Us Ladies Wot Lunch!

I had the most brilliant day on Friday, when I went to the Wensleydale Longwool shop, near Leyburn, with Carrie and Hazel. We were met there by Becky and Bev , and last but not least,Silvia, who had a fab pressie for Carrie!

In the shop ,we drooled over the gorgeous yarns and accessories and formed a long queue to pay for our purchases, I've never seen the little place so full! I was very good and only bought some aran to knit a beret pattern I've had for ages.

We then moved into the carpark, where we caused major congestion looking at Carries pressie from Silvia, a gorgeous spinning wheel!! I think we were as excited as Carrie! Unfortunately Silvia had to go to work, so we waved her off, then went into Leyburn, to a lovely little tearoom above Serendipity.

Carrie and Bev


Once again we caused chaos, as the tables sat four and we were a five! So after some minor furniture rearrangement, we eventually got settled and became ladies wot lunched!

Becky and Hazel

After lunch we sauntered around Leyburn and Becky took us on a mystery diversion to The Shawl. This turned out to be a beautiful hidden gem, the site of the original settlement of Leyburn, with stunning views and, as an extra bonus, sheep!

And en route toThe Shawl, I spotted this....

The photo isn't very good as I used my phone, but it was a trompe l'oeil painting of a cat on a coal hole door and in the very top left corner, a little bird! I loved it!!

Thanks to all the girlies for a fab day out, with special thanks to Carrie for taking me and putting up with my blethering all the way thee and back!

On the knitting front, Ian's hat is coming along nicely, it's a quick knit,but I've been having blinding headaches, which have slowed down my progress, but I'm plodding along!!

When I downloaded the photos from my phone, I found a couple of pictures of some canvases I painted a few months ago, mainly to fill a space on our bedroom wall!

I really enjoyed doing them and would love to do some mixed media canvases, all I need is another 24 hours in a day!!

Emptier Nest!

:( One of my chicks has left the nest, and flown all the way to Ayr in Scotland.
Well when I say flown, Ian didn't drive that fast, probably because we were so laden with 'essential stuff'' he couldn't have even tried! It was a miracle it all fitted in! All those years of going camping and trying to fit everything including the kitchen sink into a small car, obviously paid off! Anyway, Tom's settled in and is looking forward to his course in countryside management, but the house seems so empty, especially as Kate is never in! Speaking of Kate, she finally got an interview for an admin post after hundreds of applications, and she got the job! Its only for a few months, but its a start.

Amongst all the mayhem ,I somehow got the string bag finished last week. I really enjoyed knitting it, it's so simple you don't have to think, which suits my brain at the moment!

It stretches loads, the picture shows it with a BIG box of cornflakes in and there was still lots of space. Have a look at Queen Of The Froggers version in the bright orangy yarn, it looks fab!

I've decided to start pressie knitting for Christmas too. I'm in the process of knitting an item using some Posh Yarn Lucia for one project, but can't reveal what or for whom! And today, my order from Dragon Yarns came with the Dalegarn Halk, so now I'm ready to start a hat for my brother.

I'm going to attempt They Call Em Pirates! I've never tried fairisle before, but I'm looking forward to trying it. Any tips gratefully received!!

My Pomatomus sock was coming along fine too UNTIL I tried it on!

I'd rounded the heel and thought the foot was looking a bit tight, so carefully tried to put it on and found they were TOO SMALL!!! AARRRRGGGG!! My big fat size sevens just wouldn't squeeze in no matter how I wiggled the DPN's and in disgust I pulled them off the needles and sent it to the big frog pond in the sky!! I've decided I like sock knitting best when I don't have to think about it, so I'm going to do some ordinary and boring plain ones! It probably won't last, especially as I love Kaths log cabin socks!

I finished spinning the Gotland I bought at Woolfest but I'm really disappointed with my spinning. I seem to naturally spin a very fine yarn and find it hard to spin thicker stuff, I start off OK but as my concentration wavers, I seem to have a thin yarn default!! I feel the Gotland is spun way too thin and doesn't show the variation in colours like I had hoped. I also think I over twisted it when I plied it, so all in all I'm not a happy bunny!!

So I'm going to have to practise spinning thicker yarn. I wonder if it's because I find carding hard work and sub-consciously I'm trying to eek out the rolag?! I've just got drum carder envy I think!!
The garden is coming to the end of it's growing season now. At the weekend, we picked the last of the tomatoes and lettuce. The frost will get the green beans soon and there aren't too many courgettes left growing. But saying that, the Brussel sprouts are fattening up nicely and the leeks are getting bigger, so maybe it's not all over yet!

Pooped and Penniless!

