A Bit of Time Away

With both birthdays in November and anniversary in December, David and I go away for a break.  It has been difficult to get away this year and not done as many trips as we'd like, but such are the times we are living in.  So out break this year was a few days earlier this week to Barnstaple in north Devon and stayed at the Imperial Hotel, which is a luxury hotel with dinner, and breakfast (no having to find places to eat!).

We were blessed with sunny, if cold, days and the first morning we walked along the River Taw along what was once a railway line, but is now used for walkers and cyclists.   A pleasant walk seeing and hearing coastal birds until a couple of miles along we found a garden centre with a cafe, just right for a coffee break before making a return back to the town.  The station is no more, though the sign still remains.  This line would have taken people along the north Devon coast and there was once a bridge (completely disappeared) that crossed the river.

Back in the town it was a mooch around the shops (found a birthday present for a December birthday) and seeing the Pannier Market, which didn't have any traders so completely empty, but there were some Christmas wreaths hanging from the ceiling.

Tuesday saw us at the local museum. It has a modern extension and the older part of the building is being renovated. We spent an hour or so exploring and it even had a model railway of one of the old lines that ran through the town. One of the former industries was a furniture maker, Shapland and Petter, which made a lot of Arts and Crafts style furniture.  This cabinet below had some beautiful carving and inlay work.

I liked this panel, below

And as a more modern addition, the museum used the designs to the brickwork of the building extension and a sample was shown below.

Outside we saw some old building too. The cafe in The Strand has a statue of Queen Anne

The carving looks resplendent against the blue sky.  Nearby was a square with a mosaic timeline of the town from ancient times to modern day, which was sadly not looking its best.  (Please excuse my foot!)

So we had two lovely days of exploring and it was time to go home on the Wednesday.  Lets hope that the next year will bring more places to go to.

Mid November

 I’ve been enjoying the autumn weather with the trees turning colour, which has been quite late this year.

These are all local to where I live. I’m lucky that there are paths that have a lot of trees, that have a calming effect of me when I’m out walking.  I try to get out each day at least for 20 minutes but more often it’s 30 - 40 minutes, which is important as the days are getting shorter. These pictures were taken last week and today the leaf cover is definitely much thinner.

Since I’ve finished Flo’s cardigan, here’s another one I’ve started for her.  She is at pre-school this year and is playing outside a lot, so layers of clothing are called for and at least cardigans are easy to put on and pull off.  This one is in Stylecraft Special DK in Cornish Blue (the colour of the bobbles in the green cardigan).  I found a stitch pattern which I’ve used on the bottom of the cardigan. Unlike to bobble cardigan, knitted all in one, this is knitted traditionally in pieces and joined.

I’ve not done much on the sewing front, in fact nothing at all, so it’s mainly been knitting (cardigan above) and crochet (the Yuletide blanket).

In this morning’s post I received a newsletter from West Country Embroiderers.  On the inside of the front cover was this photo.

There was a competition at the recent Spectrum of Stitch exhibition of 3D items and the second prize winner, Jenny Parrott, made the patchwork sewing machine.  My fabric ‘jug’ was right behind it and was in the picture! As you can see I’ve taken a photo with the jug next to the newsletter.

November

 

Speeding towards the end of the year November for us is birthday month.  My Mum, David and I all have birthdays in this month and for David and I we reach State Retirement Age, (wow, how did that happen). 

 My monthly marker above is the still-in-progress Yuletide Blanket,  but I am nearly at the point where the borders are added, so not long until it’s completed. The picture shows a couple of shafts of sunlight on he blanket as I took the picture.  It’s a cosy blanket which sits across my lap as it work on it.

This week I made 2 more hearts, which has added to the two I made last week and yesterday I took them to the Area Rep for the local region of the Quilters’ Guild.  She had a workshop last week that I couldn’t go to to make these so I made the hearts at home instead. These will be for breast cancer patients at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester, but some may possibly go to Poole Hospital. 

This week I have gone down a virtual rabbit hole!  I was looking at Instagram when I came across this mystery Gnome KAL (knit a long) that will start in December and the designer had a discount on the pattern for a short time so I bought it. (Image below from Imagined Landscapes)

 No sooner than I purchased that I then went and looked for a mini skein set to make it.  Ordered it on Wednesday and it arrived yesterday. It’s from Lamington Lass on Etsy and I ordered these lovely autumnal colours, and it’s called ‘Gnutmeg and Egg Nog’.

