Lichen Dye

This is Lobaria pulmonaria ,  common name lungwort.  An easy to use dye plant, just simmer it in soft water (rain water will do )  and you will get a very dark brown.  Safe to use in your kitchen,  needs no mordant.  It was used as a cure for lung disease as the back of the plant resembles a lung.  At this time of the year the winter storms blow if off the trees and I gather it up.   It is slow growing and needs unpolluted air to grow and so needs to be gathered with care.
The photos show a bucket of gathered lichen drying and two of it growing in the woods.
At this time of the year I gather the lichen that is storm blown for use later

Art Yarns

Two recently made art yarns.  The purple made by spinning only Wensleydale locks into the yarn and then plying them to stablise it.  Not that slow a process as the fibre is fairly fast to prepare.
The turquoise a slower job altogether.  Firstly I need some nice long locks in the same colour way that I have some carded batts.  Then I mixed the different colours of the carded wool together and spun one fairly thick yarn which I then navajo plied attaching in  the locks .  The second lot of batts I spun finer with a lot of twist .  I then used this as the core and core spun the 3 ply yarn and tails onto the finer yarn spinning counter clockwise
These are now listed on my Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/ie/listing/216270004/tail-spun-wensleydale-art-yarn-110-grams?ref=shop_home_active_1

Natural Colored Yarn Very Dark Brown

This fleece is really a dark chocolate brown.  The tips a little bleached by the sun.  I am spinning it up chunky weight as it is very lofty and has a fairly short staple.   The fleece was given to me by a friend who farms in south Donegal along with a grey one.   The grey is mostly spun and gone to the US and this is destined for Canada.  hopefully I will get enough for a sweater out of the whole fleece.   Jacob sheep are a small breed and one fleece is not a huge amount of yarn