Another day out and a charity shop find

 I've not had chance to unpack properly from the weekend and we are already jumping into the car to head north. Ian's bike boots are getting old and leaking a little so we headed back to the Altberg factory to see if they can be mended or whether its a case of biting the bullet and ordering some new ones,.

After a close inspection it was decided that new soles and a seal round them would do the job so they have been left there for repair.

We took ourselves off into town to do our usual trawl of the charity shops and grab some breakfast.

Richmond ( Yorkshire) is a market town built on wool and the lead mining industry.

Small alleyways lead back up to the market place that has shops on all four sides

The castle that you can see in the distance is closed during the week at this time of year so we will return sometime to explore further;'

Taking a walkdown to the river you come across Richmond falls, a pleasant spot to stop and eat our sandwiches.

I managed to take a terrible pic of the castle as we left, another good reason to go back !

unexpected delight was the coffee cup printed with Yorkshire dialect.

and the charity shop find of the day was this lace book

it also has an assortment of lace patterns in it.

Gansey hunting and my weekend knitting

 I had hoped to go to Cromer museum to see if I could spot any ganseys but its now closed for the season so I had to be content with one of the boards of historic photos that can be found around the town.

Photos taken by Olive Edis 1876-1955 more info and links can be found here

I took a bag of oddments with me and by the end of the weekend I had another headband.

Typically, as we packed up to come home, the sun came out for the first time and as much as we would have loved to extend our stay we had to come home for an appointment on Monday.

return to Cromer

 We planned this trip maybe two weeks ago hoping for some reasonable if maybe cold weather, unfortunately its be overcast, damp and cool. We haven't really seen the sun since the clocks changed and that's nearly two weeks ago.

Consequently, I must apologise for the absence of blue skies in the photos !

We spent both Friday and Saturday shopping and wandering around the old streets. Our plan to visit the museum was thwarted by it being closed until April 2025, the same with the Art Space but plenty of coffee shops were open as usual.

There are currently works in progress to strengthen the sea defences up and down the east coast and Cromer is no exemption, In fact, judging by the number of people watching the diggers at work on Friday, it seems to have become a spectator sport.

However , the beach huts and the pier were still standing as usual.

Many of the buildings currently have scaffolding round them so it was a case of finding the right angles this time to show them at their beat.

or, with this building, finding an old photo

Coffee was sampled at the cafe at the RNLI station, very good it was too.

A faded advertisement painted on a wall led me to the local yarn shop, definitely worth a visit, spent quite some time chatting to the owner.

as ever, I'm always drawn back to the sea.

autumn colour

 We've been out for a drive, I hadn't realised how much the trees were changing colour.

super quick lace update

 hi, just a quick update on my latest lace strip, I have made a start, not much of one but here we go.

Still, I can console myself with a couple of books purchased this morning.

the spinning lady

 Earlier this year we were camping at Beer in Devon and paid a visit to the small antique shop in the village. Ian spotted a small group of metal figures and there was one of a lady sitting down with her arms outstretched.

Obviously something was missing, we came up with a few suggestion including a spinning wheel. We left the ornament in the shop, no point in buying a mystery craft person :-)

Wind forward to last week when I spotted this little lady on e-bay, we are pretty sure that its another one from the same mould.

Yes, I looked at the photos on offer and bought her.

Meet my spinning lady, complete with wheel :-)

unboxing Saxony merino

 I spotted an advert on a friends Facebook page, she was destashing some Saxony merino. half a fleece and a few oddments totalling around 1.5 k

Now I know that I'm on a fibre diet and really shouldn't be adding to the stack of fleece to be washed but I couldn't resist the chance to play with this and I also justified it by needing fine fibres to spin on the Nano.

The parcel has arrived, nice and squidgy

Did I mention that Sarah is a fibre artist? some of the fibres had been washed, and some had been dyed beautiful colours.

Some of the locks had been sorted ready for washing and the rest of the fleece is intact.

Plenty for me to play with over winter if not before.

Peggy's workbox, Memory cafe activity

 Two sewing boxes were donated to Connect café before it was closed due to the building being unsafe. We opened one of the in the café and had a lovely afternoon picking through the contents and reminiscing about mending tight and stockings, hand sewing and also about the shops that were in the area 40 or so years ago.

An idea sprang up from this, would this be an interesting thing to take to the local memory café to spark some conversation? I was volunteered to take this on as I have family ties to the area and also lived and worked there in the eighties.

I have taken the liberty of adding a few older items to the boxes, a Sketchleys sewing kit ( they had a shop in the town) some old sock kitting needles, french knitting doll and old threads from my own collection.

and inside them

and a few extras from my stash

there are paper bags to open, tins to explore and hopefully conversations to have about knitting and sewing.

We had a lovely time and I've been asked to go back in the New year. I may have some easy weaving projects tucked away that will be popular including a round loom that can be passed around the table for people to weave a row or two.

prepping bfl x texel fleece

 

This fleece was cheap, in fact the postage cost more than the fleece ! Still its not bad but some staining which became more apparent as I spun the first three skeins. They will be overdyed but will probably still stripe once knitted.

This time I combed as usual then blended further on the drum carder so fingers crossed.

There is about 580gm here so I'll probably prep a bit more tomorrow and hopefully spin it up during the week.

back to the stitching

 Back in 2021, Jacob from Modern Folk Embroidery started Black Sampler month in Novevember, simply start to stitch a black sampler during the month, which I did.

Needless to say, the progress has been slow but yesterday afternoon (2 November) I started to go through the cross stitch basket and decided that it may as well get finished this Novermber.

I did take it with me on our last trip in September and there is less than 25% to complete. I spent some time stitching yesterday and will have it as my ongoing project for the next few days to give my wrist ( old injury flare up) a rest from the knitting.

Edit.. just to add that the pattern is from the gift of stitching magazine, June 2008. I purchased the complete set of magazines on a dvd  a couple of years ago for about £25 for the full 72 issues.

and so it starts.... raw fleece inventory

 I had hoped to get much more fleece washed but its been a lousy summer and when the weather has been good we were generally at the other end of the country!.

I will still wash over the winter if we get some sunny windy days but otherwise the fleece list will stay pretty much the same for the time being.

So ( mainly for my records) the outhouse currently contains a black box of oddments and the following.

Saxony merino   1/2 fleece, more about this in the next post.

bfl/texel    part fleece, a little less than 1/2

jacob 'scrumpy' full fleece

jacob 'okey'  part fleece

ryeland (white) 1-2 fleece

Border leicester cross 1-2 fleece

Shetland  assortment small amounts

Bowmont  about 400 gm

grey romney 3/4 fleece

small bag alpaca

I've seen longer lists over the years !

Indoor fleece washed fleece stash currently unlisted but amount to several pillowcases full waiting to be carded or combed.

The general plan is to process and spin these before bringing more into the workroom.

Crafty November

 I have a lot to do, wash fleece if we ever get another dry day, spin, knit, sort out and even destash. I'm thinking that maybe if I share what I have and do then you could help me make some decisions as to what to keep.

My craft room is again full to the brim, well maybe not as bad as it has been in the past but still causing me some anxiety. I know that I have too many interests to downscale much but I need to keep it under control.

So, shall  I blog a little more than usual about what I'm doing? I think it may be mainly spinning and sorting but who knows what we will come across?

Update, its 6.30 on 1st November, I'm sitting with a cup of coffee staring at the amount of work to be done this month to sort out this room and how difficult its going to be to do it without starting new projects with all the goodies discovered along the way haha.