Gnever Gnitted a Gnome before, so this will be exciting. I wondered what to do as an Advent project this year and as clues will be daily from 1 to 24 December this should fit the bill. It’s only the 5th today so I’ve got to wait for 25 days.

In the meantime I have some socks on the go, some Stylecraft Head Over Heels in the Red Pots Colourway and taking part of the Easy Lace socks pattern (by Winwick Mum) on the side of the leg. I’ve just finished the heel flap and will be picking up stitches.

So that’s how my November is looking so far.

October Finishes and Furtling

 Autumn has finally arrived, with windy and rainy weather and the trees losing their leaves.  I’m cosying in the evening with the Yuletide blanket on my lap as I’m working on it. It’s now 128cm (just over 50”) square, so it’s getting really big. I’ve just finished round 66 of 78 and that’s before 7 border rounds.  So I will do another 3 and measure up to see how far I get with this.  I’m loving the rich colours in this blanket.   

Can you see my mini Aria blanket folded up behind.

The sunshine has cast a couple of lines of light on the blanket.  The yarn kit is from Wool Warehouse and is designed by Lucy of Attic 24 (but you knew that already!).

Off my needles after a little hibernation is my jumper which is called the Summerdown top by the Woolly Badger .  I’ve knitted this in King Cole Bamboo Cotton, which really was the wrong choice, but I wanted something light for summer (which has now passed), but there’s next summer…. I loved the lace pattern that runs down the sleeves and I made the body length a bit longer. 

I have tried it on and it fits well, but I have to wash and block first, which I will do this week.  The yarn, as I said was the wrong choice, although it drapes well,  it’s a very splitty yarn and not brilliant to work with.  I might try a soft cotton yarn next time.  I enjoyed the construction of the jumper, which is knitted down from the lace panels and I will make another. 

Also off my needles is Flo’s cardigan from a pattern by Hobbycraft and made previously for Cecily.  This one is in Stylecraft Special DK, green with blue bobbles, 

Another finish after years of hibernation is my Tubix Quilt!  🎉🎉🎉. It’s been on my Finish Along list for ages.  I layered it up last year (maybe year before) with backing and wadding and tacked it together and earlier this year decided to use multicolour thread to quilt with serpentine stitch by machine, then used the backing to bring over to the front to bind the quilt. Left for a bit longer and this week decided on green variegated thread to do serpentine stitching around the borders.  This quilt design is by Sue Abrey (@quilt Sue on Instagram).  It’s a good single size quilt at 70” x 50” and I’m not sure where it is destined yet, but will figure that out next year.  It is done, which is the main thing. I like the blocks and will probably make another but not so big.

Above is a close up of part of the quilt.

A little project that I’ve made is a pouch for David’s tablets as he has one of those 7 day am/pm containers, which on trips away went in a padded envelope. It’s not a good look, so I made a zippy pouch.

That didn’t take long to do.  Another small project made were these two hearts, the filling of which used up some scraps of polyester wadding, for Region 4 of the Quilters’ Guild.  The was a meeting in Blandford (which I couldn’t go to) but I had the pattern. These are for breast cancer patients at Dorset  County Hospital in Dorchester as part of Breast Cancer Awareness month. I hope to make a couple more and be able to take to the coordinator this week,

A couple of blocks made for the Siblings Together block mama for this month

So that’s October.  Still keeping busy. 

Joint Mini Archie’s Furtle Around the Blogosphere here 

October Marching On…..

 and I’ve been busy knitting, crocheting and sewing.  

Two Project Linus quilts are finished and been passed on.  Our local PL coordinators do fabric packs ready to sew, so it’s just making up and adding fleece. 

Two blocks have been sent to the block mamma for the Siblings Together bee this month. Just love using Grunge fabrics.

Making socks.  This is using Stylecraft Head Over Heels yarn in Red Pots, which was half price at Wool Warehouse.  Goes nicely with the project bag, made for me by Marie.

Finished Flo’s cardigan.  The blue yarn will make another cardi, but I will look out another pattern.

And still crocheting the Yuletide blanket, which is growing quite large now. I’m currently on row 54 of 78.

Still keeping busy.

Blogtober,, Vlogtober, Socktober

 This month is seeing a lot of activities with blogs, Vlogs and other daily viewings.  Ones I have been looking at are Lucy of Attic 24 and Winwick Mum, both of whom I already follow, but its good to see their look on life and craft.  On one of her blogs, Lucy has made a round mandala version of the Yuletide blanket which is very popular at present.  