I think it will take me a week to recover! But Woolfest was a fab few days!

My dear hubby took me and the caravan over on Wednesday evening. It was a glorious drive over, the shadows on the hills were so beautiful.

We arrived at Graysonside and as we set the caravan up we got the feeling we were being watched!

On Thursday, I spent a quiet day, knitting, spinning and reading! Bliss!! But as the day went on, the weather started to change, becoming wetter and windier by the minute. It got so bad that a nearby tent actually blew over and was rescued by some hardy souls!

It was quite scary, as the caravan was rocking violently. I was so pleased to see Carrie Anne, Becky and Bev!! As Andrea wasn't able to make it, we decided not to put up the tent and just squeeze into the caravan. This is a pic of the four of us.

On Friday and Saturday, we started with a hearty farmhouse breakfast, well worth staying at Graysonside for alone! On very full stomachs, and with a lot of excitement, we went to Woolfest!!

As last year, it was an amazing combination of animals, fibres, equipment and wonderful people. I met many people who I only knew through Blogland and it was brill to put faces to the names. The first bloggers I met were the wonderful Artis-Anne and her fab daughter Kath. It really made my weekend meeting these two warm and friendly ladies. It felt as though we 'clicked' straight away, as though we'd known each other for years!!

On Friday and Saturday morning, I spent the day shopping, while on Saturday afternoon I attended the Artic Lace workshop with Carrie Anne. This was really interesting, learning about the Eskimos of Alaska and their use of musk oxen hair ( is it spelt quivert?) in knitting.

I mainly bought fibre, including Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester, Ryeland and Gotland fleece.

This pic shows the dark Gotland as well as the golden and smokey Angora from those gorgeous bunnies! There's also some Suri alpaca in there too!

I also got a couple of extra bobbins, for all that spinning I'm going to do and a niddy noddy.

I really would like to try some more dyeing, so I bought some Procion dyes from DT crafts and some natural dyes from Pure Tinctoria. The undyed yarn is in sock and lace weight.

And finally I bought some reading material, some Spin Off mags, a book on natural dyeing and a kit from Natural Dye Studio, to crochet a mohair scarf! Gulp! It seems to be simple crochet, so fingers crossed!

So all in all, a fantastic few days. And to top it all off, I won Kaths Krafty Kreations blog prize! Thanks Kath!! It came with a challenge, which I'll post about next time. So here we are worn out and skint, but very, very happy!! Thanks to the rest of my caravan comrades for a fab time! Shall I book up for next year??

How Does Your Garden Grow!

Quickly, I think the answer is! I can't keep up with the speed things are growing and seem to spend loads of time repotting things into bigger pots. Unlike the balmy South, Ooop North we can't put tender plants outside yet, so the greenhouse is looking decidedly cramped!

It really feels as if the garden is coming alive again after the long winter sleep. Lots of flowers are blooming, despite Paddy and Alfies best attempts to eradicate them, either by trampling or eating!

Unlike the garden, things have been quiet on the knitting front. I'm progressing slowly on the Regia socks. I love these colours, they are so cheerful and put a smile on my face each time I look at them.

I couldn't resist sale bargains at Hipknits either, I think it was the colours that called me again.

I really shouldn't buy any more yarn for several reasons,

• I have plenty in my stash to last me years!
• I'm going to Fair Isle to learn to spin, so I can make my OWN yarn.
• I'm also going to Woolfest and should be saving, instead of spending!

BUT

• There are some gorgeous yarns out there.
• Even when I can spin, I'll have to learn how to dye to get some of the yummy colours!
• Knit shops keep having sales!!
• I NEED to try different yarns, patterns, books, magazines.............!

There's more things in the second list, so I reckon that means I'll just HAVE to keep on buying!

I don't know, life is SO tough!

Wool And Walkies!

I've been soooo bad lately, in keeping up with the world of blog. I hopefully will soon be able to catch up with everyone's blog! I hang my head in shame!!

We had a wonderful few days in the Lakes. The weather couldn't have been better, with unseasonally hot sunshine to relax in. We stayed on the shores of Lake Coniston, which is beautiful and not as busy as some of the other lakes. This is an early morning pic of the southern end of Coniston.

We stayed in our caravan, which is going to be put to good use again in June. Five of us County Durham knitters are going to 'caravan' at Graysonside camp site , in order to visit WOOLFEST!! Woohoo!!

As you can see, the caravan isn't massive, it's going to be very 'cosy' at Woolfest!! Please excuse the pic of topless hubby, he was slaving over a hot stove at the time!!

I finally got my shawl blocked, and persuaded my dear daughter to model it!

I'm really pleased with it, the border really made a difference when I FINALLY sussed it out. I'm still not sure if it's on backwards, but it looks OK!


