Flying Visit Up North and Yarndale

This year we decided we would go to Yorkshire and visit places we like visiting and me going to Yarndale in Skipton.  We stayed at a Premier Inn near Bradford (although it was further away from Skipton than I thought).  The weather for most of the weekend was pretty bad although the it stayed fine the Saturday until late afternoon.

David and I like a Northern fish and chip 'tea' and our favourite fish restaurant where we used to live near Wakefield is the Wetherby Whaler.  This local chippy took over the old Harry Ramsden's restaurant in Guiseley a few years ago and its a very grand looking place with ornate windows, mirrors and crystal chandeliers.  On a Friday night there is even a piano player to serenade the diners. We could not resist going there for our evening meal before going to our hotel.  It didn't disappoint even though it was a really busy Friday evening.

Before making our way to Skipton we went via Ilkley and breakfast at the really lovely Betty's tea room.  The rain had just stopped and the weather was to remain really lovely until the late afternoon.

David dropped me off at Skipton station, where vintage London Buses from the Keighley Bus Museum were taking Yarndale goers to the exhibition, which was at the Livestock Auction Market on the outskirts of the town.  It was lovely to have the bus ride, but unfortunately not walking through the park meant I didn't see the crocheted Mandala hoops or any yarnbombing (though you can see this on Lucy - Attic 24's blog).

I'd bought the ticket online in advance which was safely stored on my phone but nonetheless it was busy getting in as the show had not long opened.  I didn't take part in any workshops, though I wish I had but as it was the first time I visited I wanted to see as many of the yarn suppliers that I could.

I did get to meet the some people - I met with Lucy Locket and bought one of her fingerless mitten kits, Katherine of Crafternoon Treats (whose podcast I follow) though I visited her stall several times as she always had a customer with her! At Katherine's stall I also got to meet Helen of Flora Honeypot on Instagram, who gave me a hug and a crochet sheep (called Philmena) with an extra little gift of a pomander set.  I also met with Lucy too and had a selfie photo with her.  I have really enjoyed her blog for years and it was lovely to meet her.

As this is place deals with livestock, there were sheep from different breeds in the pens and even an alpaca

And workshops, and a place to sit and eat lunch or take a break was in one of the auction halls.  Below the teachers were setting up for the afternoon workshops.

In the opposite entrance to the halls there were all these teddies!!

 I took a selfie photo in front of them, not imagining that I would see...

 ...Look! There was one of mine!!

Mandalas from a previous year were displayed

A knitted river

 Knitting, crochet and embroidery groups also exhibited

 And more sheep

There were a lot of vendors to visit too and it was soooo difficult to know what to buy that I was overwhelmed a didn't buy a lot!

So this was my modest purchases and other bits from the show

One full skein of 4 ply yarn and a pack of minis, a book of knitted birds and a bird kit, a pack of cotton yarn minis, a Fair Isle fingerless mitten kit, 2.25mm circular needles, a knitting project record book, some knitting markers and a cowl pattern. So not a lot, but good to see what the traders sell so I could make note and purchase later.  It was a good, if busy show and well worth going for the experience.

David was lucky enough to find that there is a heritage railway not far from Skipton, the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway, where he enjoyed a ride in the brake van on one of the train services.

Furtling in September

I may have only done two posts in Spetember vbut I have been keeping busy.  Early this month I gifted a pair of socks to my sister for her birthday.

 For a few weeks I went without any socks on the needles and needing some car knitting (David prefers to drive long distance and I am happy to be a passenger, knit and occasionally navigate) so these are my socks.

This was during last weekend.  The sock is now finished all but the Kitchener stitch graft and I have now started on number 2.  The yarn for this sock is Opel Funny bit Silbereffekt and the cuff and heel in West Yorkshire Spinners Turquoise and the two yarns go really well together.

I've got not one, but two postcards sewn the weekend before last and these will be for the Craft 4 Crafters show at Shepton Mallet during October.  I went to a local craft supply exhibition, and saw these templates of a small camper van which I really liked.  It was made by local company Kallosphere

And had much fun making the camper van postcard that I made a second postcard with a boat.  I didn't use a template for that, just drew my own.  I layered the sea fabrics and added wavy stitch lines for the sea. Although you can see it, I've used some fine glitter glue for the sea spray.

Another day was taken up with making a Project Linus quilt and on a Sewing Saturday 2 weeks ago I took a ready cut out quilt 'kit' to sew up and finish off.  First I had to make some 4 patch blocks and I really enjoy chain pieced 'bunting'

 Singles into twos

 Twos into fours

 Now showing the completed quilt, but I had to make the backing.  I didn't have quite enough of the striped fabric so I cut through and added a band of the ombre fabric. It still wasn't long enough so another rainbow ombre fabric was inserted.  They really go well together.  I used some red batik for the binding.  It took a couple of days to get done - first day (well afternoon really) and the next day to layer, machine quilt and bind.

I've still been getting hexagons together for the #100hexies100days2019 challenge on Instagram and it's now just one week to the end.  I've now joined the #iloveeppparty2019 this month and hope I can keep up as I was useless in keeping going with the #greatbritishquilter.  I've now got all 100 but am up to days 94 and 95 (I don't post pictures everyday).

So here's week 13 and the theme was creatures.

And the beginning of week 14 - favourites, for which I chose a coastal theme

 And below is a piece of fabric (it was originally a fat quarter) of a Makower fabric from years back which had become useful for fussy cutting from which the starfish and the cottage came from.  Its come in useful for shells, boats, cottages that the fabric now looks a bit like Swiss cheese!!

