... quite contrary

Chihuly !!!!

2012-01-19T23:42:00.001Z

Unexpectedly, I had to go down to London today to see my mother.
Iris was going to be busy until early afternoon, so before setting out I checked out Timeout.

I was unaware that a major Dale Chihuly exhibition had opened in New Bond Street in early December.
The Halcyon Gallery is an amazing setting for so much coloured glass.

I was given the Chihuly desk diary at Christmas, not expecting to see it in the flesh so soon.
If you are nearby, make an effort to get there.
If not, Halcyon have some great video clips on their website, giving a flavour of what is there.

All so inspiring!!!!

Just a quick word ....

2011-12-01T19:07:00.001Z

... I am still alive, but have not been able to shake off a cold and an abscess since they manifested themselves towards the end of October.
I am now on my third course of antibiotics, and expecting to lose the hamster face soon.

Ian and I had a two week trip to Singapore and Malaysia in October.
I suspect that I picked the cold up on the return flight.
Sometime, soon I hope, I'll get round to showing some of what we saw there.

It was too hot and humid for my liking, and for the first time in my life I employed an umbrella as a sunshade.

Give me a couple of days, and I hope to be able to string along a few sentences with oodles of pictures.

Still spindling ....

2011-09-19T17:54:00.001+01:00

I took my Bosworth spindle away to Ireland at the end of August, and found out a few places that are not conducive to spindling.
However, during a coach trip I did manage to spin and ply some fine yarn.
That yarn seems a bit more over-spun than some other little skeins.
In all, I managed to spin up about 20 gm laceweight yarn, which is 20gm more than I would usually do while travelling.
There is still about 100gm of this merino/silk mix still to do.
I don't want to wash it until it is all done, so no pics yet.

Showing off a new skill ...

2011-08-18T17:35:00.000+01:00

.... at the doctors.
Last week I was up near Edinburgh taking part in the Association of Guilds of WS&D Summer School for the first time.
Despite having been spinning on a wheel since the early '80s, until this week I couldn't spin on a spindle.

Now that has been rectified, by taking part in a week long spindle spinning course. Fortunately, the floor was well carpeted, as this CD style spindle was dropped many times on the first day.

At first I felt a bit out of my depth, like these cygnets at the university campus.

By the 4th day, the 11 of us were on to supported spindles, and the floor was getting messier by the minute.

It rained, and it rained, and my interpretation of these fibres was a muted mix still be to be knitted up properly.

This Cascade spindle, borrowed from Carol and Pete felt so right in my hands.

It is amazing how much you can get done a few minutes at a time!

This morning, I finally saw a doctor 5 1/2 weeks after knocking my left ankle. His verdict is that it is soft tissue damage, and that I should take a quick course of anti-inflammatories and use the foot as much as I feel like.

Waiting for my appointment I took out my Bosworth spindle and some fibres I dyed earlier this year. Three men watched while the women feigned indifference.

On my way home I checked out the back to school offers in a few shops, and settled on this monsters pencil case as my Bosworth's new luggage!

Lucky dip or nothing ventured ....

2011-07-05T17:53:00.000+01:00

Spurred on by the weather forecast last night promising rain and the fact that I'll be away at the KCG AGM at the weekend, I finally got my act together today, and sorted some things out in the garden.

Both of us buy seeds, and they accumulate over the years.
At the weekend, I sorted through them and picked out all that should have been planted before 2011.
They went into two containers, one for flowers, and the other for herbs and vegetables.

Over the past week, I have cleared some of the default pink or white hardy geraniums from a few areas.
Then as I needed to empty some well rotted compost, this has been spread and dug in.

This afternoon I took my "seed soup" and sprinkled it on the designated areas.
It has been covered with a thin layer of spent compost, and gently watered in.

So, what I want to know now, is what happened to the promised rain?
It is nearly 18.00, and so far we have only had a few drops!

Catching up with June

2011-07-04T16:49:00.000+01:00

As usual I meant to keep up to date, but good intentions ...

... tend to get washed away.

This was the scene on my birthday, not quite what I had been expecting for a DAS day outing to the Black Country Museum. I hadn't been there since 1993, so saw some changes through the rain.

It did make for a few interesting pictures. This was taken when standing under cover at the rolling mill, looking out at the puddles. Most of the time I took snatched pictures with my phone, rather than my camera.

As you can see it wasn't freezing, but I was glad I'd taken an umbrella and jacket with me. Here are the baker's and sweetshop.

It certainly seemed to be the wettest day of the year so far, although I'm not sure if the statistics will back that up. Our garden benefited greatly from the steady rain.Later in the day we travelled on to the Mushroom Green Chain Shop in Cradley Heath. Again, I hadn't been there since '93. It was under cover and warm, and a pleasure to see individual chain links being forged. I would have had a try, but I was wearing a dress that I don't want messed up.

One of the advantages of Ravelry is that there are many groups that arrange swaps. This year I took part in the June Birthday Exchange again, thus guaranteeing at least one birthday present! This shows the contents of the lovely parcel I received from Gudrun in Germany. I have often thought about buying a Zauberball, but couldn't work out which colourway to choose. Gudrun got it spot on, saving me much searching. The white mittens in the foreground fit perfectly, and will come in handy later in the year. Due to extreme temperatures on its journey, the chocolate had partially melted and reformed, but still tasted great.

Years ago ...

2011-06-10T20:09:00.000+01:00

.. we grew some deep red poppies, something like this, and this year we have the original colour together with some variations in colour and texture. These poppies are all self-seeded, and get pulled up if they are in the way.

I took a petal from the original poppies and colour matched it to a paint card. A year or so later, in 2000, we had an extension built on the back of our house. I already knew before this wall was planned what colour it should be. Here is a petal from this year's poppies placed on the wall to verify how close the match is.

Another item that has taken years to show its worth is this rhododendron. Bought at this time of year, something like seven years ago, it has just flowered for the first time. I had forgotten what it might be like, so this was a pleasant surprise. The first colour showed on 19th May, and it has just gone over today.

The next question is whether I should repot it or just leave it?

And lastly, a quick tally of geranium flowers this year. I managed to find 15 different colours this morning. We do have more, but this is a candid shot taken when most are flowering.

Spring: Ravelry swap, travelling and Derbyshire Open Arts

2011-05-24T18:45:00.000+01:00

I'm a bit of a sucker for the occasional swap.
This was a fun exchange with a theme reflecting the excitement of springtime.
My swap partner got it just right for me.
There was plenty of purple, including seeds for me to plant and gardening gloves.
I now have the most deluxe lemon squeezer I've ever seen.
Note to self: time to make lemonade rather than teas.

I hope to get back into blogging now I seem to have conquered the photo programme on our computer.
It had been refusing to download my images for a while.

April was a busy month, starting with a trip to Morecambe and ending up over Easter in New York.

May has dashed past again with much to do in the garden, much of which is still to be done.

This weekend it is time for Derbyshire Open Arts, and I will be amongst the artists exhibiting at Long Eaton Art Room.
Just a few days more to make frantic preparations for it!
My last minute ceramics will be fired tomorrow, so much to anticipate.

Blowing away the cobwebs ...

2011-03-10T15:59:00.000Z

It's a great blustery drying day (10 C), and I've got a line full of laundry out.
I daren't even think about using the clothes props for fear it will all blow away to the next county (only a mile away)!
Some small branches have been torn from the cedar, as often happens in these conditions.

And as it is too brisk out there to do much in the garden, I've finally remembered to update here.

