaming board in the covered boat burial. Elegantly long this boat, translating into the tangible excitement of Beowulf's poetry, a great epic drama of killing a terrible beast - Grendel and its loathsome mother both are locked into the storytelling of this boat. Saxon poetry which I love so much, grinding out its gloom and despair at the folly of man; magnificient thundering words accompanying beautifully made artifacts and fragments of all this are captured in the museum.
What of the site itself, great barrows ride gently on the waves of the land, the excavated barrow that revealed these treasures, has a steepsidedness that stands out. You walk round on a curving path, the day we went the rain came down gently, puddles of water to find a way around., a grey mistyness to the land and the trees that surround the site, appropiately fitting for a time lived years ago.









Reconstruction of the boat burial

Love the way they hang things on the wall


Gaming board


Reconstructed Sutton Hoo barrow

Sheltering umbrella
from the rain

Some of the other barrows

Bartlow Hills Roman Barrows

The barrows are the largest group of Roman barrows in Northern Europe. Think Silbury Mound, high conical mounds sprouting a luscious green growth of plants. Seven originally, though now only three remain.



Set in a wood, approached along a dark and winding path, suddenly the space opens up. shading trees give way to bright sunshine. Their greeting is unexpected, closely hemmed in by trees, suddenly you are confronted by three miniature mountains. Steps up the side of the tallest barrow - 45 feet high. Built of chalk, similar to Silbury, these barrows house rich pagan burials of the late 1st to early 2nd century.
Large wooden chests, cremated burials, food and drink in exotic vessels of bronze, glass and pottery, these were foreign imported goods reflecting the high status of the deceased; concerned more with feasting and sacrifical offerings rather then take all this worldy wealth to the other world. Lamps left to burn, what did that signify? a light for the spirit to see as he departed this world.

Hayfield flowers

Walking this morning up on the racecourse through the mist I wondered how many flowers still remain in the wild grasses of the hay fields that surround the course. The skylark young are finding their wings and the lush grassland still murmurs with birdsong. Yesterday I spied my buzzard sitting on a fence with another alongside him, much darker, I took a photo but this is the time that I wish I could handle a complicated long-lensed camera for close up shot of things far away.
A hayfield is particularly beautiful at this time of year, the grasses are seeding, soft purples, greens and golds, the bronzes of the plaintain and dock flowers standing amongst the graceful fronds of seedheads.
Looking at my handful, there are red and white clovers close to the paths, small white meadow parsley, laces its delicate way through the green of the grasses. Cow parsley, or Queen's Anne Lace, is over now, but the giant hogweed is coming into flower, its purple bracts straining to burst open and its great jagged leaves reminding me of the acanthus. Yellow buttercups, coned flowerheads of the plaintain and the soft reddish pink flower stalks of the docks. Dew from the mist hangs like tiny crystals along the grass seedheads, and there is a tiny white flowered plant, that holds the promise of its opening but never does.

Docks flowering

Plantain flower

Last Flight of the Honeybees

To be read here in the Guardian;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/animalwelfare.environment

The mind always boggles at the figures that come out of America; the world's largest almond 'orchard' - 60 million almond trees - you can drive past 400 miles of them, pristine clean these orchards, no wildflowers hedges, or insects an unearthly silence pervades the air. But wait here come the honeybees transported by lorry, there are 40 billion of them raised on bee farms, they will pollinate this vast acreage. Sadly though they are disappearing, pesticide, herbicides or what, there sudden disappearance has been happening over a few years, France, Germany, England, hives are opened in the spring but there is nothing there, the bees have disappeared.
One thing does of course stand out loud and clear, you cannot treat insects like machines, they are warmblooded creatures who get stressed just as we do, their lifestyle has been grotesquely adjusted to suit our needs, but they are not playing the game for goodness sake say the scientist lets invent something new to save them - perhaps they can genetically adjust them.
Nature is putting a big thumbs down on our meddling with the natural cycle of things, it is impossible for humans to control the vast interconnecting natural world we live in. All bees, and I include bumblebees here(good pollinators as well), need a strong immune system to survive, they need the flowers, shrubs, fruit trees of this earth over a long period of time, monoculture is death to a whole host of living things.
Vast machines that spray everything in sight do not work with nature, they kill it systematically weed by weed, flower by flower and with it goes the vast insect life that once depended on all this. There is no benign god in the sky watching the handiwork of man and applauding his arrogant assumption that humans rule over all. We may sit on top of the pile, but beneath us a great vast web of life that we depend on, this is how our earth has always worked, its just as easy for nature to allow the death of all bees as it is to watch the extinction of humankind, it does'nt really care a s***.
Is there an answer, maybe, a respect for all life, a humble approach to the creatures around us, and the ability to use the vast knowledge we have stored up to achieve the balance on this planet we and everything else so desperately need.