I am posting a separate review of Yarndale, where I went to on Saturday. If you are interested pop back later and have a look.

Meanwhile I am linking (a bit late again!!) to Little Archie's Monthly Furtle Around the Blogosphere

September Musings

Amazing that two thirds of September has gone already and it’s been a busyish month.  I can show some socks that I made last month and gifted to my sister for her birthday.  I made a drawstring bag for them too and by chance this fabric went really well with the socks.

These are made from King Cole ZigZag sock yarn, which I know is really hard wearing, the colourway is called Lilacs. I did a pretty good job of matching and didn’t have to wind off too much yarn.

One other important thing that happened was that I bought a new (to me) car.  The red Jazz was 14 years old and had just gone to the dealers for service and MOT when I saw a car which was 5 years old.  The red one passed its MOT, though over the next year would need some work so the time was right to replace it and the new one was just in my budget. I had been agonising over the past year about changing but I think I had a good deal in changing. So here are my new wheels

As you can see it’s another Jazz, though silver is not a colour I would have chosen and even now look for a red car in car parks before realising! It’s low mileage and has the bonus of air conditioning, which my red car didn’t have (well,  unless you opened the window!).

Back to sewing and I made a block for the Siblings Together bee that I belong to and this was a heart block, the original design is by Neverland Stitchers here . The block finishes at 12.5” square in blues and white.  The block bee Mama has now received this so good to get that done.

Earlier this month at West Country Embroiderers there was a workshop tutored by Anne Hellyer, called home is where the art is.  I had to take a picture of the house, of which I made an appliqué of part of it onto a background fabric to make a book cover. Using acrylic paint we had to make features of the windows and doors.

This is how mine looked after I worked on free machining the next day. I don't think my machine was too happy about the paint as I couldn't get the tension right so there's loopy stitching on the back.

I might have another go later or I might not.

There's been some more hexies posted on Instagram

Sewing notions for week 11

For week 12 (as at today it's day 83) the theme was Vintage

This next week's theme will be creatures and I've prepped my hexies ready.

On the yarny front I have crocheted another teddy and both teddies have gone to Yarndale.  This second one is girly, and has a fancy green jumper as the wool I used was self striping I managed the plain green for the body and keeping the coloured bits for the sleeves.  The teddies are bound for the Mercy Ships charity that are hospital ships serving poor countries and the teddies will give comfort for children. I've enjoyed making them so much that I think there may be more teddies on the horizon.

Next Saturday I will be at Yarndale and I'm really looking forward to it.  We've been looking forward to going to Yorkshire, even though its going to be a short time up there and making the most of what we like being there for.

August into September

Seems ages since I last blogged and I had hoped to get this done before the end of August.  But the usual 'where does the time go...'  time runs away with me and its now into September.

Here's my mini quilt from 10 years ago which I've used as a marker for Instagram this month.  I quite like the contrast of the colours against the black and white backgrounds.  I had a phase of using black/white and white/black a few years ago and a still have fat quarters (or parts thereof) of those fabrics.

Anyway what have I been up to?  A second quilt exhibition in a month, this time the West Country Quilt Show.  Luckily one of the local groups was running a coach trip so no driving was involved and it was a good day out.  Being a smaller show makes it easy to get around and talk to people.  The different specialist groups were demonstrating their skills so there are a lot of ideas to pick up.  I've done a collage of some of the photos I took.

Some really brilliant quilts and exhibits, this show is growing popularity.

I've made my Siblings Together blocks for July/August and those have been sent to the Block Mama.

I wasn't too happy about the bottom block (with the fishes) but they might be put to good use. I really like the September block and made that already, but will post that later.

There has been a bit of crochet going on and I've made a teddy, which I started at Knit and Natter last Thursday morning and finished on Sunday.  Here it is before stuffing

 Looks like Flat Eric, but it (he/she?) is lying on a knitted square which was my coach knitting when I went to the quilt show.

 And here it is stuffed and below getting comfortable on the chair in my room.

This is a community project for Yarndale, which I will be going to at the end of September (yay!!!).  There are details about knitted and crochet bears for Mercy Ships (read about it here) and the crochet pattern is by Lucy of Attic24  which was really easy to follow.

Another item that I've made is a Granny Square for Granny Square Day which was on 15 August, though there are still posts about it now - seems like a long day!  This pattern was by Sweet Sharna here and a pretty block it is too! 

I'm still keeping up with with my Bramble Patch kit which has 0.5" honeycomb hexies and a 3rd square has been completed.  What I have done to arrange the blocks before sewing is to make a mini design board 6" square made of mount board with wadding over.  I used binding clips to clip fine net over the top to try and keep the pieces in place.

This was how the other 2 blocks look, so its coming together

I'm also keeping up with #100hexies100days so far on Week 10 and posted day 64.  Here's what the other weeks looked like.

Week 6 - Adventure

Week 7 - Japanese (for some reason I didn't do a collective photo)

Week 8 - Sewists choice - I chose some mini charm squares (but I now can't find the rest of the pack!)

Week 9 - I-Spy - hexies are hidden amongst the Kingfisher quilt ones.

So that's what I've been up to in August.  In September I hope to get some quilting done on one of my Finish A Long quilts and have a quilt top ready to put together for the Scrap Busting Sew Along.  

There's just time for me to link up with Mini Archie's Furtle Around the Blogosphere.  So here's the link 

There's been a few explorations to so will share that soon.