Monday 30 May 2011

Laneast Church

At some point during Friday nights pub session in Cornwall I spotted an advert for a craft fair and flower festival in a nearby village.  Laneast is a very small village not far from our Rally site in Cornwall and the fair was being held at the St Sidwell and St Gulval Parish Church.

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A friend from one of the local bike clubs saw me knitting during the evening and offered to pick me up on Saturday morning so we could visit the yarn shops in Launceston so we spent the morning shopping followed by a quick visit to The Natural Fibre Company to see what they were up to. After much petting of wool Helen dropped me off in Laneast.

The craft fair was also to celebrate the completion of the Church wall hanging, this having been finished in May of this year and the panels represent parts of the church, local buildings and buildings and bridge. The local children added the bats to represent the colony resident in the church.

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The flower displays were amazing, the food fantastic and I felt duty bound to sample the pasty, cake and tea whilst knitting quietly and listening to the wonderful local accents. When it was time to leave it was raining heavily so I felt that I simply had to retreat back inside and enjoy a cream tea whilst spinning on my drop spindle.

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The next few minutes were spent in conversation with an author living in the  area who writes books based in medieval times, looking at the drop spindle for inclusion as part of the village life in that time.

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I eventually dragged myself away and had a pleasant if somewhat damp walk back to the bikers but had really appreciated the glimpse of local village life.

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Obligatory spinners shot of sheep on the walk back

Sunday 29 May 2011

Cornwall

I've split this post in two, The second part will follow tomorrow.

Last weekend we headed down to Cornwall for our clubs Summer rally, this was the usual mix of bikes and booze with a raffle and a little improvised spinning.

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We hadn't intended to cover ourselves in mud on Sunday morning but the bike decided to part company with us and we ended up lying in a pool of mud in the middle of a country lane! nothing injured apart from our pride.

Music and Fluff

Hi, seems ages since I blogged here, so sorry but I've been a little busy recently as the next few posts will show.

In the meantime, here's a couple of photos from two weeks ago when we found ourselves in a pub not far from Knit Nottingham enjoying music from a band that we first met in Scotland many years ago.

Seven Little Sisters have reformed recently and  are very busy but still found time to play in a local pub even though they had played a festival and a late gig the previous two days.

As usual, we were there with knitting and spindles and these days the band would be disppointed if we didn't spin whilst enjoying their music!!

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This is the Blueface Leicester that was dyed with landscape dyes ( see previous post) and spun by Wikkidknitter.

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We enjoy a drink but please note that the whisky container is used for transporting spindle and fibre!!

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The beer was very appropriate!

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and the band played on.

Sunday 8 May 2011

when hubbys away.....

Have a FLUFF day!!!!







yesterday three ravelry/spinnotts friends      called round for a bit of fluff fun, we had a show and tell.

                                  We had biscuits.

Pete did some carding.

Followed by a spot of spinning and pizza
then some dyeing, Blue Face Leicester fleece with Landscape dyes


including these kops fresh off the drop spindle dyed with acid dyes
and Stashfairy did some more spinning

Good time was had by all as usual and I still have a bag of dyed fibre drying out  on the line and a bucket of blue face leicester fleece soaking in the garden. The spindle spun singles seem to be holding together so will try and knit them, see if they hold together after the dyeing and steaming.



Monday 2 May 2011

Steam and sheep!!

As hubby drove off on his bike yesterday I decided to have a day out by myself, packed a picnic, knitting and drop spindle and headed for the bus. Over the bank holiday weekend Wollaton Park near Nottingham has been hosting a country and steam show with pleanty of steam engines, vintage cars and motorbikes. Just the place for a sunny afternoon picnic.
Spent most of my time breathing in the scent of the steam as a lot of my childhood was spent visiting preserved steam railways with my Dad and I just love the smell of hot steam and oil.

steam engines

steam engines

 steam engines

I took the opportunity to compare notes with some bikers, one of them mentioned that his oldest bike was 1905 so had no brakes, gears etc which made it a little difficult to ride!

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After the steam engines had paraded round the arena ( ever seen a really big engine wheel spin?) some shire horses took their place.

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Inspite of all the attractions, the one I really enjoyed was the sheep show complete with dancing sheep.

Sheep Show

Sheep Show

Sheep Show

I did offer to take the Blue Face Leicester home with me or even just the fleece!!!

Hope you all had good weekend.