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/BeeResearch/ A petition to the government for money to fund research in Colony collapse syndrome

Bevis by Richard Jefferies

Yesterday I managed to find a rather good copy of Bevis by Richard Jefferies, illustrated by Shepard it was a 1958 edition. A love of reading means that I will become totally absorbed in a good book and unable to put it down. So it is with this book, I have explored the large inland lake/ sea of Coate with him and his friend Mark, and followed the battle between the two opposing roman sides. It is of course a 'boys own' child books, but nevertheless completely enthralling and of course read by adults.
The first thing to strike me is a somewhat cruel attitude to animals, this, is only to be expected in the 19th century, and especially as Jefferies/Bevis for they are one and the same people, would have struck me as being gentle. But on reflection, especially in his soul-seeking in The Story of My Heart, can we begin to understand the wild exultant heart that beat beneath his somewhat quiet exterior. His imperious nature shines forth in Bevis, Mark, a loyal and loving constant companion is often upbraided in lofty tones. But to return to animals, the first instance is the family spaniel, Pan, middle aged and always hungry he follows the two boys on their expeditions up stream or on the lake, his loyalty is not often rewarded though and he gets many a beating should he chase the animals or scare the fish they are always hunting with their bow and arrows and spears.
The second moment in the book is the donkey that lives in the field and they are never able to catch. One day Mark tired after a long foray in the fields has to go home, Bevis offers the donkey and gets a stable lad to catch the wretched beast. The lad duly does this, and brings the donkey to them, but it is now that Bevis says lets tie up this beast and give him a lesson, which they duly do, tying him to an old oak tree and giving him a truly horrific thrashing - though there is no blood.
Intense people have intense feelings and emotions, so perhaps Jefferies can be forgiven this rash act, did it happen in 'real life' I expect the answer is yes because it is so vividly written and remembered.
The sense of his world, the inner landscape and the outer physical landscape is so strongly written in his books also becomes part of one's own mindset. The experience is so strong that it colours my world as well. Today, the mist in the garden, a green jungle at the moment, flowers heavy with rain, everything so verdantly alive that nature is blending time together again, the past swirling round the present - the liquid note of water as it swirls down the stream on that farm so long ago is echoed in the distance. The thunderstorm that raged before the 'War' of the romans that the boys played, has its echo in last night thunder, when the rains beat down and flooded parts of Somerset. Nature is the same we just don't notice it as much, there is less of everything, less birds, less wildflowers, more noise, more speed, more shallowness, we have become superficial unable to feel the world around us. But perhaps that is only given to the chosen few, poets and writers who express through the written word, with all its form and grace, the dynamic force of life that is nature, and is of course us as well.
There is a room in the Richard Jefferies Museum (the old farmhouse) in which 'Bevis' lies on his bed reading, in the room is a painting of Jefferies and an old grandfather clock which I thought rather odd at the time, but it seems that the clock may have stood on the landing outside the room, as written in the following quote from The Poacher.

"An oaken case six feet high or more, and a vast dial,with a mysterious picture of a full moon and a ship in full sail that somehow indicated the quarters of the year, if you had been imitating Rip Van Winkle and after a sleep of six months wanted to know whether itwas spring or autumn. But only to think that all the while we were puzzling over the moon and the ship and the queer signs on the dial a gun was hidden inside! The case was locked, it is true; but there are ways of opening locks, and we were always handy with tools.

"

Saint David

date of birth variously given between 460 and 520;

He is the great grandson of an illustrious name, Cunedda, "dux Brittaniae" or "Gwledig" (over-king). Tradition says that Cunedda came from the north with 900 troop in the early 5th century and drove the Goidels (the Irish) out of North Wales. He had eleven sons, and one of his grandsons Maelgwn Gwynedd was also a "Gwedlig", and a protagonist in the battle of Camlan between Arthur of South Wales and his Cumbrian/Strathclyde relatives - all conjectural of course.

There are several sources for the site of David's birth, one that he was born on the site of St.Non's chapel within a stone circle and baptised at Porth Clais.

Legend also says that David's father Sant was told by an angel to save some land for him 30 years befor he was born. Also at this time an angel told St.Patrick not to settle on some land at Glyn Rhosyn, as the place was reserved for an unknown boy to be born 30 years later. Apparently Patrick was upset that God preferred an unborn boy to him but God took him to a cliff rock, still known as Eisteddfa Badrig to show him that God wanted him to look after all Ireland instead!

