Street performers - these women were really funny, plus very strong and agile.
My Tillia Dyes stall. Kathryn (centre) was ably assisting me again.
Penny farthing riders displaying their ability. 
That's Alf's Imperial Army coming in the rear of the first photo. They are not a serious group, and often skip and jump and march backwards.
This is one of the prettier traction engines. The back wheels are about 6 feet (2 metres) high.
Ok, here's the full length view. I'm not sure why the Victorians decided to emphasise women's bottoms with bustles and so on; for heaven's sake, my butt is big enough already. There is a whole Victorian wardrobe here, where I hired this outfit, but I've decided to join the Victorian Sewing Circle and make my own for next year. And a corset!!! I have some patterns, but these outfits are not the sort of thing you can whip up in a weekend. For example, I was going to make myself a can-can skirt (hey, not ALL the Victorians were prim and proper!). I cut the pattern out, and the ruffle piece said "Cut 47". 47 pieces of ruffle! No wonder the pattern takes about 11 yards of fabric. For each layer. I gave up at that point.
More later this week.
There should be no dye bleeding out, it'll all be absorbed into the wool. Squeeze the excess water out gently, then place it on your chair to photograph so your butt will get wet when you sit down next. 
At this point, you may be thinking it looks pretty wild and garish, and why did you put those colours together? Rest assured that when it dries and you reskein it, it'll look much better. 
Her are the other 2 skeins I did. 
They're all hanging up to dry (on a towel on the back of a chair, if you have to know), so I'll post a photograph of how they look when they're all dry and beautiful.
Lay out a piece of plastic wrap on your plastic. One piece is enough for a skein of this size. Start apllying dye. You can apply the colours randomly, or in order. 
Here's the skein with 2 greens, turquoise and gold. Later skeins are painted differently. Turn the skein over as well to make sure the dye penetrates underneath. 
When completed, roll up the plastic wrap from side to side, and then end to end. don't strangle your skein though! It doesn't have to be airtight.
Soak the skeins in warm water with a wee bit of detergent added, just enough to wet them. This helps the dye to penetrate. You can handpaint the wool dry, but it's a lot more work.
Get your equipment ready. I use disposable plastic cups to mix the dye in, and I paint with foam brushes. 
Roxy Beren Goodwin, 15th May 1979 to 11th November 1983
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.
The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents,
beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home
decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.
The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.
What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
There's absolutely no reason for this photo of me. Except that blogging without a photo is like....well, sex without fun. You know what I mean.
No prizes for guessing what I was doing at the weekend. I find hand painting yarn irresistable. And this is just a start of what I plan to do.
But only part of it. I'm not talking about the rest.
And for those deploring the lack of creativity, here's some yarn porn. I dyed these over the weekend.
I've just returned from a Creative Fibre (spinners and weavers) retreat at Queenstown in Central Otago. The first two photos are of the Lindis Pass, a frequently snowed-in area. It has the most wonderful sculptural hills covered in tussock clumps, and sucha stark beauty that I adore. There is a lovely effect on these hills as clouds move overhead on a sunny day and cast moving shadows.
And this is the view (not very clear due to the trees) from the retreat camp. It's just across the lake from the town area. Queenstown is an internationally renown skiing area and tourist town, and one of the most expensive places in New Zealand to buy property, due to the limited land available and high demand for it. I haven't been here since 1999 (apart from a brief fling with a dyeing class when I stayed elsewhere) and the amount of construction and development, much of it hotels, motels, apartments and the like, is staggering. If you don't like skiing and snow sports, I've been told it's a loooooooong cold winter here.
First step was to stretch it onto a plastic surface. Then I stencilled a leaf design (cut from cardboard) and also painted some other designs using corn dextrin as a resist. As it dries, it pulls the fabric in so I didn't paint it too much. In this photo it's still wet.
When the resist dried, I painted the centres of the circles and the inside leaves with thickened turquoise dye. I also later put some random turquoise brush strokes on plain parts of the fabric.
Then I covered the whole piece with a wash of Brilliant Blue. The fabric cannot be immersed to overdye it as the corn dextrin is water soluable. I only discovered that after painting it on - I haven't used it before! In the last photo, it's been washed and dried and ironed. The effect is quite subtle, though you can clearly see what I've done.
Yes, I've had a busy creative weekend - for a change! Of course I didn't get all the other stuff done but still......go with the flow when it's there. These are half-metre pieces I've dyed in browns, oranges and general earthy shades to go with the rust dyed pieces. While the rust dyes are a particular shade of rust and so are different from everything else, I need to be able to blend them with other fabric. If necessary, I can apply a light wash of Procion dyes to the rust dyes to match these fabrics better. Watch this space!