Since I last posted there have been a few trips here and there. This was to north Wales looking at some former slate mining sites with friends on a very atmospheric day.

Our local council have a tree giveaway in early December, and this year I was in town on the right day. Here are the 5 tiny saplings I brought home with me. They are temporarily placed over winter, awaiting our decisions for permanent placings.

The last of the apples lying on the ground for the birds to eat over winter. Some of these also came in, and became an apple pie.

Then in mid December we had some snow. Over Christmas we stayed inside as my mother was with us, and there were treacherous conditions underfoot.

The Tuesday after Christmas it thawed somewhat, and we ventured out to Attenborough Nature Centre for a stroll and a chance to see some of the many visiting birds.

With the sustained cold weather the Erewash canal froze over, as can be seen by the footprints on the snow covering the ice.

In January I took a few weird and unrecognisable (possibly accidental) photos.

In February I knitted a few small items that went off to friends. This one paused long enough for me to photograph it.

One Monday I was in the town centre and had time to visit "Miss Ellany", a local shop selling all manner of used items of furniture etc. I saw this tiny mug in a cabinet, and asked to take a look. Not surprisingly it came home with me.

It has images of a small boy with a basket of fishes and two small girls, one knitting and the other spinning. It seems to have been made in Bavaria for the tourist industry in Volendam and Marken in the Netherlands.

Mid February found me in Brighton, volunteering at the stitching show, and getting a little sea air. One night this appeared in the town centre.

The more usual other night time memories are of the Royal Pavilion.

And now it is time to pop back downstairs to hang out the next load of washing ....

India went by in a blur ....

2010-11-19T14:30:00.002Z

.... at times like this

sometimes like this:

or even like this!

For some of the time things were quite clear, and I knew where I was, where I was meant to be, and what was going to happen. Here, Laxman (our Indian guide) was getting us together to take tuk-tuks back from the old city in Jodhpur after a brief visit to the market area. Behind his elbow are a couple of men with placards, selling rat poison.

Here we are setting off towards our bus, the airport and our flight back to Delhi in order to head home.

We had a fantastic three weeks, and I was just getting accustomed to the hot temperatures (around 30 C in the daytime) when it was time to come home. Between my camera and my phone, I took 2831 images, of which only a few were rubbish. Many were taken from the coach, and have partial reflections, but it was better that than not at all. My battery charger died about halfway through our 10 day journey in Rajasthan, or I would have taken more. I think that gradually I will put together themed postings rather than purely chronological. It will just take some time to think it through first.

A little late - colours of October

2010-11-12T13:49:00.001Z

I was unable to post these images earlier, as we were in India for the past 3 weeks.
So look out for a different range of colours soon.
It will take me a while to choose them as I took nearly 3000 pictures between my phone and camera.

But first, here is a quick choice of garden images for the earlier part of October. Many years ago we gave our neighbours the old chicken coop we found in the garden when we moved here. In exchange we got some plants. This viburnam is one of them. It looks good at all times of year as long as there is enough rain.

These snaps were taken in hast with my mobile, so are a bit blurry at times. Judging by the number of berries here, we could be in for a cold winter.

Our annual climbers have perked up as the months have gone on, and look better than during high summer.

This small azalea in the front garden has suffered from some bad times over the past 15 years, but usually bounces back just as we think that it has died. Having put on a new set of leaves it will get another chance now.

The front door clematis has a mixture of late flowers and would-be seed-heads at this time of year.

This rose is having a second flush of flowers, and it is still going strong in mid November.

In the back garden this geranium has a touch of bright red amongst its leaves.

We emptied out the stones from the small wooden trough by the front door in order to remove the potted annuals we have there in the summer. Here on a damp day, an adventurous slug goes wandering by.

This is a great time of year for shadows with the low winter sun. The new (2 years ago) back garden fence has toned down from its rather bright colouring now.

Using some pine needles as mulch seems to have perked this blueberry up. Maybe next year we will get some fruit from it.

Our winter salad stuffs are looking great, as you can see.

This feverfew grew here on its own, I've no idea where it came from.

Likewise, this opportunistic chilli plant, which we will leave here in the hopes that it survives the winter.

I find it hard to resist shots like this one, looking up to the sky and if I'm lucky, capturing a spiders web.

Whoops, nearly forgot to link this in to Sue's blog!
I'm so glad she still had the link open.

Colours of September

2010-09-30T16:57:00.001+01:00

Once again, I am joining in with Sue's Colours ....
Here are a few views in our garden, taken with my mobile phone, which is nearly always in my jeans pocket.
Spartan apples ripening - these will keep for a long time, with some windfalls keeping the blackbirds happy throughout the winter.

The greenhouse tomatoes are keeping us well fed this month, while the outdoor tomatoes are beginning to give up.

This strawberry surprised us, as we rarely get a second crop, and seldom any this size.

In windy weather in the middle of the month some trays stacked near the greenhouse fell and put a dent in the back of a frog. I didn't find it until too late. Within a day, slugs had reduced it to this! I failed to photograph the one I saw in action.

The Cotinus cogyrria in the front garden gets out of hand each year, and a week ago I had a session trimming it back. This was to coincide with having an empty council composting wheelie bin. We don't have enough space to compost all our garden rubbish, so we let the more difficult bits go to the local council.

Tthe view from the front room, bright red Cotinus branches in a vase in front of the trimmed bush.

For some time we have attempted to establish Verbena bonariensis. This year we were pleased to see that it came up in the same position as last year. We also kept finding rogue seedlings, particularly growing between the paving in the path round the lawn. After wet weather many of these have been transplanted, and it looks as though we should get a good show next year.

A group of yellows: pears, Solidago and a tall yellow daisy that has been slower than usual to flower this year.

Birds drop seeds, and we keep on finding odd bits of this cotoneaster around the garden, particularly under trees. We trim or remove it depending on how much it gets in our way.

Near the house this pot contains a rhododendron purchased some years ago, which is slowly appearing to look a bit happier. In with it are a couple of self- or bird-seeded items, making a harmonious combination. If anyone can hazard a guess at the name of the red leaved plant, I'd love to know it.

We have a few patches of this sedum, which comes into its own at this time of year. Sue has an almost identical picture at the top of her entry for this month!

A handful of blackberries, nearly the last for this season.

Windfall apples and pears waiting to be cut up for eating, stewing or juicing.

Morning glory on the fence near the house.

Other climbers and fuchsia on the same bit of fence.

Our repaired rainwater gathering system, filled up now after recent rainfall. We put these tanks in 10 years ago when we had our extension built, and collect rainwater off the roof. The original holes for the linking hose were too near the frame, and as the tanks settled over the years leaks developed. A few recent visits to local plumbing merchants and research on the internet helped us to replace the parts. Wine corks have been used to seal the previous set of holes.

A bee in action as on the self-seeded morning primrose up near the house. We dug up loads of ordinary pink geraniums in order to put in a few herb plants, and these grew up on the cleared ground along with some white campion.

Our purple podded climbing French beans got off to a slow start this year. We had the ash trees at the bottom of the garden trimmed in late July as they were becoming hazardous to the neighbour behind us. Now with the cooler weather and having had the overhanging ash trees trimmed, the plants in the bed nearby are going great guns.

