A Trip to Derbyshire

 

Last Thursday we went away to Ripley in Derbyshire to visit a few places in the area and stayed at the local Premier Inn.  This is the first time this year we’ve been away.  David didn’t use the motorways and en route we stopped at The Bramble Patch, a favourite quilt shop. It would be rude not to make some purchases and as I didn’t have a project in mind I bought some stash builders.  I like Moda Grunge and Pure Elements and there was a fat eighth box of Janet Clare fabrics, so all quite neutral fabrics that’ll come in handy.

Our first visit was to the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway at Wirksworth.  Rain was forecast, but it was heavy rain, so not much opportunity to explore the area, just a train ride to Duffield and back again. There is a small museum which was worth visiting. 

We headed to Denby, near Ripley, famed for its pottery.  There is a retail village there where we stopped for a late lunch and some shopping. 

David didn’t want to pose for the above photo, given the weather I’m not surprised.

Saturday was a better day and we went to Ambergate and a new motor museum, focussing on British cars called the Great British Car Journey. Not only remembering the cars we grew up with, but also cars we’ve driven ourselves over the years. We spent quite a bit of time there before venturing to Bakewell later, which was very busy and touristy, but it’s a place we won’t be in a hurry to return to.  While in the park eating ice cream, a wedding party arrived to have photos taken.

Going through the park we found a community hall which had panels of embroidery in the far corner made by members of the local U3A.

Sunday saw us back at a favourite haunt in the area, the National Tramway Museum at Crich.  Sunday 1st August was Yorkshire Day and there was a Sheffield tram in operation.  As well as that

were trams from  Blackpool and Chesterfield.

There were also some MG sports cars on display from the local owners club.

There are rides up and down the line, and on one of the return journeys we stopped at Wake Bridge to go on the woodland walk.

Along the route there’s some wooden sculptures to spot along the way and some views across the dales.

Also this stone and glass sculpture, liking to look of the lichen

We treated ourselves to a lovely Sunday dinner at a pub near Duffield, which finished off our weekend away, before heading back down South on Monday.  I hope we can get another break away in the autumn.

A July Furtle

 July has been a busy month, with some sewing and knitting mixed with a bit of cross stitch.  And also the month David and I get to go away for a few days after weeks or shall we/shan’t we?  As I start typing this we are staying at a Premier Inn in Ripley in the Derbyshire Dales and have visited Ecclesbourne Calley Railway, a car museum called The Great British Car Journey and Bakewell.

In view of the hot weather earlier this month I made a sun hat.

I used some Lewis and Irene fabric that I had in my stash, with a grey cow parsley print for the lining.

I’d also finished two more hats, but knitted this time.  The patterns were from Jen Arnall-Culliford’s Year of Techniques book.  I posted about these earlier this month here.

Earlier this year my daughter in law wanted to know if she could knit a cardigan for her daughter, but she’s not had time to learn. One of the patterns she liked was this one from Hobbycraft.  I couldn’t get hold of it either in the store or as a pdf, until I saw it on a visit there earlier this month.

The skill level is intermediate and the needle size I didn’t have., using 3.5mm, which is an unusual size for double knitting.  I had trouble trying to find circular needles for the yoke, but one shop I visited did needle tips in that size which I could use with the Knit Pro cable that I already have.  So I’m glad that she hasn’t tackled this.  The body is knitted to the armholes, then the sleeves are knitted to that point too, then joined together for the yoke with the raglan decreases and bobbles. Below is one of the sleeves.

I’ve done some Amigurumi crochet, with a pattern by Ali of the Little Drops of Wonderful podcast, whose pattern is on Ravelry.  They looked sweet so I gave them a go.

I’m sure I’ll find a happy home for these two.  

I made a few blocks for this month’s Siblings Together Bee Mama, Kerry, who wanted some cross blocks. Unfortunately I have a problem with my main machine, so my little mechanical machine came to the rather noisy rescue with sewing these together.  I don’t think it’s been used since before the first lockdown, so a bit of oil helped it along and it did the job well.

Progress has been coming along on my cross stitch and the cannon looks less like a tractor now.  I’m working on the lower end of the shield.  Still chipping away.

As we’ve been able to out and about a bit David and I visited Bicton Garndens, at Budleigh Salterton, which I wrote about here, which was just delightful. We actually went away to stay in Derbyshire this last weekend and I will write about this in the next post in a day or two, so watch out for that.

Meanwhile during July I have been enjoying lots of sweet peas.  They are passing over now but it’s been lovely to see them in vases and to give some away. The packet of seeds were in the Mothers Day card from my daughter Sarah, as the day was during lockdown in March.

Just gorgeous and the smell was delightful. In the last pic I gathered some along with rhubarb and strawberries.  Even made a small batch of strawberry jam, which I’ve not tried making before.  It was lush!

So there’s been a bit of everything in July.  I’m going to link up with Mini Archie’s July Furtle Around the Blogosphere.  

I’ll be back soon with our trip away.

