What's in the box (s) ??

 As some of you may know, I am trying to seriously destash the house and hopefully cut the contents by at least a third.  The pile of boxes for the charity shop is getting large again and we had another trip to the recycle centre at the weekend.

I'm trying to rationalize my craft stash and even offered a large amount of items for free on a local facebook page. In spite of several organizations replying and saying they wanted them, none have actually replied to any of my messages or posts when I have said they could have them !!

Today I decided to throw out what I thought were two empty boxes that have been in my cupboard for many years except for the fact that they rattled when I took them down from the shelf.

So I opened them....

First, the blue one which turned out to have my Honiton bobbins in, along with an assortment of vintage bobbins collected over the years.

The bottom photo is a small collection of old travel bobbins which are shorter than the ones I usually use. Most of the others are very old, picked up from antique and second hand shops on our travels, others have been passed on to me once people find out that I have an interest in lace making.

The second box contained a number of old crochet hooks, quite a few lace making accessories including some old pins for dividing up the threads and yet more bobbins !

A little wooden sewing set, the inside of the spool is hollow for your needles. I think I bought this off a market in France on one of our road trips.

And this looks like a spool holder?

As we travelled around by motorcycle, bobbins were a good size to collect on our travels and some of these are from Belgium, Italy and I think that there are some from the Czech Republic.

Others are from different parts of the UK.

I think that I would like to make a proper display of these sometime.

Speak soon x

short and sweet

 Hi, just checking in. Not a lot to show this week as I've been busy with the house destash again.

This weekend we are heading over to a nearby furnishing place that specialize in motorhomes and campervans. As our van is now a good few years old, the cushions that we sleep on are past their best so we thought that we would simply have all the furnishings replaced. This first visit is to look at the materials and hopefully work out a date for them to do the work.

Craft wise its been a bit of spinning.

Dark gray = jacob, mid gray = cheviot,  light gray = ryeland all now in the wash bag waiting for a good day to pop on the line.

The lace pillow has been out however less successful than hoped due to misreading the pattern. I think that I need to return to basics of bucks point yet again !

Other than  a small amount of knitting, that really is it for now.

Speak soon xx

2022 Craftyness: update, stash, plans

 I've finally managed to sit down and think about fibre plans for 2022. I've not set any real goals although an American spinner has invited me to join the 365 spin challenge which is to spin 10 min a day. As the challenge started at the beginning of the year I'm about 3 hours behind haha. I may  join in , not sure yet but maybe 10 min a day on a drop spindle would be interesting ? easily portable, always ready and I have a rather nice fine Shetland fleece that would be perfect for this apart from the fact that it needs washing.

This fleece was gifted to me by a close friend and a note in the box revealed that it is from the Derwent flock so fingers crossed that it washes up well.

I'm thinking maybe 10 min a day on my lightest spindle, what do you think ?

Now on to knitting, since the beginning of the year I've knitted a couple of headbands and a couple of pairs of fingerless gloves.

The top pair of mitts are the same length, just need blocking as they curled inwards slightly, These are now in my coffee shop bag. When the bag is full I find a coffee shop and sit weaving the ends in whilst I watch the world go by.

My scraps stash is still a little on the large side and my full skein stash ( ones less than 100gm, have a knot in them or are finer spun than usual) is healthy but I think I need to dye some as its mostly white yarn.

Going forward, more hats, mitts over winter then spin up a couple of fleeces for a friend.

I have actually snatched a few mins to process fibre over the last couple of weeks so this bag is waiting for me to get one of the spinning wheels out.

Cross stitch, yep still stitching although I do seem to have mislaid a project. Hopefully I will find it later today as I sort out the workroom.

First, the big red thing. I have put in a few more stitches and hope to finish it sometime this year. I've popped a six inch ruler in the photo to give some idea of the scale of this project.

The Quaker sampler is coming along slowly, again a ruler to show the difference in scale.

This is really more colourful in real life and on white aida, the camera makes it look a little dull.

This is a quick project that I took to the coast with us, its about 75% complete and will be finished into a small pillow to go with two that I stitched last year. All by Sub Rosa and offered for free on the blog.

The missing project hasn't resurfaced yet, it may be in the van or just hiding well in the workroom !

Anyway, that's it for today, speak soon  xx

We were starting to miss the sea !

 We have just returned from a long weekend back on the East Yorkshire coast. This time we left the van at home and booked into the Premier Inn on the seafront at Bridlington as we needed to have the car ( and the room was cheap )

The weather was mixed, dull and wet on the way there, cold and clear later that night.

Later, well wrapped up , we had a walk down to the town, round the harbour and back before settling down in front of the TV for the night. TV in a hotel room is a treat for us as we don't have one at home but as usual I was surprised about how few watchable programmers were on so many different channels.

                                                               light projection on sea front

Sunday dawned, clear sky, minus temperatures so we decided on a quick trip up the coast to Scarborough.

Looking at the amount of sand on the road at Scarborough I suspect its ether been a bit stormy or very high tide recently.

The day slowly warmed up as we wandered round taking in the sights as either of us had been here for many years.

The beach was busy with day tripper and dog walkers, the amusement arcades noisy and it was too cold for ice creams. We decided to leave walking up to the castle for another day and we quite content ambling around, popping in and out of the shops.

This street amused us, not only for its history but also the different door knockers !

We had a couple of appointments to keep in Bridlington on Monday so we just had a lazy day after that, grabbed a coffee at the Spa cafe,  caught up with a bit of knitting and stitching and sleep.

Tueasday was dull, cold so before leaving the hotel for home we headed down to the Harbour cafe for breakfast.

there were four Cobles moored up in the harbour, We had seen one of them in sail last time we were here.

There is always something to catch the eye whilst walking around from tidal springs ...

to a big conection with wool......

and cats, is there a connection with cats? or just coincidence.

That's it for now, I'll be back very soon with a crafty update.

Speak soon x