I also knitted a couple of the Booga bags, which are drying post-felting as we speak. This is what one looked like before felting.



I've also been playing with my new toy, the swift! It's absolutely brilliant! It winds a skein in no time. I wound three yesterday, Two Jitterbugs from Colinette and my precious Socks That Rock! The colours really complemented each other and I couldn't resist taking a photo.

I'm knitting socks in Regia 4 ply at the moment, I started them at last Fridays KnitnNatter, which was a lovely morning as usual. Bev gave me two of the dinkiest pens I have ever seen! Thank you again Bev! I've always been fascinated by miniatures. I love the mini wheel that Artis-Anne recently bought too!

Speaking of gifts,inkyartitude gave me a belated birthday pressie of some beautiful metallic acrylic paints, in gorgeous colours. Thank you again Lynn!

Aren't they beautiful? Can't wait to use them! Just need more hours in the day!

I'll leave you with some pics from our garden, after a light shower. The spooky thing was, Carrie Anne showed me some pics she'd taken of flowers and they were the same flowers that I'd taken pics of! Spooky!!
I've put the photo of the Grape Hyacinth on, even though it's blurred, just so Carrie Anne can see the coincidence for herself!

P.S. Thanks for all your wonderful comments, they really mean a lot.

Is It Christmas?

The postman knocked this morning. I opened the door and he said,

'There's a few parcels for you today!'

Then he added,

'In fact all the parcels I've got today are for you.'

So he gives me 4 parcels. My heart starts pounding, I feel like a kid at Christmas!

All these are for me?

Parcel number one: My belated Easter pressie from Ian, my longed for swift, woohoo!! Thank you darlin', much better than a choccy egg!!

Parcel number two: Noro Kureyon destined to be a Booga bag for my sister in law. Lovely colours!

Oops forgot to rotate photo!

Parcel number three: Not for me :( , a book Ian ordered on CBT for work stuff. Boring!

and then Parcel number four. The cutest little sheep finger puppet from Craftydramaqueen! Thank you Andrea for this gorgeous pressie. It was a lovely surprise and is sooo adorable!

Have you seen his little heart feet, aawwww! It really cheered me up to get his little woolyness!

And as if I haven't been lucky enough to get all these lovely pressies, we are off to the Lakes for a long weekend.

I better get back to caravan packing! We always take far too much, I'll be ready for a break by the time we get sorted!

Housemaid's Knee!

Well, I haven't actually got housemaids knee, but I should have!

I know it's hard to believe, but I've actually tidied my craft room! And because I knew you wouldn't believe me, I took a photo to prove it!

It's hard to imagine that this was the same room that I tried to shame myself into tidying by putting a pic on the blog! In fact the old one was in such a mess, it wasn't a room, it was a skip!

I lost count of the number of full bin bags I took out over 4 days, yes FOUR days. Because of my dodgy back, it was a starty/ stoppy affair and at one point I thought I'd never get it finished, but it's done. Thank God. And I am going to TRY and keep it tidy. Promise! ( I'll just lock the door so I can't get in to make a mess! It's about the only way it will stay tidy!!)

I was sooo pleased when I sold my first felted bag and even more pleased when someone saw it and asked if I could make them one. Now, after I've knitted this pattern for the sixth or is it seventh time I'm sick of it! It's not that I mind knitting them but the pattern is so simple and I would like to knit something else! Here are the latest two, minus handles!

The major side effect of this situation is that I now have a mountainous yarn stash that needs some urgent attention! Especially before Woolfest, or I'll have no excuse to buy more. I know, I don't need an excuse to buy yarn!

In an attempt to address the stash mountain I've started on the yummy Piece of Beauty sock yarn that Carrie Anne bought me for Christmas. It's called Boathouse and I love it, it's so soft and feels lovely to knit with.

I just need to sit with my feet up, knitting in hand and rest that housemaids knee! Poor girl, hope her other knee's ok!

Just A Quickie!

Before I burst with excitement!
Last night, Carrie Anne gave me my birthday pressie! Wow, Wow, WOW!!!



Yes, its Socks That Rock yarn! Just the yarn I've drooled over for sooo many months! And in a fab colourway called Cracked Canyon. Thank you Carrie Anne, thank you, thank you, thank you!!

And if that wasn't enough, Bev gave me a fantastic card, which she knitted using sewing needles and sewing cotton. This is the card,

But the close up shows how incredible it really is.

It's unbelievable just how Bev knitted let alone cabled. I think it's fantastic and just had to show and tell!!

Thanks Bev, you are a genius, a genius with bad eyesight now, but a genius non the less!!

Thank you!!