Teeny Tiny

 In recent weeks I’ve joined a Townswomens Guild internet group to make ATCs - or Artist Trading Cards.  They are multi media cards, not necessarily card making, and at 2.5” wide and 3.5” high they are about the size of a business card, so a lot smaller than a postcard.

The cards are sent to the coordinator of the group, who photographs them so there’s presentation slides during the Zoom meeting, then swapped and sent out. There are different themes of cards each month.

For my part I make two each month, one to keep and one to send. This one below was June’s, the theme being Red, White and Blue.  I decided to make a sea themed card.

I used fabrics, like I would for a postcard, with hand stamped lettering on card.  Below is the card I received from Trish, which are embroidered wheels, sewn onto felt and mounted onto card.

July’s theme was “Summer” and all I could think of was ice cream. Well if it’s hot and sunny and you’re out and about of course you need an ice cream.

This was a card and the background is spotted paper from a pad of papers.  I painted the cone and the ice cream separately then cut out the shapes.  I used some glitter glue on the ice cream for sprinkles.  I also had a little bit of prose (I wouldn’t call it a poem, some might) and made just small enough to put inside the card. 

I had in return from a card with a photo of a beach scene embroidery mounted on blue card was from Chris

August’s theme is Vintage - I wasn’t quite sure what to do for this but I had plenty of time but I worked on thoughts I had yesterday. I was keen to do something lacy, a doily or something like that when I came across an old crochet magazine, Simply Crochet, from 2013 and found this.

Some diamond shaped crochet pieces, but with larger yarn and hooks.  I scaled down with a no. 8 cotton Perle thread and a 2mm hook.  I bit fiddly but only took an hour and a half to make. It was a bit more squarish than diamond in spite of blocking it, but it fits on the card. On the background I used a small piece of reproduction 1930’s fabric from my stash, which by coincidence, has diamonds on it.  That speaks vintage to me. Just to show the scale, there’s a ruler beside the card.

I’ve made another crochet piece so I can put the second card together.  I’ve really been enjoying working on a teeny tiny scale.

All About the Hats

 In the last few days I’ve been making hats.  I’ve made the Talmadge Cloche by Romi Hill which is the Year of Techniques book by Jen Arnall-Culliford.  It wasn’t an easy pattern as I started this in May and I frogged back and restarted at the end of last month. The good thing about this book is there is not only a physical book to leaf through, but also an ebook so that the individual patterns can be printed off to write on, and I did write on this one.

There are 5 panels on this hat and my double pointed needles come in sets of 5, so I had to use one 3.25 needle in addition to my 3.0 set, but that worked out ok.  It is a lovely Lacy pattern which shows better once blocked, which I did over a head size ball of bubble wrap!   The buttons I used from my stash which were formerly trim from a pair of slippers.

Meanwhile I used some yarn from Sarah’s cardigan to make another hat from the book, the Ruschia hat, by Woolly Wormhead which is sideways knitted, with a provisional cast on (never done that before) and those stitches were grafted onto the last row stitches. It only took a few days to knit and I think there may be more of these in my future.

So these are my knitted hat finishes. Now for a sewing hat finish….

This is the bucket hat by Kitsch Bitsch, which I can’t link as it no longer exists.  I bought a sun hat from National Trust which folds up buy the brim is so wide that it’s easily caught by the wind.  I used the pattern before a few years back but the hat is long gone so on Saturday I made this one,  the fabric from stash, was a Lewis and Irene ‘A Little Bird Told Me’ with a grey Makower cow parsley design fabric for the lining. 

I’ll try not to lose this one! 

July

 

This is monthly marker for July, which was a facecloth from the end of last month. I loved the delicacy of the speckles of colour in the cotton yarn.  This is King Cole Cottonsoft, which has a lovely feel to it.

This month will be catching up with any UFO’s for the end on the second quarter of the FAL2021 and listing those to work on and hopefully finish for the next quarter.  I’ve also had a couple of fabric packs for the local Project Linus group to make up.

Also for July David and I get to go away at the end of the month (touch wood 🪵) to Derbyshire and a few places there we’d like to visit.  Our first break away from home this year.

Meanwhile, we had a day out on Friday to Bicton Botanical Gardens, near Budleigh Salterton in Devon.  Just about doable in a day and the furthest we’ve been for some time.  The day was lovely and sunny, though it cloud later and the bonus is we had some Tesco Clubcard vouchers to use which went towards the tickets. Although there were quite a few people there was plenty of space around and the gardens were delightful to see. Here are a few pics of our visit.

The domed building is the palm house, which predates the one in Kew by 20 years.  In front were beds of poppies, callistemon (bottle brush plant) and roses. The coffee cup was the view when we arrived looking over the Italian garden. I couldn’t resist taking a photo of a full parked on top of the head of one of the statues by the lake.  

It was a lovely place to visit, but unlike the morning’s journey to get there it was a different matter getting home, when the main road, A30 was closed and surrounding roads were getting jammed up - it took us 4 hours! But at least we managed to get home, unlike those involved in the accident that closed the road.

I will do a catch up soon with my third quarter for the Finish Along.