not a such a good weekend !!! vehicle mishaps :-(

oops, looks like I forgot to post last week, sorry but I really didn't have too much to share or show other than some spinning so I'll combine that with the next post.

For now, I'm going to update you with the chapter of mishaps that have occurred since Friday. Sometimes it feels like everyone is working against you but I'm hoping that everything has now happened and we can get back to our usual travelling, crafty selves.

Friday morning, loaded up the car to drive to the storage unit, passed this sign so we made sure that we were in the middle lane ( I wasn't driving )

Unfortunately the car to our left failed to see either sign and tried to go straight on resulting in us having to exchange details although I think his car came off worse than ours.

We will get the car checked over tomorrow just incase but its driving ok so we carried on to pick up the van.

As expected , the battery in the van was dead and even the big power pack failed to revive it. Not too worrying but just a pain to get it out of the vehicle as its located in the cab floor on the passenger side but we had come prepared with the spare battery which was fully charged

So far, so good (ish). A few weeks ago the van had been back to the dealers as we had a knocking sound somewhere near the back of it, the mechanics dismantled, greased and rebuilt some bearings and pronounced it good. This was the first time we've had chance to get out on a good run and going over the road humps out of storage she is a lot quieter but the knocking is still there. I think they fixed the wrong noise haha.

We decided to get away anyway and drove over to Warwick where we were booked into a small site at the race course.

Pretty site on one side, racecourse view on the other.

As there weren't many pitches free, our choice was between a grass pitch or on the tarmac alongside the race course. Not being big fans of getting stuck in the mud we went for the tarmac option which had the added bonus of being close enough to the jockey club to be able to use their wifi which is a bit of a godsend as my laptop won't pick up the hotspot on my phone.

lazy afternoon, tea,  watched a bit of you-tube vlogs and went to bed only to be woken at 1.30am by the control panel alarm telling us that the leisure batteries were flat ! so problem number two is that either the onboard charger has failed ( it was definitely switched on all afternoon/evening or we need new batteries)

Next day we explore Warwick starting with this pretty post box

followed by beautiful buildings both large ...

....and small.

We then wandered round the market looking for the missing meal ingredient ( onions) grabbed a coffee and toasted sandwich and headed off to the small museum.

then back to the van and discovered this....

Water is now leaking from the fresh water tank somewhere which we think is connected to the noises and may have been happening before but as we spent the last trip away mainly on grass we would not have noticed this. I'm also wondering about the wiring to the leisure battery box and whether something has been dislodged there.

The one good thing is that we were on electric hook up so essentials like heating and some of the lighting work without the 12 volt system.

So that is our tale of woe, we are back home now and an email has been sent to the dealers to book her back in for repairs. We travelled a few pretty bad roads in September so may have caught something at some point anyway, we are not due out again for a few weeks so no great panic.

Sorry if this post has been a bit boring, the next one  should be knitting, spinning, stitching and maybe a bit of lace xx

back to the woolly stuff

 The house is now warm which means that the radiators are strewn with yarn and knitting, the heating works a little differently to before so it will take a while to find the proper temperature setting for us.

I have managed to give the mittens a soak and they are nearly dry (having radiators that now work really helps)

.My destash continues, this time I've donated several books on quilting and bag making to a close spinning buddy and in return I received two packages of fleece. The first ( we think ) is black welsh mountain and looks lovely. I do like spinning this breed so I will probably wash in small amounts and get to grips with it over the next few weeks.

The other is a faun/cream brown Shetland, looks quite fine, very crimpy

The fair isle hat is finished and washed. I'm thinking about getting a mannequin head to both block and photo my hats.

The plain hat is also finished and washed.

Texel and Jacob skeins are also washed and ready to be measured and weighed, Jacob x Dorset now on the wheel.

The house is still a tip as we can't put anything back in place until we are sure that the boiler is working properly as the installer had a lot of problem adding it to out existing heating system. 

I'm now off to town to post out the mitts and a birthday card, may even grab a coffee as well.

Speak soon xx

cold fingers

 I'm sorry that this post is a little late but we have been busy moving things around so the gas men can install a new boiler which involves rerouting pipes etc and trying to destash as we go. 

So far I've reduced the contents of the airing cupboard by more than 50 percent and managed to take a car load of stuff to the tip/recycling centre. Three boxes are sat in the porch ready to go to the charity shop and I will have more to send in the next few weeks.

However, I did get to take a day out just over a week ago to visit the newly reopened Ruddington Frame knitters museum. They have acquired another building which now accommodates the new cafe and shop which also links access to the chapel exhibition space,

The main reason for visiting was to look at the current knitting exhibition and check out the refurbishment of the workers cottages.

Many of Jen's pieces are worked with metal wire which makes them 3 dimensional.

Other parts of the exhibition included knitted lives, where people had been given the opportunity to knit a square ( or not) to put on show,

Typically I forgot to take a photo of the empty card and the reason !!

A stroll round the rest of the museum reminded me of the terrible working conditions that existed, the knitting frames as so close together that you sometimes wonder how people actually got to them to work on them.

You also have the opportunity to have a go on a sock machine and explore some of the museums collections.

The workers cottages have been renovated to show the living standards of the workers and the managers office.