I'm also looking at You Tube Vlogs (Google keeps wanting to change the spelling) and but watch them in batches because I find it just impossible to watch each day.  The Vlogs have to be edited by the presenters so it must be difficult to fit in the time to do this.  But a good one I find is Ali of Little Drops of Wonderful/This Wonderful Life a good one.  Her family have recently got 3 chickens to add to the mix of family life/working/yarny stuff. This is the link here to the family channel and look for the Vlogtober 2021 playlist.  Tales from Cuckoo Land and Stitched by Mrs D are 2 others that I dip in and out of.

On Instagram there's (hashtag) Socktober and also Vikki Bird Designs (@vikkibirddesigns) is running (hashtag) ShowOffYourWoollySocks2021 and there are loads of woolly socks, including mine.

So thats just a small snapshot of what I'm viewing.  I will be back with some work that I've been up to soon.

September Furtling

Autumn has arrived and October is here.

The picture above is of a toadstool embroidery from last autumn's Craftpod box which I've used as this month's monthly marker.  

Not much done and a lot of works in progress in September as the chance to socialise and enjoy the last gasp of summer, which turned suddenly autumnal and colder in the past few days.  Groups have started meeting up again and making the most of getting out and about while we can.

During last month I actually went to the theatre! Last year in May a group of us were due to go to The Lighthouse in Poole to see Pam Ayres, which of course was postponed and took place at the beginning of September.  She was very entertaining speaking about her trips, tours and family with her verses too and a refreshing change to go for an evening out with friends.

Right, now onto the makes in progress, so not many finishes here (boooo).

I have made progress on the kaleidoscope blocks, which have gone from 5 to 8 and now the difficult decision of how to arrange the blocks, or make into a 9 patch with a small square of the original pink fabric.  I've got quite a bit of this pink, with the square holes cut out, but not a lot of the black, so another fabric may have to be worked into this.

I sometimes make quilts for our local Project Linus group and quite often the ladies make up fabric packs to sew together.  Because they haven't been able to fundraise there hasn't been any fleece backing to go with the quilt tops, so I've been buying fleece from Fabric Land to go with them.  I've finished one quilt and just finishing off the other one.

Quite interesting fabrics for the large squares and the four patches.  The tops didn't take long to sew up, nice and simple.  

The West Country Embroidery group had an in-house workshop for the first time this year.  It was Italian corded quilting. Here's my sample worked on dyed blue fabric.  Not sure at this stage if it will be incorporated in anything.

As for the knitting and crochet I am working on two projects at the nearly finished stage. One is another bobble cardigan, like the one in last month's Furtle that I made for Cecily, here. This time a larger size for Flo, as she started pre-school and will need layers of clothing. I like this pattern although the knitting is tight when joining the sleeves to the body until a few rows are worked for the yoke.

This is knitted in Stylecraft Special DK in Sage with Cornish Blue bobbles.  The rows with bobbles on the yoke will be in the blue plus a couple of other colours from stash.  The Cornish Blue will make a second cardigan. 

I am almost finished my Summerdown top, which I've knitted in King Cole Bamboo Cotton DK in Denim.  I've just got to seam the underarms and knit the rib cuff on the sleeves.  I enjoyed the pattern but not the yarn.  It's drapey, but it also splits and slips off the needles easily.  I'm hoping it might wash and block well.  The pattern is by The Woolly Badger . 

September also saw the release of the latest crochet blanket pattern by Lucy of Attic 24 and I succumbed. An order put into Wool Warehouse on the day of release, it arrived in the post the next day!  Its the Yuletide blanket, in warm, festive colours. 

And this is how far I've got, row 19 of 78 rows (plus there will be 7 rows of border.

It hasn't got a home yet, as I like the blankets to have a home to go to, otherwise ours would be taken over by crochet blankets.  I enjoyed Lucy's posts about the progress and the colour choices in the design of this blanket.  As it grows it will be lovely and warm to work on in the evenings.

I've recently taken up paper crafting and making Artist Trading Cards as part of an online swap.  The latest was memories and I made this.  I had a small piece of the flowery paper and added a few elements of a die cut decoupage set on top.  The butterfly was supposed to be on top of the lily but it looked better being on the bottom corner.

In that swap I was send this by Pam 

It was appropriate that the post mark on the envelope said "Send a Card, Deliver a Smile for Thinking of You Week.  20th - 26th September 2021.

So that was September.  I'm linking with Archie the Wonder Dog with Mini Archie's Furtle Around the Blogosphere