And finally, some wool yarn that I dyed recently. It started out in an off white colour. The pink was dyed with raspberry jelly during the Online Guild May workshop, "Eat or dye". I tried to dye the cream balls with some foodstuff or other without success. The two remaining balls were put in a jar in the greenhouse with some water and deep red hollyhock flowers at the end of June, and left unchecked until last week. The flowers had started to ferment, and it took a lot of soaking in Eucalan to make the yarn bearable for use. Given that there are such small amounts, I'm not sure what they will become.

5 years on

2010-09-29T23:32:00.000+01:00

Today is my 5th blogiversary (is that how it's spelt?)
No time to say more, as a brief power cut and no broadband for a while mean that I am only getting on line in time to go to bed.
Colours of September due tomorrow!

Trips in 2010

2010-09-28T12:28:00.001+01:00

This year there has been so much on.
Back in July, shortly after we had returned from Canada after I attended the Knitting and Crochet Guild in Leeds, running a brief wire knitting workshop.

Next on the agenda was the Association for Contemporary Jewellery conference held at West Dean College in Sussex. Ian and I had a brief weekend in Midhurst beforehand. I took part in a couple of workshops, one with Michael Brennand-Wood, the other with Robert Ebendorf from the US. In both we worked with waste materials, exploring connections.

The resulting pieces in Michael's session were projected onto the wall. This was one of mine.

Out of habit, I was knitting with wire in spare moments, attracting some attention. This little oddity knitted in stainless steel with turquoise coated copper wire ended up going home with another delegate.

The following week, I took off down to London for KnitNation. At the marketplace preview there was a mad rush of people to view the Wollmeise stand. Here is someone choosing which Wollmeise skeins to purchase.

On the Saturday night I managed to attend the first 20 minutes of the Ravelry party, then headed home. Seen on the tube, a Japanese girl sporting a lacy knitted hat.

Next, at the beginning of September I headed north to the Shetlands for 5 day "In the loop II" knitting conference in Lerwick. Seen on the ferry on the way out, a bright sky. This is one of many images taken on my phone.

First impressions on landing in Lerwick - plenty of transport for animals lined up at the docks.

- anti gull netting for rubbish bags draped elegantly on a gate.

Seen at 07.40 the next morning, a delivery of fleeces to Shetland Wool Brokers. I was taking a stroll while waiting for the Co-op to open so that I could buy some food for my breakfast.

People visiting the Shetland Museum. The boy and girl were both wearing interesting knits.

Some typical Shetland scenery taken on a trip on a local bus service. I had a few hours in hand before taking the ferry home, so looked to see where I could travel in the available time.

The seas were just starting to get a bit bumpy on the return ferry service.

This is all I saw of the Orkneys when we docked round about 23.00. On the way out I was already in bed by this time.

The next morning it was still a bit choppy as we came into the harbour at Aberdeen something like 3 hours late.

I got home that Tuesday night , and then almost immediately afterwards it was time for the IKnit London weekend. Waiting for the RHS hall to open there was plenty to keep the eye happy!

So, one day I was in London, Melton Mowbray the next. I took Ian with me to see the Rare Breeds show. Here is a new take on hair brushing!

There were good things available for lunch.

We chanced to meet our plumber, who was there to buy more laying hens. Here you see the sturdy packaging they travel home in, with other visitors.

And, bringing us nearly up to date, recently some of us from Long Eaton Art Room took part in the Harvest Moon festival in nearby Kirk Hallam. I took along a spinning wheel, and during the three hours managed to interest 6 youngsters in having a go.

Colours of August - to be revised

2010-08-30T23:28:00.002+01:00

No time for many words right now, but the narrative will follow:

Japanese hydrangeacommon hydrangea

windfall apples for stewing

Echinops ritro

garden chair with lichen patterning before annual washcrocosmia

SLUG!!!! (one of many)Leucanthemum

pears ripening opportunistic mushroom in spring bulb pot

BLUE aphids on roots of dock

ripe mulberries

Now link in to Sue's blog for other August colours

Sunday outings

2010-08-30T13:28:00.003+01:00

Over the past few months I've have had some good Sunday outings.

These started with a walk Ian and I often do in winter, but it was the first time I remember doing it in summer.

Hemington and Lockington are a couple of villages in Leicestershire a short drive from home. There is a circular walk across the fields in what for this area is hilly country. As we passed near the clay pigeon shooting, we found this Chinese lantern impaled on a signpost at a stile. At the top of the hill there had been recent ploughing.

Looking back down to the valley of the River Trent, it is hard to realise that there are large towns hidden in front of us. Walking back into Hemington we see a village complete with a traditional phone box and a thatched roof.

And then on the way home, the cooling towers at the power station remind us where we are.

A week later, and Ian and I had a weekend away in West Sussex before I attended the ACJconference at West Dean College. We stayed at a great B&B in Midhurst, and took a walk in the South Downs on the Sunday morning. This involved a real hill.Somehow the path doesn't look as steep in this picture. Up by the hedgerow near the woods we found clues for someones treasure hunt.Later on we visited the Weald and Downland open air museum which was having a rare breeds day. Too many wonderful sheep, alpacas, pigs, cattle etc. to see in a great setting. Later on in the day we walked along a lane to look for traces of a disused railway, and on the way back encountered some cows returning from the milking parlour. We tried to look unconcerned as approximately 150 of these large beasts strolled past us unaccompanied.

A week on, and I took off down to London to meet up with Jeyda who was visiting from Toronto. She had been staying at Angel for a few weeks, and I had a few trips in mind. It turned out that she hadn't been to Spitalfields and Brick Lane. After meeting up with her, I took advantage of a quick visit to Loop in its new shop. Then we took the tube to Moorgate before walking eastwards.At the corner of Tenter Ground and Brune Street

is this magnificent 1902 soup kitchen, set up for the Jewish poor.

We walked via the revamped Spitalfields market to Brick Lane itself, via Christ Church and Fournier Street with its Georgian housing.

Brick Lane is reached at the Jamme Masjid, a building with an interesting history as a place of worship. Here is the recently erected minaret, a beautiful stainless steel column that has aroused some controversy.

Turning north up Brick Lane there there are many curry houses lining the street.

The atmosphere on a Sunday afternoon is of one enormous multicultural party. The streets are lined with individual vendors and stalls selling all manner of things.

We stopped briefly to chat with an Argentinean selling hats, and wished that we'd had some cash and the appetite to try out the many ethnic fast food stalls.

This vibrant colour is on the corner of Sclater Street.

In one of the turnings off Brick Lane we looked at the exterior of the "Fashion Street market", built in Moorish style in 1905.Here we saw the stands for the new cycle scheme promoted by Boris Johnson.

Starting back, we walked through Petticoat Lane market which was closing for the day. This is a street market I used to haunt as a teenager in the '60s, looking for cheap clothing. Now there are many stores selling African textiles.

We turned back towards the City of London, and sought out the "Gherkin" which had been visible for most of our walk. By the time we got there we were a little footsore, and after looking at the nearby medieval St. Helens church and the thoroughly modern Lloyds building we walked to Bank to take the tube.

Yesterday Ian and I had an evening trip to Derby to see "Mother" at Quad. On reaching the station to come home the train was waiting at the platform showing this destination!

Needless to say, it did deliver us home.

... common misconceptions ...

2010-08-05T18:54:00.000+01:00

... or the conversation went thus once more this morning:

Older lady: Are you English?
Me: Yes, I'm from London.
OL: Are you sure that you aren't foreign (Spanish/ Italian/ Greek)?
Me: No, I'm a Londoner.
OL: Your family tree must have some interesting bits to it.
Me: The only foreign blood I'm aware of is Swedish

Then, after a bit of a pause:

OL: Your hair, it's really curly.
Me: Yes, I chose the right parents.
OL: How often do you go to the hairdresser?
Me: I just get it cut a few times a year.
OL: But to get the curl ...

