crabapples anyone?

I could open a shop - just with crabapples, at least for a while:)) I am picking and picking and making juice, but the trees don't look as if I picked much at all. if I had a very small garden with only one tree in it - it would have to be the crab apple "Evereste"! in spring you get a cloud of white-pink flowers - and towards autumn the small apples shine red in the sun (if there is any that is:)). I wouldn't recommend eating them, they are small and extremely acidic - but they are brilliant for juice or a jelly, pinkish, when the apples were allowed to ripen fully. ok, you can get a darker reddish jelly if you use "Red Sentinel", and it looks really pretty - but the apples are the size of cherries and you'd need a whole orchard full of them to get enough apples:))

another two buckets full, one only evereste, the other has another variety at the bottom, looks similar, just less red - forgot the name, we have quite a few of them:)) golden hornet has yellow apples, as the name says, but they are quite early and this year they have some sort of scab. don't look terribly inviting, so I just use the nice ones - choosy:)) the rest of the apples are a few eaters, very small, nothing much on the tree, there never is (bad location I think!). the rest of the green ones are cider apples, I'll use them to make more juice, by steaming them....the small bucket in front contains ornamental quinces, which are extremely hard and quite small - but have a sensational scent and make a lovely jelly or jam, if you can be bothered to push the pulp through a sieve. I usually add cinnamon and or cloves - yummy for winter! the small brown "things" represent our pear harvest.... no words necessary?:)) 

when the weather is reasonable (we only had a few light showers today!) I am outside, but if not - I'll keep the dye pot going. remember the not very exciting yellow I managed with alderbuckthorn berries in cold vinegar? the one at the bottom... I thought I'd give it another try, picked a handful more of the berries and heated it all up with some water, too. I added alum mordanted wool - and bingo, I got a lovely green, which was very hard to catch with the digicam. it's bright and "shiny", if wool can be called that. at the bottom of the upper left pic you see the original yellow - didn't like it, put it into the pot again - at least it's green now and not another not very nice yellow:)) not the colour you can get on silk (right), but better than nothing. anyway, this was it from the rhamnus tree - I hope for a better harvest next year!

I also spun more purple - see the header picture. it's half wool, half silk, dyed with logwood on alum... on the knitting front I managed a bit of progress with the Moiraine scarf, but not much to show really. and I did a few "fillings" on my house hanging.... not terribly productive but all the "topping and tailing" of the tiny apples takes quite some time!