What’s on the line?

Excuse the grotty picture, but I bought a thing! Cheap and useful, and unfortunately from China via Amazon (I prefer to buy more locally if possible). It’s sad I know to think it worth blogging about this great new purchase. It’s the dark cylindrical thing hanging on the clothes line to the left. It’s herb drier but is incredibly useful for drying bitty fleece, like that of sweet Midge. More about Midge here.

Then to the the right of the herb drier containing Midge’s fleece, are two skeins of Pleiades Eco Sock yarn. I have dyed them with madder. Madder is I think my favourite dye. I have taken to pre soaking cellulose yarns in tannin and the using aluminium acetate as a mordant. In the past I used ‘normal’ alum and chalk.

And finally, on the far right is the fleece of Bonnet, daughter of Belle, whom I’ve blogged about previously. Bonnet, being a bowmont, has a beautifully soft fleece.

So, no washing on the line. Perhaps I’ll do that tomorrow, but not blog about it!

There are places where it is frowned upon to have a washing line. It lowers the tone of a place if people’s clothes can be seen blowing in the breeze, separate from their owner¹. But not everyone can afford, or wants, a tumble drier. It’s environmentally better to use the outdoors after all. Aren’t people strange? But, I suppose conformity and appearance are important to acceptance in all societies. I once heard of a newcomer to a neighbourhood who was considered eccentric as she put a garden shed in the front garden.

Well, there we are then. The excitement in the back garden.

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1. While this seems more common in America, it can occur in the UK, where landlords and developers sometimes try to insert a clause into agreements. One can understand it for communal spaces but for private spaces it seems a bit draconian.