Then another pause, and this time a bit of a variation:

OL: You need to use a wide toothed comb on it.
Me: I only ever brush it through when I wash it, but I wet my hands and run them through my hair every morning.
OL: Let me comb it through for you
Me: (trying to make a hasty exit from this line of conversation) No, it doesn't need it!

And then as we parted:

OL: It would be interesting to look into your family tree ...

This was a slightly different version of a conversation I've had many times in my life.
Yes, I have dark hair, dark eyes and darker skin than many.
But at this time of year, when I've seen a little sun it happens often.

This mugshot was taken in January a few years ago.

In the summer of '69 I was working in Selfridges on Oxford Street, London.
It was a fairly hot summer, and I couldn't face braving the tube at rush hour, so used to wander over towards Hyde Park for some "fresh" air before heading home.
On one occasion I was asked within 30 minutes both whether I was Arab or Israeli.

When in Cyprus in the summers of '77 and '78 all the older ladies in the village would be chatting away in Greek to me along much the same lines, assuming that I had some Greek blood.

Sneaking in my colours of July at the last minute

2010-08-01T01:47:00.002+01:00

This month the blues abound with this small campanula, and although more purply, this Clematis "Betty Corning". The plant grows like mad after being pruned heavily each spring, but the most memorable thing about this clematis is the fragrance.

We thought that we'd lost this rather blue/purple geranium, but it reappeared this year after about four years.

Putting on a good show in the front garden, we have a Cotinus cogyrria.

For a short while we also had a neat row of marigolds by the front door. Then one night it rained, and in the morning there were barely any remains. Some snails and slugs had been visiting.

More pink this month with some self sown hollyhocks.

Then, found inside the back door one morning, a moth. After dark, when the back door was open, this sleepy looking creature made its escape.

And that is enough for now, more next month I hope.

Several other people have also listed their colours of July on Sue's blog.

Colours of June - Ontario

2010-07-27T11:39:00.003+01:00

We started our trip by visiting a vineyard with a wine tasting. This was a common sight for me when I lived down in Niagara in the '70s, row upon row of grapevines.

Walking on the Niagara escarpment, we saw some trees with damaged bark which made great patterns.

Vast skies and power lines, some very new. I didn't get round to sketching these new pylons, just snatched a photo from the car.

These salad greens are growing in a half barrel in a friend's tiny back yard in St. Catharines.

Colourful signage on the corridors at Brock University. This was always one of the great features when I worked there in the '70s.

We got together with Bob, who had been my boss in the library at Brock and went down to the canal to look for passing lakers. This is the new fencing at the Lock 3 viewing platform on the Welland canal, complete with patriotic maple leaf topping. Not the nicest thing if you should fall against it!

I'm not sure what this is, but it looks like a type of raspberry. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. As it grows in the shade, not the easiest of items to photograph. The colour really zings when you see the flowers.

An exciting display outside a hardware store in Toronto. Presumably this all comes in each night and is displayed again daily. I loved the cards showing the prices for milk, ice cream etc. Click on the image to read all the options.

This amazing moth was lurking by the garage at Pia and Tom's place in Barry's Bay. This proved hard to photograph as there was little light. It was very obliging, and stayed still until I had fetched my camera from the house.

All the temporary bollards we saw had the same format, but with the contractor's name emblazoned on them. This wasn't the best name I saw, but getting such an item in focus from a moving car isn't easy.

A beautiful old car, colourfully painted, lurking near a yarn store with a fantastic name!

This store is in Port Perry, and we only came across it accidentally, having taken a wrong turn. We were meaning to take a brief break, and turned into a shopping complex rather than up the main road. Coming out of the slip road this was lined up straight in front of us. I called out "We have to stop to see Never Enough Wool". They had moved down a few doors earlier in the year. Ian paused to look at some local history information about the lake, and I took a look at the inspiring range of yarn.

Now to hunt out my colours of July, back home here in Derbyshire.

Birthday treats

2010-07-15T14:04:00.001+01:00

Birthdays often pass me by, but this year I celebrated many times.
On my birthday we were on holiday in Ontario. We arrived the night before, and stayed with friends in Toronto.

On the day we went with friends firstly to visit a winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, and then on to lunch at the Skylon in Niagara Falls. See the view from our table below. At the end of the meal a slice of cake with a candle on it appeared. (Birthday cake no1.)

A week later, once more with Elle and Mart, we visited Pia, Tom and family. They live on the edge of a lake near Barry's Bay.

It was so relaxing, we wished we could have stayed with them for more than two nights. Their daughters made a fantastic cheesecake with grated Toblerone on the top. I should have asked for the recipe. (Birthday cake no2.)

Because we were away, I asked my Ravelry birthday swap partner KnitsOnVerandas to delay sending her parcel to me. So, last week it turned up, and it was well worth waiting for.

The yarn, Fundy Footsee in the Warning Sky colourway is exquisite, just my colours. I've already started off some socks using it with another yarn in single row stripes. I wore the bracelet all the rest of the day, despite wearing clothing that didn't go with it.

Back to birthday cake - last night at our Woolly Wednesday session at the Art Room, I was surprised to be given another cake. This time it was a ginger cake with lemon icing. I shared some with others at the studio, then cycled home in the rain carrying the remainders. (Birthday cake no. 3)

492 in three days!!!!

2010-07-06T18:46:00.002+01:00

That's the number of gooseberry sawfly caterpillars I picked off one bush over the course of three days.

This bush is a rogue bush that was probably seeded by birds and landed in our rockery.

It is right by the fence, and we left it to see how well it would fare.

Unlike the other gooseberry bushes further down the garden, it was pretty much untouched by caterpillars earlier on in the year.

Getting to it isn't easy, as it means trampling some geraniums and then balancing on mostly unseen small rocks. Not to be done in sandals, only in trainers!

However there are enough fruits on the bush this year to justify keeping it for the time-being.

Colours of June ... just in time

2010-06-30T16:31:00.006+01:00

Hydrangea petiolaris before we went away.

This has rambled away above head height, and could do with some serious pruning.
Mallows and geraniums that had flowered horizontally while we were away.
My images are all back to front, as I haven't been at all clever with ordering them.

We were busy throughout June.

Firstly preparing for, and then going to Ontario for a fortnight.

This was how the front of the house looked on Sunday morning when we returned from Canada.

The ivy could do with being tackled soon, but it is so hard to make it look good.

The clematis needs tying up, but that means bringing out a step-ladder.

Before we left there were new things to see in the garden.

Here is a rather too tall yellow Sisirynchium that got lost along the way, then moved itself from the back of the border to the front over the years. This is the first good display from it.

As you may know we have rather a lot of geraniums in our garden. A spot check one day at the beginning of the month revealed 15 different colours, most easily displayed in water in this dish.

Berry flowers, I'm still not sure what variety this new bush is. Ian informs me that it is a tayberry or hildaberry. Both were planted the winter before last and are now establishing themselves.

Another gratuitous view down the garden.

At the end of July we will have quite a bit taken off the ashes at the far right, as dead bits had been falling off into neighbouring gardens.

We will have the cedar on the left checked over too.

The last time both these were cut back was 10 years ago.
Again at the beginning of the month the mulberry showing off the flowers/fruits.
I need to add another posting showing some of the colours we saw while travelling in Ontario from mid June. But first I'll link this in to Sue's monthly colour page.

