A Getaway Before Self Distancing

I hadn't posted about a weekend away that we had before at the beginning of this month, before all the social isolation took place.  David and I went to stay in Folkestone so we could have a trip on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.  We checked that the railway was still open before making our trip as Kent from Dorset is quite a long journey and we didn't want to go via the motorways towards London and back out again.

The weather was cold but at least it was dry and we broke the journey with a couple of stops.  One of which was Rye, a really lovely historic old town on the Sussex/Kent border. Though I only took the one photo of the gate into the town.

I also had some knitting to take on the journey.  I started a new pair of socks (still in progress to date, though) which is really portable for the journey.

There was also a NT house to visit in Rye called Lamb House, which was the. home of American author Henry James at the beginning of the 1900's and later E F Benson, who was author of the Mapp and Lucia books, which was shown on television some years ago, based in the town.

Anyway, the purpose of the visit the next day, to the railway.  Its a railway that we've had on our railway list to visit for some years.  It is not full size, but two thirds size of engines and carriages.  There is even a Royal carriage on which the Queen travelled some years ago.  Here's a pic of David to give you an idea of the scale.

There were 2 engines running Hurricane (steam) and J B Snell (diesel) and they run from Hythe (where our journey started) to the terminal of the line at Dungeness, which runs round in a loop to do the return journey.  We broke our trip on the line at Dymchurch so we could have lunch in a small cafe in the village, just 10 minutes walk from the station.

Here are a few pics of Dungeness

Its rather a bleak landscape, made a bit bleaker with grey skies and the bitterly cold wind.  But the little railway was fantastic.

We found a fish and chip restaurant in Hythe in the evening and the next day it was back home again after a visit to my son Alex and family, who live in West Sussex, on our way home.

We were lucky to have had that weekend away with all the distancing and isolation that was to come.

Ooops!

I didn't link the blogs on You Tube correctly, so this is a correction

Little Drops of Wonderful - there is a listing of the daily videos in this link during this virus period of her family life and crafting

Last Homely House East of the Sea - A gentle few minute videos from Kate and her life self isolating in the North East.

Crafternoon Treats - Craft Like No-one is Watching - a daily podcast from Kathryn - a crocheter and dyer from East Yorkshire.

Abbieanne's Patchwork, Quilting and Textiles - Daily 'witterings' from Abbieanne from Cornwall along with a quilt block idea to make (not that I've made any of the blocks but I have enjoyed her witterings!).

I have found some more You Tube videos to see.  One I really enjoy is this one is you want to want a stitching distraction and is from Anne Brooke (you will have seen from my last post my stitched piece) as she shares progress on her Sew 4 the Soul project.

Another one is a knitting daily video by Lesley called Not Quite Enough Distance, a play on her usual video title Not Quite Enough Yarn.  Her daily musings on her crafting.

I hope this is a welcome distraction in this time of self isolation.  Its really weird how things are sooo quiet at present.

Social Distancing

Its been difficult trying to stay at home as much as possible, but it has to be done.  I'm shopping less often and buying just what we need as other people are buying up stuff like mad (asks where is all the money coming from - where are they putting it all?) but we've got reasonably stocked freezers (we have two small ones) and fridge so we're ok.  But thats not what you're here for !! On for some brighter stuff.

Spring has sprung and plants are suddenly waking up and growing (so are the weeds - they don't like to be left out) so we've been in the garden this last week and it was lovely to sit outside to drink tea and enjoy the sunshine.

Ive got a white Rhododendron that is currently in flower, but the flowers are fleeting as they disappeared so quickly last year.  So I managed to take a photo.

And a couple of weeks ago my friend Penny gave me a spring flower pot display and thats now come into its own with the Hyacinth now in flower

But Ive not been neglecting the sewing I've spent a few sessions on my mini EPP quilt top and added half blocks - six added two more to go.  So that's coming along - can I added those blocks by the end of this week??