I took the opportunity to sign up as a friend of the museum so I can visit again and receive updates on the progress,

That's about it for now, the workmen have got all the doors open and it feels like about 5 degrees in here so I'm off to get a cup of coffee to warm my hands up xx

the days are getting colder, wool is warm :-)

 We have just two more trips planned for this year and we are keeping our fingers crossed that they can still go ahead. So, for the time being, its back to business as usual. Mittens have again been in demand and hopefully I will get all these ends sewn in tomorrow. ( day trip planned, of interest to knitters so watch for next post)

I had a simple 1x1 rib hat as car knitting last weekend and I need to do about 3 more inches before shaping the crown.

Also on the needles is the start of a fair isle beanie.

The lovely Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery has assigned November as black sampler month, work on any sampler as long as its black. He has some amazing designs and also has a really informative you tube channel . I was lucky enough to have a long zoom conversation with him earlier this year and his knowledge of samplers is astounding. As he is Dutch, some of his collection are different to the standard English/American samplers usually seem.

Anyway, I had a look through the early issues of The Gift of Stitching. This digital magazine, is no longer in exitance but I was able to buy all 70 issues for under £30 as pdf and there are enough patterns that I like for me to justify the purchase ( plus I used birthday monies ) I found a small Quaker inspired sampler perfect for this stitch challenge. Then ,me being me, I started it early !! 

Sshhh, don't tell Jacob that I cheated haha :-)

So now I have two red things and a black thing on the go ! I'm trying to get ahead as November is also Wovember on Instagram with daily photo prompts which I will probably share on here as well. I think that it will be similar to the lace month that I did back in January? My instagram link is here and if you scroll back aways you will find a lot of daily lace photos from the beginning of the year.

Finally, I did some shopping on the Lace suppliers spotlight page again. This time its a pattern for a small piece of lace to fit into a ruler. Pattern by Sally-Anne Smiddy. I will get round to it eventually.

The day we caught the train

 Last weekend we made a quick dash to Cornwall to catch up with friends who we hadn't seen since June 2019. Many arrangements had been made to visit last year but due to the obvious disruption we were never in  or allowed to be in the right place at the right time.

We arrived around tea time on Friday so the evening was spent catching up with the gossip however, with good weather forecast for Saturday, we started to make plans for a day out. Eventually we decided on catching the train to St Ives, a short but scenic journey.

St Ives is a traditional Cornish fishing village full of narrow alleys as the houses hide behind each over seeking cover from winter storms.

You can see from this aerial view how close the buildings are.

The town is a very popular tourist destination with museum, Tate art gallery and many small shops. We sampled the ice creams (excellent ) as well as the odd sausage roll, had a look round the museum and the harbour.

All too soon it was time to catch the train back but we stopped for a coffee first. Stunning view from the coffee shop window, just a shame that someone had already beaten us to the best seats.

I promise that the next post will be back to knitting and spinning xx

A bit of a woolly week

 I had planned to stitch on the other red thing this week but then had a request for some mittens and dyed yarn so I made it a spinny/knitty week instead.

As I had some combed fibre oddments hanging around I spun them together and overdyed in the slow cooker and also dyed a couple of small skeins of Romney whilst I was at it.

Then I cast on some mittens using some oddments left over from knitting hats.

As I now had my knitty head on, I finished the Ryeland hat and the Tam ( Shetland and Texel)

                                                 I'm pleased with the crown design.

The result is that I now have very few little large skeins of spun yarn left so I guess its back to fleece prep and spinning next week.

But I did get to put a stitch or two into the other red thing.

My next task is to cast on an easy hat to knit in the car on our next trip, sort out some yarn for more mittens, sort out fleece stash for some white and dark fleece to blend together as I like the effect of dye on the 'mottled' yarn.

Speak soon xx

Who said that Summer could end ?

 Two days ago I was still wearing my normal cut off trousers and tops and today I'm in long skirt, jumper and (shock horror) socks !! I don't think I've worn socks for at least 3 maybe 4 months and the tan lines on my feet clearly show which sandals I've been wearing. But its raining and its the last day of September.

At the start of the first lockdown I made myself a monthly list of daily , weekly jobs so I could tick them a off and get some sort of routine established. This worked fine last year but I've got a bit lazy in the last few months, haven't picked up the mandolin to practise along with a few small chores.

So I'm back on the list ready for October.

Anyway, on with the craft.

This week I'm mainly stitching and knitting, stitching as I want to get as far as I can with the red thing before starting the black thing ( see blog 30.8 ) even though cross stitch linen and evenweave seems to be in short supply I have found a piece just big enough in my stash. I may lightly overdye with tea first,

Knitting wise I'm just knocking up a plain hat in the Ryeland spun whilst on holiday, Pig of a pattern for me simply as it has a 4x4 rib and my normal is 1x1 or 2x2. This means that I have had to make several corrections with a crochet hook due to forgetting how far to count,

update 2.10

Red thing, I've now stitched the first two pages so I may have to put it away for a week whilst I work on my other red thing :-)

the thread is 'redder' in real life  (or maybe its the screen on my laptop )but you get a sense of where I am with it.

On the subject of stitching, I had my sewing machine out to quickly zigzag the edge of some fabric so I decided to finish the small sampler from earlier this year into another small pillow.

So now I have an autumn themed mini to go with my witch pillows.

The Ryeland hat is coming along nicely now and has been handy to knit during the occasional zoom meeting.

Hopefully this will be finished during the next week. I had the spinning wheel out briefly this morning and managed 60 gm of Texel and will probably spin the same tomorrow. I still have a mountain of fleece to work through plus I want to dye some yarn next week so that I have some basic hat knitting to do on our next car journey,

That's about it for this week, the weather is really wet and dreary so I won't be going far for the next few days,

Speak soon, take care xx