Summer rain

2010-06-10T19:08:00.005+01:00

All week we have been having rain, ranging from hair-curling drizzle to full blown thunderstorms (although only a couple of these).

So everything is growing at a mad rate, and that includes the lawn.

At this rate we may not get it cut for a while as it is constantly too wet.

Typically the more frail roses are opening, and then being washed away before we have had the chance to enjoy them.

Of course we should be out sowing more veg and flower seeds, but the conditions are too wet to want to do it.

But the highest priority, after the sawfly caterpillar removal, is tying in the autumn fruiting raspberries.

Autumn Bliss fruits on new canes, and has put on a growth spurt.

So for the next little while I'll be down the garden with twine and scissors.

It is even less fun when they are all wet, but leaving it another day will make the job more difficult. Thank heavens the row is only about 3 m (10 ft) long.

And to give a bit of an idea of the wetness here, take a look at part of Asda's carpark on Sunday.

Yesterday when getting thoroughly drenched while cycling there were beautiful oil patterns on a bit of road. I was too wet to want to stop and get my phone out, so you will have to imagine the bright haze that spread across the tarmac.

Colours of May

2010-06-02T14:18:00.007+01:00

Grasses pop up all over the place in our garden, and we often leave them to see how they turn out. This one has wonderful conical plumes of flowers which are hard to photograph.
The poached egg plant (Limnanthes) attracts lots of insects, and gives a great splash of colour for a couple of weeks. In the really hot weather earlier in the month they drooped badly, but revived. This patch is in the end of one of our raised vegetable beds.
This is only surviving plant of the heritage broad beans we planted from seed I got from Garden Organic. I think it is called "Crimson flowered". We only planted about 5 seeds and didn't soak them beforehand. We still have a few left over for autumn planting. Having had such poor germination with these I soaked a commercial variety "The Sutton" and we have had about 80% germination.

Having been thinking of what I would show for May, I was surprised that the overall impression isn't just of greens.

For quite a bit of the month, the predominant colour was green.

But look at all these other colours:

Looking back up towards the house from about halfway down the garden you get to see some of the red poppies.
These irises turn up all over the place. Sometimes we put them there, sometimes the birds do. They give an amazing splash of colour for a few weeks.

Some years we pick some and have them in a tall white glass vase on the front room windowsill with some of the poppies.
This hazy image is of the fruit on the small mulberry tree towards the bottom of the garden.

I'll try for a better image for June.
Likewise for this berry we planted last year.
Before starting to show some graduated pinks here is another case of insect camouflage.

See my earlier post about gooseberry sawfly.

Here in a wall pot, are some neatly arranged small green eggs laid on a nasturtium leaf.

Taken with my mobile phone above head height, so not the best image.

And now for some of the many pink flowers we have.

This viburnum has had the best flowers this year. Usually it gets too dry before the flowering season, and some of the leaves shrivel up.

Anyway, somehow it has excelled this year, and has looked like this for weeks.
This weigela has also flowered well, with enormously weighty flower spikes.
All over the place we have self-seeded columbines (Aquilegia), mostly this pink, but some dark blue.
We recently planted this group of alliums which have turned up trumps.

And finally ........ this is a bit of a cheat, as I didn't manage to take this picture until 1st June, (from the bathroom window, in the pouring rain).

This gives the overview of our garden from the house with odd splashes of colour.

Now to add the link back to Sue's "Colors of May" posting so that I can share these images with friends from all over.

d(erbyshire) o(pen) a(rts)

2010-05-29T23:30:00.004+01:00

We opened up on a miserable drizzly morning, so it wasn't much fun sitting near an open door all day. (Note to self - wear warmer clothing tomorrow!)

We had a steady trickle of visitors all day, the first having come at 11 as we opened the doors.

People who had been to our previous studio last year found us again, and we also had newcomers.

For the 4 of us, it was a chance to relax and enjoy showing off some of our creations.

With two more days to go, we should get many more visitors.

Garden delights and our weekend exhibition

2010-05-27T20:32:00.004+01:00

No time to take pictures today.

Last night, as I was cycling home from the "Woolly Wednesday" knitting session at the Art Room it was raining.

So naturally the traffic lights near the library failed to detect a single cyclist wishing to turn right onto the more major road. After two failed sequences I just went at the time the traffic opposite got to go.

Then there were the drivers who suddenly did u-turns in front of me and came to a dead stop, twice in one 10 minute ride!

But best of all, the garden got some rain, and the temperature dropped further.

Last night it dropped back to not much above freezing, quite a contrast with the 25C in the shade at the weekend.

This is the week of the Chelsea Flower Show, which is getting lots of coverage on TV.

This year Rachel Carter, a local artist, has a stand. She involved some local people to help out with willow weaving at the Art Room over the past couple of months.

Tomorrow, we transform the Art Room for the Bank Holiday weekend as four of us take part in Derbyshire Open Arts.

Garden pests - gooseberry sawfly

2010-05-18T19:52:00.007+01:00

We now have 6 gooseberry bushes scattered around our garden.

I forget now whether there are three varieties or four.

One we've had for years, and some of these are self/bird seeded plants some of which we have moved to more appropriate positions.

A couple of years ago we wanted something new, and had a recommendation to buy Lancashire Lad and Dan's Mistake.

We got in touch with Rougham Hall nursery which holds the national collection of gooseberries, but were a bit late for that year's list, as it was early December.

They supplied Lancashire Lad immediately, but we had to wait until last year for Dan's Mistake.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting on the edge of the strawberry bed looking towards these newer bushes. Although still very small several fruit have set.

But what caught my eye was the infestation of gooseberry sawfly. We usually have problems with these little caterpillars stripping the leaves off the bushes much later on around the time they have finished fruiting.

So now every other day I go down the garden in the late afternoon, armed with a pair of particularly slim nosed tweezers and a plastic tub containing a strong salt solution.

Today I didn't find many (10-4-2-15-19-1), but had to inspect each bush/cordon from head to toe.

Now comes the fun bit!

Have you ever tried, when not feeling 100% (I have just had a very lengthy bout of the usual voice loss virus) , to photograph one of the most perfectly camouflaged garden pests?

Colours of April

2010-04-30T21:36:00.005+01:00

First, a rare glimpse into our tiny front garden, showing the Berberis in flower and the Cotinus just coming in to leaf (Our front garden is just 5 feet deep):

And then at the far margins, here is the back garden hedgerow just coming in to leaf, Hazels both green and bronze with the May beside it:In amongst our fruit is this tiny blueberry, now about 4 years old, showing a decent amount of blossom this year:
... And blossom on one of the apples, I think this is the Egremont Russet:

Through Leigh I heard about Sue's bid to share seasonal colour. At the end of December I rushed around our urban back garden here in the East Midlands of England and took several photographs. However they have yet to see the light of day on the internet.

So, here in recompense are some colours of April as seen around our garden:

(They seem to have come out in a random order in this post, or I'm just out of practice at blogging).

Here are some things to celebrate.

The first flowers on this grass in the pond. In the next stage the black plumes will turn golden with pollen. Coincidentally, at least one neighbouring cat has been eating this grass rather than others this week and sicking it up round our garden.
The first fronds on this self seeded fern by the pond, and the first lily-of-the-valley flowers, no obvious fragrance yet:
The new leaves and flowers on the Epimedium just outside the back door. This rather cunning view doesn't show much of the darker older leaves that I have usually cut down by now:
Pretty much the last of the ornamental cherry flowers. We finally got some decent April showers today on the last day of the month! Just a touch of rain makes these go brown:
A week ago the Magnolia Stellata was in full bloom. Today the heavy downpours removed nearly all the petals:

Treacherous cycle lanes and other hazards ...

