back to the craft(yness)

Hi

Welcome back to the workroom for a quick crafty update 😀

Firstly some knitting. As you may expect, I took some knitting on our recent trip, especially for the long drive up which enabled me to get a good start on the first hat.

As usual, hand spun, hand-dyed and unfortunately I do not have a photo of the finished item as the hat stayed on the Isle of Skye.

On the journey back and over the last week I carried on with the knitting bug and now have items in my 'to be finished and washed' bag.

Yes, one of these patterns is now well and truly embedded in my memory, no more looking at the chart.

Currently I have another hat on the needles, managing a row or six between chores.

Whilst on Skye, I was gifted a knitting belt to help with my wrist problems and a trip round the charity shops in Callender supplied me with a variety of different length dps to practise with.

The spinning wheel also travelled with me but unfortunately, I only took two bobbins instead of the usual three, so I had to wind singles into balls to ply once home. I also found that the foot pedal was no long working so I now have a replacement which makes life much easier.

The Jacob was ready to ply.

One bobbin of Aberville was spun so I spun another one earlier today.

I was then left with a ball of Texel and the bobbin of Lleyn that I spun whilst minding the shop in the middle of the holiday ( Its always nice to spin on something different, in this case an Ashford Joy) is still sat on the wheel in the shop. I suspect that it will be plyed and used for something.

A small bag of fleece arrived during the week, extremely well picked and skirted and now washed awaiting combing. Another bag has just arrived as I'm typing so will be investigated tomorrow.

I've fallen back down the rabbit hole again after checking Facebook and learning about tow SAL (stitch a long) starting this weekend. One blackwork and one cross stitch, both running for 36 weeks.

I've kitted them up using mainly thread and material from my stash.

Back north of the border

 Hi

First I must say sorry for not posting in the last four weeks, I was busy packing before our trip and seem to have been washing and knitting eversince we got back. More about the knit and spin side of things in the next post ( promise !! )

So we went back up to Scotland on a sort of mini tour. 9 campsites in 15 days but not a huge number of photo as we have visited some of these places before as well as simply enjoying being away..

We started just a walk away from the Falkirk wheel, basic campsite but with the added bonus of the chance to have a cart ride through the forest accompanied by a young pup.

We then walked across the fields and down to the canal, through the tunnel and out along the top of the wheel mechanism. 

This you-tube video explains how it works, my camera battery had died at this point..

.We had coffee in the visitor centre and then retraced our steps back through the tunnel to the site.

the next stop was Pitlochry (nice bridge)

Followed by a campsite near Aviemore where the heavens opened and we spent most of the time watching old war films. But there were red squirrels and lots of birds.

I also spotted that I wasn't the only spinner on site although we didn't get to meet.

Rose Markie on the Black Isle has long been a favourite place to stop off whether on bike, in car or in the van. There is a friendly community cafe at the end of the beach and plenty for Ian to wander off and explore. Temporary membership at the golf club ensured a couple of evenings in the pleasant company of the friendly bar manager.

We had some rain but all was forgiven after sighting the Rainbow hugging the coastline.

Next stop was a bit like going home for us, we have spent quite a bit of time on Skye so we took the opportunity to visit friends made over the years. Two campsites this time, Portree and Edinbane.

Confession, by the time we left Skye, two Hebridean fleeces were neatly packed the shower, more about that in a later post.

Bunree campsite near Fort William gave us some traditional views of Scotland.

We stayed over at another couple of campsites on the way back (Callender and Penrith) but no more photos. This may feel like a whistle stop tour but many of the site were only an hours drive from each other and we spent a lot of time walking, relaxing and generally recharging our batteries,

We hope to be back up in the area early next year, hopefully for an extended stay.

Next post will be the usual crafty nonsense :-)

Take care xx

Good news on the creative front

 Hi,

My wrist is beginning to feel a lot better and I have spun a couple of skeins of lleyn as I suddenly realised that I am going to be short of yarn to knit with during our upcoming road trip.

I've started on the lace edging and made some small amount of progress on the cross stitch however on the very hot days I've not felt like doing anything really constructive.

On the cooler days I have picked up my needles and knitted a pair of mitts as I'm still aiming to use up as much of my hand spun oddments as possible.

 This weekend we've pitched up at Ferry Meadows camp site just outside Nene country park, one of our regular sites.

The main reason for this trip is to make sure that everything is ok with the van .It's been serviced, new timing chain in the engine and new gas pipes around the living area. Even the aircon has been regassed but since we've never used it we were completely unaware that it needed doing.

We emptied the van before the service, giving me chance to check through all the trash that had accumulated during the year and now I'm making sure that everything has gone back in. Nothing worse than setting off and forgetting the oven shelves or pillows.

We've been into Peterborough this morning on the Nene Valley Railway which was running diesel rather than steam today ( maybe because of the fire risk ?) and now we are back at the van. I'm thinking about doing some spinning until tea time..

Whilst in Peterborough we visited the Cathedral which turned out to be quite surreal as there was a visiting dinosaur exhibition so rather than quiet choral or organ music, we had the roar of dinosaurs!

We spent an hour or so wandering round the town before heading back for the train.

The rest of the afternoon was spent spinning with some cute visitors.

An early evening walk in the park followed, a look at the Roman ruins and the wild life spotting board.

We had seen an quick flash of green and the board confirmed a rather unusual visitor to the park.

Did you spot it? Ring Necked Parakeet, not usually amongst our regular birds here in Cambridgeshire.

We are now back home, looking at a pile of stuff to sort out, and a few things to order before the next trip. Next weekend is a Bank Holiday so I'm not sure where I will get to whilst Ian is away on his bike.

Speak soon x