I also made a quilt top from a Project Linus fabric pack. This is a Disappearing Nine Patch, which for a Project Linus quilt has turned out quite large - 54" square, so I'm guessing this will be for an older child/teeneager.  I've bought the fleece to back it with so I'm hoping this week to get that attached to the top and a binding sewn on.

I've now knitted a total of 6 baby hats to go to Poole Hospital so took them over to my friend who runs the local Townswomen's Guild.  I'm not sure that baby hats will be a priority just now, but at least they're done and gathered with hats made by other ladies in the Guild.

Something new that I started last month was a stitching project run by Anne Brookes of H-anne-MADE  which is called 2020 Project - sew4thesoulhannemade.  Not sure how, but I discovered this last month and watched the You Tube videos about the stitches to use in this project.

This is my interpretation below.  I am using scrap fabrics and various threads (mainly hand dyed fine Perle thread) and the fabrics are sewn onto a strip of wadding.  As it happens I have a strip which was trimmed off of a quilt when it was bound which was in my wadding scrap bag and was just right.

Above is the beginning, where I put fabrics on the wadding strip with running stitches and blanket stitch.  I then added Suffolk Puffs (some people know them as YoYo's), which was February's task.  March was to add French knots, Pistil stitch (which is a French knot with a long stem, Colonial knot (still can't get the hang of them and end up with a French Knot!) and Bullion knots.

This where I'm at yesterday.  An April video was brought forward to this weekend and it was to add buttons.   I have an eclectic mix of buttons one of which is shown below - a flower pot!  By chance I had already made one of the Suffolk Puffs into a 'flower' by oversewing and pulling the circle in. So by adding some green stitching turned it into a potted flower arrangement!  Works well, I think.

If you zoom into the middle pic you will see that I added a dragonfly button above the flowers.

So if you are looking for a distraction while  Social Distancing/Self Isolating, this has been a good thing to follow.

I have been watching 'Vlogs'  (spellchecker wants to keep changing to blogs) on You Tube so thought I would share the links - these may be a welcome distraction too.

Little Drops of Wonderful -  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXWQfl7WmeumzOYfKZwhT0g

The Last Homely House East of the Sea - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpWKp6lHakdUNsy49_TLDzA

Crafternoon Treats - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdVVw4ogNhqjUUi_hsvazRw

Abbieanne's Patchwork and Quilting  -https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIlDCFGmVCznXIPdIetHkeQ

If I find any more to link up they will be in more blog posts.  Happy distracting!

March

Two weeks into March, a month which seems to be full of uncertainities due to the spread of the Coronovirus across Europe and life not being quite so normal (whatever normality was!).  So whether    the places or plans take place or not will be doubtful so plan B will be to stay at home and sew, knit or crochet!

While waiting for the computer to do its stuff before I could write this post this afternoon I made a bowl.  I have some 'fabric twine' made a few months ago and rather than have it hanging around in a ball I made it into a bowl by using the widest zigzag stitch on my machine.  I did start off in the wrong direction, but soon corrected that.  I shortened the length on the top of the bowl and went around twice to make the top firmer.  Its a way of using up the long narrow strips of fabric.

Talking of using up things I had a collection of hexagons from a mini charm pack that I bought year before last from the Bramble Patch.  The collection was called Grand Canal inspired by Venice and when I took part in the 100 hexagons 100 days last year I included some of the hexagons from this collection.  One morning a couple of weeks ago I joined them up and quilted into a piece to make a pouch.

Last month I finished the Dahlia crochet blanket and decided I would make a mini blanket with the yarn that was left.  I had to amend the colour choices for the border as I didn't have enough of one of the colours, but quite please how it's turned out.

This is using the repeating stripe pattern and reversing the colour order from the dark yarn colour in the middle.  The instructions are of Attic 24's website here .  The colour order is somewhere on the site but I can't find it, so the link is to the general Dahlia Blanket CAL.  It is just 23.5" x 21" but it is small enough to drape over Flo's lap in the car (as children can't wear coats strapped in the car seat) but its also big enough to wrap a teddy or dolly.  She loves the colours or the big blanket so this mini one will go down well.