2010-01-10T20:06:00.007Z

Gateshead ...North Shields, and Hoddesden celebrate the season!

The past few months have been full of odd hazards.

Firstly I had that virus again, you know, the one where I lose my voice for weeks on end (only 5 weeks this time).

That took me from the end of October into early December.

Somehow, feeling grotty and speechless, I have little inclination to chat electronically either.

Then we ran into problems with internet access.

Those seem to have been solved firstly by buying a new computer, and this week by getting a new phone line into the house.

Now the new machine is up and running, comes the inevitable search for those black holes where files hide themselves when you most want them.

I have modified some pictures, and they aren't where I thought they were.

I'll just have to retrace my steps ...

In the meantime we were lucky that our projected trip to Lille was due to take place just a couple of days after the Eurostar trains got stuck.
We hastily cancelled our hotel booking, and headed north to Newcastle.

A reasonably priced "secret" hotel booking turned out to be the Hilton in Gateshead.We were only there for two nights, and only slotted in one 20 minute swim in their pool.

(When we were in Madrid last summer we just missed the opening of the hotel pool by a couple of days. We saw it being filled, which was little comfort.)

So we got used to walking on icy surfaces on hills before the cold spell really took hold here.

One of the early manifestations was just how quickly it had frozen over, snow had turned to ice over a storm drain on my journey to the studio.

Today, most of the remaining few centimetres of snow has been slowly melting, and we no longer have the idyllic scene pictured below.

No time to show some of the knitting I've been doing recently, or the pictures I took of December colour in the garden prompted by Leigh's posting here.

Simplicity ... is what I am aiming for

2009-10-23T17:27:00.007+01:00

The Secret Pal 14 exchange came to an end on September 30th.
This is not the best picture, but here is my final parcel from Heather , which I picked up a couple of weeks ago.
As usual it took me ages to be at home with enough daylight to take a picture.
(Now I see it on the screen it looks rather too dark.)

What I can tell you, is that once again Heather came up trumps for me.
She excelled herself with this parcel, sending me Noro Silk Garden sock yarn, Black Eyed Susan seeds for the garden, the "Simplicity" soap of my title and the most perfect purple "Velvet bilberry" Jitterbug sock yarn.

She must know just how much I need to simplify my life, maybe using this soap will have the required effect!

While my parcel was languishing in our local sorting office I was at Ally Pally for the Knitting and Stitching show.
I stopped and looked at the Jitterbug yarn, and decided against buying it then.
Somehow this seems most apt.

The UKHKA stand is now called "Knit1 - pass it on".
We had a good day in a quieter position than in previous years.
Not so many school and college groups found us, maybe fewer were visiting.
As a result it was easier to teach those who did find us.
I even managed to demystify cabling for one knitter.

Meanwhile, Keila has been my downstream pal in SP14.
Throughout the exchange I found it hard not to let on to my identity, and had the utmost fun spoiling her.

I just realised ...

2009-09-29T23:12:00.006+01:00

... that I started blogging on 29 September 2005.

Can it really be that long ago?

Looking back ... little did I know then how things would change for me.

I certainly wouldn't have believed that I'd be part of the team running a community arts centre.

At that point I just thought that I'd jump on the bandwagon, and use blogging to keep a rough type of diary.

Together with my tattered travel sketchbook that was started in 1999, it gives a bit of a hint as to what I have been up to.

Optimistically, I intend to spend tomorrow getting on with a few projects other than the Art Room.But as you see here, the garden and yarn pull equally.

There is a bucket of reconstituted porcelain ready for me to play with. These were made about the time I started blogging when I had so much more time to myself.

And how about the spinning projects? It is going to be a complicated day, isn't it?

Then there is the backlog of laundry that has built up as we were away in Scotland last week.

So don't be surprised to see sliced pears acting as inspiration for all sorts of activities. I might even try to dry some.

Finally, I made sense of my camera ...

2009-09-18T00:14:00.005+01:00

... and can now reveal my latest parcel from my secret pal. Thank you so much - you got it all just right!And here we have: a fantastic project bag in bright colours, just my style!
Some fibres in a bright jewel greeny blue; some mysterious seeds (they came unlabelled) that I don't immediately recognise; and the most exquisite fine mohair yarn.

All this came recently, but I haven't been at home in daylight hours much recently, and then the camera batteries were flat!!

Excuses! Excuses, I know, but all true.

Meanwhile we popped over to Lincoln for the AIA conference, and took a side trip to Gainsborough where we saw this lovely passion flower creeping out from under the metal hoarding of a building site.

In Lincoln itself I was tempted by the texture carved into this stone plinth. It looks as though it would be really easy to translate this into crochet.

These are the latest socks off the needles: I now have a sneeking suspicion that the bright red wool element might not be machine washable, so their first wash was by hand. I will have to try felting a bit of the leftover yarn before I next want to wash them.

Recently ....

2009-09-08T20:00:00.009+01:00

... we visited Derby College that has built a new campus around the Roundhouse and other railway buildings near Derby station.There are new link buildings with the most amazing glass: blue on the inside,

whilst red on the outside.We have also had a few brief outings, including one to Manchester.

There are great opportunities for opportunist thieves in Manchester railway stations. It looks as though they are rostered along with railway staff and members of the emergency services to remove abandoned luggage from railway platforms! This jacket is in the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. We were there to see the Beyer Garratt locomotive centenary display, but this caught my eye; downy seedheads arranged on a fine mesh of thread. I've no idea who made it, but it has great impact.

I also visited Lincoln for the displays and trade fair at the end of the Association of Guilds of WSD summer school.

Walking back down to the station I saw this rangoli near the cathedral. I didn't have time to stop to talk to the man who was still adding names to the design. Doesn't this look fantastic!

The Art Room meanwhile, has a sign up, new windows are going in and we are slowly finding where things have ended up after the move.

And those promised images of sock knitting are still on my camera and the batteries need charging before I can download them. Pictures of my second parcel from my secret pal are there too. I should be able to share them with you in the next few days.

Slipping into bad habits ....

2009-08-28T20:57:00.003+01:00

... once more.

Having joined up to this round of Secret Pal, I'd had the intention to keep up with blogging.
But for the first time in a year I've succumbed to my usual virus, despite not having the time to feel unwell.
Good news - voice loss 1.5 days
Bad news - earache 8 days now

Best news - we are not open on Monday, so I get a weekend despite working tomorrow.

Knitting news - I have just finished another pair of socks in a mix of yarns.
Half Regia cotton/half some unlabelled sock wool - pics to follow.
Latest pair started in bamboo/wool - one row of each.

Secret Pal goodies again

2009-08-03T22:52:00.005+01:00

When I can I spend a lot of time in the garden. This weekend, amazingly, my one day at home coincided with good weather. All week we had showers of rain, often heavy. Leaving work on Saturday afternoon I got drenched cycling home, so wasn't expecting such luck on Sunday.