The story goes that David, or Dewi, made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem where he was made a bishop and led the councils of Brefi (in Cardigan) and Caerlon. At Brefi he was recognised as primate of all Wales and replaced Dyfrig and he moved from Caerlon to Menevia (St.David's); this taken from a source of 1098.

(Rhygfarch's Life of St.David)

He was known traditionally as The Waterman as he and his monks were ascetic teetotallers and vegetarians. He is associated with over 50 churches in South Wales, most in the south west, Glastonbury was also claimed to have been founded by David. And another tale tells that soon after Arthur's death, David died in 544 aged 82 and that he was honourably buried by Maelgyn Gwynedd.

February 28th is St.David's Eve and one of the favoured nights for the Cwn Annwn (hounds of Annwn, the Underworld) to take to the skies. They race and howl across the firmament, souls of the damned they hunt for more souls to feed the furnaces of hell. Sometimes they are seen as huge dogs with human head - a pre-christian belief that lasted in rural Wales until the 19th C.

In the Gwaun valley in Pembs. Old St.Davids Day (March 12th) was the time when the wax candle on the table was replaced by a wooden one, signifying that supper could be eaten without candlelight - the end of the winter months.

As he did only drink what crystal Hodney yields

And fed upon the leeks he gathered in the fields

In memory of whom, in each revolving year

The Welshmen, on his day, that sacred herb do wear .

Dragonflies and Damselflies

The secret world of the pond

As with orchid searching so this time of the year,the damselflies and later dragonflies will appear. All the following are from the garden, the red and turquoise damselflies breed in the pond. For those who do not know the life cycle of these creatures, they form 'nymphs'in the pond and sometimes can keep this form for two years or so, when they are ready to metamorphorsis, they climb up the leaves of the yellow flag, and shed their skins to emerge as beautifully painted jewels.The large dragonfly that also haunts the garden is the great green/blue one with golden eyes, he hawks up and down the grass path challenging you and flying within a few inches of your face, they are harmless of course and very beautiful, characters in their own right. I once saw two of these dragonflies fighting, a perceptible noise came from them and they dropped like stones to the ground in the heat of the battle.

Red Damselfly


Emerging green/goldeyed dragon fly



Stray Hawker

Mating blue damselfly

Large dragonfly in the heat of the sun

Native orchids

Early Sunday morning; the winds has whipped through the trees all night, great gusts that set the curtains billowing and this morning heavy squally rain - even the dog agrees that our walk is off.
So I shall write about the orchids that I found last year, the ones that should be coming into flower soon, though I notice in another forum that the wild orchids are flowering around the chalky downs of Wiltshire. Slightly different to the ones in our limestone county.
First thing was to find them amongst my photos, beginning of June is the date on them, of the three shown two come from Langridge, and the other from Stoney Littleton.
Marjories Blamey in her Illustrated Flora of Europe, lists over 70 orchids, they come from the high grounds down to the valleys, and in bogs and marshes, they are exotic slender creatures spied in the grass, where man and beast are not frequent visitors and wretched herbicides and fertilisers have not been used.
But for their history turning to Grigson is the interesting part, here there should be a warning of a sexual nature, but are'nt all plants reproductive? its just that the mind of man in naming these strange flowers was taken by the shape of the roots and so of course like Burl's ash buds, here again we have phallic imagery - orchis means testicle according to Discorides, from which our own eminent botanists took their information, in fact he called one orchis saturion (the satyr plant), and so through history the orchid is known as an aphrodisiac, it was a plant of love potions. Grigson says that until recent times it was still made into a love potion in Ireland and Shetland.
There is a marvellous recipe made by the Physicians of London which was called a 'Disatyrion' it was made of,
orchid tubers, dates, bitter almonds, Indian nuts, pine nuts, pistachio nuts, candied ginger, candied eryngo root, clover, galingale, peppers, ambergris, musk, penids(barley sugar), cinnamon, saffron Malaga wine, nutmeg, mace, grains of Paradise, ash-keys, the 'belly and loins of scinks' borax, benzoine, wood of aloes, cardamoms, nettle seeds and aven roots (a good Grigson recipe,)
obviously a spicy concoction made to blow the top of your head off!
Grigson also mentions the beautiful 'Unicorn' tapestries, in which Orchis Mascula stands long and purple against the white flank of the unicorn, and Shakespear also included them in the garland of the drowned Ophelia "the long purples, to which the liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but which cold maids do Dead Men's fingers call"
In all the beautiful orchid has danced through the centuries quite wickedly, but there were some who tried to redeem it, and so it has been called 'Gethesemane' and 'Cross-flower', because it supposedly grew under the cross.