I went to West Country Embroiderers twice last week, one was the normal meeting and second later in the week was a Dorset gathering.  At the group meeting local embroiderer Liz Watt demonstated stump work, which I'd not tried before and made this seahorse.

 Initially when I got home I couldn't find the instructions, so I carried on the next day making up the scissor case while things were still fresh in my brain!

I added some extra stitching and a beady eye on the seahorse and on the back I made a starfish, a bit squiffy but you get the idea.  By the time it got to Dorset Day on the Wednesday other ladies were impressed I got to finishing!

So this coming week with more restrictions on movement I hope I can sew up the red cardigan that I've finished knitting, I've also got a fabric pack to make up a Linus quilt and to knit a few baby hats.  We hope the weather will be better to get out into the garden which needs a really good tidy up.  Still keeping busy.

Furtling in February

In spite of the extra day February goes quite quick.  But then I have been busy with 2 Saturdays of sewing the Linus quilts I made this month are in my last post (here) and spent the evenings either knitting or crocheting. So keeping busy does make the month go quicker it seems!

First of all a ta-da moment. Finished last night is the Dahlia crochet blanket - woohoo!!

Fifteen balls of yarn in a bag (from Wool Warehouse)

 Turned into this

Not easy to take a photo laid out on the bed, so here's another with it folded up so you can see the border, which looks sort of heart shaped.

As with Lucy's (of Attic 24) patterns its simple enough to create interest but its the combination of colours that just makes it and you just have to smile at the cheerfulness of the colours.

Sarah wanted this blanket which was the deciding factor in joining in the Crochet A Long because I'd only join in if there was a home for the blanket.  Her daughter, my granddaughter Flo loves it so she's grabbing it for her own use and cuddles it when she see's it.  I am thinking of making a mini Dahlia blanket for Flo when she's in her car seat and using a different arrangement of the colours to use up the yarn in the pack.

I didn't do the whole 99 colour change rows but stopped at 80, which gave a blanket of 64" x 51".  Having laid this out on the spare double bed the length is just right and the width just covers across the top (but it is meant to be single bed size anyway).  So its been really enjoyable to make.

Just as much fun was this little bird.  Last weekend's stormy and wet weather didn't make us feel in the mood for getting out so I had a go at this.  A book and kit that I purchased last September at Yarndale.

Isn't he fab?

 This was a partially constructed bird when I stopped for lunch.

The pattern is from a book called Sue Stratford's Knitted Aviary and has a variety of birds including gulls, kingfishers, pigeons even flamingoes.  Also ways of displaying from making felted nests and twig branches to making embroidery hoop perches. So a good book for display ideas and not just for making birds.

This week I went on a Dorset Federation TG (Townswomen's Guild) Spring Break and much fun was made that we going all the way to Bournemouth (just a few miles away)! It was only a 2 day break, but it was enjoyable time away with entertainment and speakers.  The dinner on the first evening our group dressed as flower people, not in a hippy style, but wearing flowery clothes and giving out paper Japanese Kusadama flowers to each delegate there.

This was me dressed up for the occasion 

And see my bag just to the left?

I had an almost fat quarter of this 'Cool Groovy' fabric and thought I'd make a bag.  It has a flower button on but that's just for show.  Really pleased with that little bag.

Whilst away some simple knitting came with me.  I made a couple of baby hats.  Poole Hospital's baby unit had requested some boy and girl knitted hats, so far just 2 baby boy ones. I was looking in my novelty fabrics for a suitable background and this safety pin one was just right.  I don't know whose pattern it was - its just a general one we were given to knit with a deep fold over rib and a few rows of stocking stitch before decreasing for the crown.

Sweet, aren't they.

Joining Mini Archies's February Furtle in the Blogosphere