But before I get too involved in talking about planting out items, here are the goodies from the first part of SP14: butterflies for the garden, beautifully dyed silk hankies and the handcream to smooth my digits before embarking on the spinning. Thank you, Secret Pal. When I get a couple of other spinning projects out of the way, I will spend some time removing all those gardening roughnesses with salt and oil, as I know that sik hankies are best treated with care. I already tried out the handcream, and it is just right to use before spinning silk and fine wool.And now for the creative bit in the garden. A while ago I found some old carrot seed and planted it in modules in the greenhouse. I have been rather lazy about keeping it watered and yet it survived. For about a week it has needed to be moved on. We never seem to get on well with carrots as our soil is full of gravel from the River Trent in whose floodplain we live. These carrots having survived my general neglect have now had lots of care lavished on them. I found some mature compost and assiduously sieved out all the stones and bits of branches. This has then had more compost and sand mixed in with it, and been put in a growing bag that held early potatoes until last month. Tonight they have perked up, so we may yet get a decent crop.
As you can see, the butterflies felt right at home on our patio. This pot has just developed by serendipity. Originally it held some golden hops and nasturtiums. Several years on it has self-seeded plants some of which I cannot yet identify. But as they all work well together it hasn't been disturbed. We frequently find plants creeping in, possibly brought in by birds. Only the fern in this pot has its parentage in our garden. We are still waiting to see what the other shrubs turn out to be.

Monday - carpet; Tuesday - desks; Wednesday - internet ....

2009-07-26T12:41:00.004+01:00

... and so on. The move has been made, and we have an office set up as well as the studio.

Wednesday night saw the hanging of art work in the entrance hallway, and much tidying up.

On Thursday we opened an exhibition we are hosting for the next week, "Art at the HeART of Wellbeing".

Many of the artists were present, and since then several other visitors have trickled in to view the work.

We followed up the exhibition private view with an opening event for the Art Room from 14.00 - 19.00. Many people we know dropped by to see the new studio.

This hasn't left much time for knitting or crochet. I finished off knitting a sample of handspun and instantly gave it away to a friend, so no pics there.

Yesterday I was out in the garden trying to tame some of the geraniums, and came across these other flowers, some of which were a complete surprise. We have plenty of grasses scattered wherever they feel like growing:We have no memory of planting gladioli, so this was unexpected. It is really a magenta/purple colour. My phone has given it a much bluer tinge, and I was too lazy to go into the house to fetch a camera..

I haven't looked this up in gardening books, so can't tell what it is. I know that I planted it about 3 years ago, it disappeared, and has now decided to make its presence known.This hollyhock comes from seed given to us by Sylvi from her garden in the Czech Republic.

Art Room move

2009-07-14T19:39:00.006+01:00

I've been a bit quiet here for the past while, and all because we have been moving the Art Room to a new venue.

We have been in business now for a little over 3 years, and our rate of expansion has been phenomenal.

When we moved into larger premises in 2007/8, we knew that it was only until July of this year.

It gave us a chance to work on a larger scale, and that proved to work well for us.

The decision as to where we would be after our lease ran out has weighed heavily on us.

It has been a bit of a cliffhanger, as our preferred premises were not available when we had expected them to be.

We only found out late last Wednesday that we could move in this last weekend.

We had to be out of our premises by yesterday morning.

So we didn't have to do a two-way move via temporary storage.

Now we are moved, and frantically trying to set up for next Monday when we will reopen to the public.

The builders also had no access until this week, so we will be working alongside them.

The good news is that our new landlords walked through with the builders yesterday, and the builders wasted no time, and started this morning.

We have long days ahead of us to get everything in place.

We won't have a telephone line in until Thursday.

So in some ways it has been quiet, as unless people know our mobile numbers we cannot be contacted.

I have been too tired to think much about the Secret Pal 14 exchange, which just started.

I am looking forward to taking part, having missed out on the last couple of exchanges.

But please bear with me for a few days until we are sorted out at the studio.

I did manage some spinning last week when very much stressed.

Some of it was sampling a fantastic alpaca silk mix in "Think Pink" that I bought from Krafty Koala at the end of UK Ravelry Day in Coventry.

I have also started on spinning some fibres bought from Skein Queen at about the same time.

This may be a long term project, and just possibly the recipient may read this, so no more hints.

And now a reminder that I do knit sometimes. Here is a quick snap taken with my mobile phone one evening when fetching the washing in (hence the bluish colour). Ian had hung a load of my socks together, making a burst of colour.

This is one view from bed early in the morning, which may inspire some wire or porcelain - fine spider tracery highlighted by sunlight.

And the little bit of wire knitting I did on my way over to Coventry for UK Ravelry Day - purple wire with gold thread, worn pinned through a piece of porcelain I had fashioned, but that broke in firing. Now (when I get time) I need to make some porcelain with larger holes so that I can pin things on more easily.

Secret pal 14 questionnaire

2009-07-09T00:55:00.000+01:00

UK Ravelry Day looms ...

2009-06-03T23:15:00.004+01:00

... and I still don't have a Ravelry badge!

After attending the Ravelry gathering at Get Knitted back in January '08 I meant to work out how to get one.

So I am hoping to meet some Ravellers, hitherto only known electronically, in Coventry on Saturday.

One day soon I may even get round to a bit of a catch-up on life. My phone and camera have been busy recording aspects of both daily life and our occasional travels.

So far the travels have mostly been linked to IRSE visits with Ian.

We managed to add a few days proper holiday to visits to Poznan (Poland) last November, Vienna in February and the convention last week in Madrid.

The smaller technical visits are good, as I get to go along and see the signalling installations/factories etc.

The convention is so big that they run a separate guest programme. Last week there were about 90 of us guests. We got bussed around, often to the same places as the delegates who went by train.

One of the highlights was travelling from Madrid to Zaragoza on the new AVE service. We had a special train, and got a chance to be in the cab whilst travelling at 300 km/hour.

Zaragoza itself was fairly hot, and our tour of the city was all too brief.

From a distance we saw the remains of last year's Expo with Zaha Hadid's bridge making a striking contrast to the new Delicias station.

Many of the Expo pavilions appeared to be in stages of demolition. We were whisked by in our coach on our way to the city centre where we visited the Basilica del Pilar and the Aljafera.

Lots more to tell later about these trips, and now for a gratuitous picture taken in Nottingham earlier this year.

This balloon had only partially escaped the bustle of the city!

1129767 ... a very important number!

2009-05-23T09:49:00.004+01:00

Yesterday we heard from the Charity Commission that Long Eaton Art Room has been registered as a charity.
This will make it easier to apply for funding.

Lots more work to do, but we are on our way.

This weekend some of our artists are taking part in derbyshire open arts putting Long Eaton on the artistic map.
Do drop in to see their work!

Goodies from "The Knitter"

2009-02-18T23:26:00.005Z

After some thought, I bought the first copy of "The Knitter".

I had read several comments from other knitters, and couldn't tell whether I'd like it or not.

On finding a copy in my WHSmith, I leafed through it and thought there was just enough to warrant the purchase.

The only time I remember knitting a garment to a pattern with the designated brand of yarn was back in 1963. Since then I usually only look for schematics or stitch patterns to act as guidelines for items I design to knit.

So the majority of knitting magazines leave me bored. So often they have cluttered layouts disguising the fact that they contain little of interest to me.

This magazine had some interesting information about designers, yarn and tools.

AND they tantalised me with a text message draw for a goody bag.

I hummed and hawed, and approximately 24 hours before the deadline texted in. I had just put more money on my phone, and it didn't seem to be too much of an extravagance. (My equivalent of buying a lottery ticket, but probably with better odds I thought).

I gave it no more thought until last Monday when I emerged from a meeting in a venue without mobile reception to find a voicemail message.