Early Purple Orchid - Orchis Mascula

Common spotted orchid - Dactylorhiza fuchsii (marsh orchids)

Pyramidal orchid -anacamptis pyramidalis (Found at Stoney Littleton longbarrow)

Ref; The Englishman's Flora - Geoffrey Grigson

The Illustrated Flora - Margery Blamey & Christopher Grey-Wilson

The Unicorn Tapestries - http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Unicorn/unicorn_inside.htm

Dyeing part 2

Click on photos for larger image.

Original creamy tussah silk

This time silk tussah, and a religious devotion to instructions in Fibrecrafts...
50 grams split in two; 1) 2 ply silk, 2) silk and merino ply.
Acid dye Jacquard vermilion;

soak yarn for 10 minutes in a solution of Glauberg salt (10 g), white vinegar (20mm), gently moving yarn for 10 minutes.
remove the yarn and add dye, diluted in hot water, return yarn to bath, heat to hand hot. Then take off heat for 10 minutes and allow to stand.
Return to heat and bring to simmer, silk should not go past 85C, Here I did not simmer for the 20 minutes, but bought it up to 80C and left it for 10 mins.
Allow yarn to cool in dyewater.
It emerged a rather pretty dark raspberry colour, though again the merino ply was showing a lighter colour than the silk.

L/h silk....r/h silk/merino

Turmeric; as turmeric is a natural dye no mordant was used. 40 grams of wool 1) 2 ply silk; 2) silk/merino.
Method; dessert spoon of turmeric well mixed in water, and simmered for 15 mins.,
then decanted through muslin into jar to remove powder. Dye returned to pot, wool added, and simmered for 15 minutes; allowed to cool.
The merino/silk dye took on a more yellow colouring whilst the silk turned into 'old gold'. Tibetan monks redye their robes annually because turmeric fades with time.

http://www.antiquetibet.com/RUGTEXT.html

silk on left; merino/silk on right

"Tussah silk (tussah means wild) is a plain weave silk fabric from "wild" silk worms. It has irregular thick and thin yarns creating uneven surface and color. Wild silkworms feed on leaves other than mulberry leaves.Tussah silk is similar to shantung, with silk from the wild. Color is often uneven; usually referred to as "raw" silk."

Colours so far; the brown is supposed to be olive green, but have had trouble with this particular dye on wool, did as the Fibrecraft article instructed. Cream is the henna - not good, perhaps I need stannous chrolide for the mordant (tin)

Spinning the silk; Hardly any tension on the wheel, and slow footwork. The silk is very soft and slippery, yet spins beautifully if you concentrate. The 'twist' runs up to a fairly short stop on the left hand, (let go and it should 'barb wire' about an inch) whilst the silk drafted between the hands should be about 4 inches, the approximate length of the staple. Spinning from the roving is really no problem, except do not walk away and scatter fine silk all over the house. spun finely, it is as strong as string. Tight 's' spinning will of course be unspun slightly in the'z' plying, that is why you need the 'barb wire' ...

Grasses and Ash Trees

This is the time of year when the wild grasses come into their own, their seed heads were one of the first plants to be cultivated. They anchored our Neolithic ancestors to a piece of land, humans turned from hunting as their main source of food, and slowly but surely learnt to till the land and produce crops. Here in this island of ours, the marks of ards (ploughs) can still be found beneath the barrows. It was probably the women who first collected the seed heads, then learnt to plant and pick out the heavier heads for next years crop. The great stone querns came into existence to grind the cereal, into the flours we know today.
Today the yield of wheat is prodigious for each acre, but all those thousands of years ago, the yield would have been small and very precious.


The wild grasses have many names, you can find wild oats,wild barleys,bent fescue, timothy grass, and cat-tails and I find it impossible to name each type, but at this time of year their grace as the wind gently ripples through their tall stems puts many a bawdy flower to shame, insignificant though the grasses maybe without them our existence would have been harder.

Ash trees; Up on the downs the ash rules supreme, late coming into leaf it survives the cold of winter and the fierce weather of gales that can be found on the more exposed parts of the downs.
But of course ash is the magical symbolic tree of - the Norse Yggdrasil tree, from which Odin hung for 9 days - a magical number in itself.
If you look at the leaves as they emerge, many ashes have a terminal leaf with four leaves on either side of the stem, making nine, though to be truthful sometimes you can get an 11 leaves or 13 leaves trees; perhaps they have hybridised along the way, so perhaps if you found a nine leafed ash, it was a bit like finding a four leafed clover.


Nine leafed Ash

But there is more to the tale, Aubrey Burl in his Stone Circle book, says that the ash also has a phallic symbolism in that the large black terminal bud has two small buds on either side, so if I ever remember to photograph this particular phenomena it will be added to this blog, but it is true and quite extraordinary once one's eye has been drawn to the fact.

The ash in early morning sun