Ist road trip of the year and a knitting update.

Hi,

We had a cheeky night away at the weekend, great day but pretty lousy night for me as unable to sleep lying down properly, the weekend was promptly followed by a trip to the doctors and I'm now  waiting for an appointment with a muscular skeletal consultant !

Anyway, back to the weekend.

This time we travelled up into North Yorkshire to give the van a run out to recharge the batteries. We stayed on a site just outside Knaresborough so we had electric hook up for the heating (very small fan heater, works so much better than the vans heating system)

After arriving at midday we just had time for a quick cuppa before catching the bus into knaresborough. A cold day but not too bad so we had a wander around to see what grabbed our attention.

The obvious one was the painted windows. Many of the older buildings have bricked in windows, I assume this is a result of the window tax many years ago. Several of theses window spaces have been embellished with paintings.

We are always a sucker for blue plaques giving the history of buildings, Knaresborough did not disappoint with this Flax Mill.

Interesting that they use the term heckle where we would these days talk about using a hackle for combing or blending wool.

We then made our way, via several charity shops, to the castle. Amazing views of the town and an obvious place of importance ( details on another plaque.)

The views were pretty good as well, the weir and site of another flax mill

and the viaduct !

A hint of the past was glimpsed through the trees

Old Mother Shipton was waiting for us when we got back into town.

This is one of those amazing sculptures that you can spend ages looking at then suddenly see something new !!

After coffee we headed back to the van for the evening and I actually got some knitting done !

Spammed and a quick update

HI

I eventually made it back to work on Wednesday but I've still not shaken off-- the tiredness caused by the Virus. Also I'm really struggling to remember that we are no longer in 2019 when writing the date.

I have just removed around a dozen comments on here which linked to Chinese porn sites !! fortunately I set all comments to be moderated first so I can catch this sort of thing.

I'm still taking part in the Instagram lace challenge, there have been a couple of headings that still have me foxed so I will come back to the once inspiration strikes.

I have 3!! hats on the needles at the moment which is unusual for me but it will give me plenty of knitting to pop in the van on our next run out.

This one is simply oddments that were left on the bobbins, I may keep it for my self, not sure yet.

This one is mainly Jacob and the design has a masculine feel to it, its an easy repeat so I should get it finished soon.
Spinning.. I'm working on the last of the brown Shetland fleece, 60 gram on the bobbin and another 60 ready to spin onto the next. This will be used for knitting rather than selling as yarn.

My knitting/spinning mojo went into retirement with being ill so hopefully will return soon, the brighter if colder weather is helping a bit.

One thing that I have found is that I'm starting to bake cakes and biscuits and quite enjoying the process.

Speak Soon xx

Its Just a Virus...

But it knocked me off my feet and I'm still exhausted !!

Anyway, I managed to start the January Lace Challenge, several days late and using photos pinched from this very blog.

here are the challenge words..

I suspect that I may have to skip some of them unless Inspiration strikes, yep, that is no 31.!

Its made me think about to spend my time once work no longer plays such a big part, although I love the spinning/knitting, I don't want to burn out on it.

So , the challenge so far is documented on my Instagram pages.https://www.instagram.com/guzzisue/

rather than repeat the photos that can already by found on the blog.

On the spinning front, I busy prepping the last of a brown Shetland and I have a couple of simple hats on the needles waiting to be finished.

I have a large amount of material scarps to be used up so I'll be looking at making some drop spindle project bags which will be handy if I'm ever asked about workshops. Also they can double as knitting bags :-)

Long term, I'm looking to use up/downsize a lot of my craft materials as they are taking up too much valuable space at the moment.

I hope you are all having a great week, watch this space xx

belated New Year Greetings

May I wish everyone a very belated happy New Year :-) The bug got me, went to bed 9.30 New Years Eve, didn't suface until yesterday and then only long enough for a shower and a small bite to eat!

I've been mooching around today as all the unintentional rest has sent my body clock wrappy and I've been awake since 3am except for a short nap.

So to all my friends who I haven't caught up with, I'm not ignoring you, and will try to get the year off to a better start next week.

On the upside, we did catch some bike racing on Sunday before all this happened :-)