Standing at a bus stop on a busy road it took me 3 attempts to make sense of the call. Then my bus came and I had to give up on hopes of making the return call.

At Matlock station just as my train was about to depart I found out that I had "won" all this:

So unbelievable! What are the odds on winning this?

After a bit of argy bargy (as the delivery company only had my home address) it was delivered to me at the Art Room, and I am slowly exploring my good fortune.

Clone me please....

2008-12-31T17:47:00.004Z

... as I never seem to have time to do things.

Somehow I find the time to spend too much time being distracted by lurking on Ravelry

Whenever I mention it as a resource to others I ask them not to blame me if they get to spend too much time on it.

I use it as a means of keeping up with friends, and it couldn't be bettered for that.

We had a steep learning curve at the Art Room as we started running our sessions in the much larger premises in January. We are making a name for ourselves, and enjoying the process, but it would be wonderful if we could make enough money to sustain ourselves and then pay ourselves some wages.

This card was made for me by a 5 year old who attended a couple of sessions back in the spring.

Alongside my voluntary work for the Art Room, I did the usual monthly sessions for CamTAD now taking place in the Salvation Army hall here in Long Eaton.

As usual I went to some of the stitching shows.

Art Room commitments meant that I had to miss out on a couple this year.

Some of them were a bit quieter this autumn, but it meant that I had time to teach crochet in depth.

I have been crocheting more anyway recently.

Thanks to the prominent exhibit of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the shows at the NEC, Ally Pally and Harrogate we had several people wanting to learn.

In September I had to get a new phone, and all these pictures were taken on it.

I keep forgetting that I always have a camera on me, and miss out on some shots.

I had the presence of mind to take this picture walking home from the station one day. Had I been at the Art Room that afternoon I would have missed it as it would have been behind me as I cycled home.

We did find some time to do some other things, and this was one of the sparklers we took along to a Bonfire Night party with friends in Derby.

Later on in November we had a week long trip to Poland.

This was the vaulted brick ceiling in a textile mill that has just been converted into ms2 (art gallery) as part of Manufaktura.

My camera was still in my bag in the cloakroom, but this gives a bit of the atmosphere.

Minutes after leaving the gallery we were drinking hot chocolate at Wedel . I can't think why I failed to take a picture at the time. Maybe I was too busy drinking it!

Alongside all this I did some knitting, but failed to photograph most of it. These are fingerless mittens for the other Mary knitted with more of the sock yarn I dyed for her alternating with mohair.

Some months ago ...

2008-12-07T18:21:00.008Z

... I intended to show this, my fantastic (and still pretty much untouched) haul from the Hush Hush Handspun Hootenany, which I received from Lisa in August. The yarn in front is partway to being a scarf for me, although I might re-do it yet. The rest (fibre and Kool-Aid) is waiting for me to have some time at home, which might come when the Art Room is closed over Christmas.

... and then this, evidence of the fun we had at the Long Eaton Art Room for Diwali. We hosted the event for Erewash Borough Council. In previous years this was at Long Eaton Town Hall, and we went along with clay and completed diyas for painting. This time we stayed put, and about 130 people came to us. I broke out the fluorescent paints and we let the visitors have some fun. This was one result. There were also dance workshops and a performance courtesy of Surtal Arts.
... and then this: Bob visiting the UK from Canada. Back in the '70s I worked in the library at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario. For some of that time Bob was my boss. He retired last year, and with his wife Nancy recently travelled in Europe ending up in London. They arrived on a Saturday from Glasgow and were free on the Sunday. Ian and I took the train down to London, and showed them around a little. This grainy photo was taken with my new mobile phone, before I learnt all the settings for different lighting situations. We had supper together at St Pancras station and you can see an arriving Eurostar train in the background. It was good to see him again. Hard to believe that I left Brock in '77.

And now for a little knitting content! This was just playing with the phone settings. I wanted to see how well it would let me assess the negative version of the colour I was knitting. Looks like I still need to play with it a bit. More about the knitting shows etc. another time.

It's way too long ago ...

2008-10-29T08:53:00.003Z

... since I last posted here.

All the usual excuses are ready, but it is mostly due to lack of time.

I've no excuse now, as the phone I got in September has a camera, so I can now snap those images I so wanted to capture.
That doesn't mean that I will remember to do so!

More soon!

HHHH questionnaire

2008-07-03T23:24:00.003+01:00

1. How long have you been spinning? What skill level do you consider yourself?
I'm probably only intermediate, as I rarely have time to spin. I have had a wheel since the mid '80's.

2. What kinds of yarn do you create (singles/2-ply/3-ply/art yarn)?
It all depends on the fibre, and wished-for end product. I usually ply my yarns to 2 or 3 ply.

3. What do you spin with (spindle/wheel/both)?
I have an Ashford double drive, and a couple of spindles, but use the wheel more often.

4. What are your favourite fibres to spin with? Anything you don't like?
I love Gotland fleece, particularly the greyer the colour.
I also like blends of wool with silk, and plant fibres.
I don't like artificial fibres, but have been know to use a tiny amount of sparkly stuff at times.

5. Who are your favourite crack dealers fibre sources (etsy or otherwise)?
Here in the UK there are so many (Wingham Wools, Scottish Fibres, Crafty Notions - for the Falklands wool etc.)
I love the fibres on Susan's Spinning Bunny on eBay, and like the look of the merino/tencel mixes especially in a bright colour like Poppy.
I haven't begun to explore etsy properly yet.

6. What kind of fibre do you want to try?
Some of the fleeces not available in the UK, also any merino/silk/tencel mix.

7. Is there any techniques you would like to learn?
I need to get happy using a spindle

8. Do you dye fibre? If not, would you like to learn?
I often dye fibres, or I dye yarn that I have spun.

9. Do you have fibre prep tools (and like to use them) or would you prefer ready to spin fibre?
I have carders, and am happy to prepare fibres.

10. What do you do with your handspun? What projects have you completed?
I knit, or ocasionally crochet with the resultant yarn.
It usually ends up as clothing for myself or friends.

11. Are you in need of any spinning gadgets (WPI Gauge, threading hook, etc)?
I have both of those, but would love a very lightweight spindle.

12. What colours "fall into your shopping basket"? Any colours you just can't stand?
I love purples and bright jewel colours (everything tends to lighten up and dull down when spun), and avoid pastels and pale colours.

13. What is on your wheel/spindle right now?
A wool/silk mix in rusts that I am spinning up for a friend.

14. What other crafts/hobbies do you have?
I knit, garden, make ceramics using porcelain clay ....

15. Other than crafts, what are you passionate about?
Gardening

16. Do you have an online wishlist?
No

17. Is there anything that you collect?
Fine silk yarn and fabric, seed beads, other fine threads in natural fibres that might be knitted or used in embroidery

18. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What magazine subscriptions do you have?
I would love to get my hands on a Japanese Hamanaka 2.00/3.00 mm double ended crochet hook.
I subscribe to Selvedge

19. When is your birthday?
June 12th, so just missed it!

20. What book or movie character do you most resemble in personality?
No idea, I've never thought about it

21. What is the climate like where you live around this time (need to know for careful shipments of anything meltable)?
Summer, which means warm, sometimes hot, but no need for restrictions.

22. Tell us one weird fact about yourself!
I remembered this sign-up just in time, on June 30th. I usually miss out on signing up for exchanges.
I'm probably late filling this in!

FavouritesFavourite painting/picture(link):
One that influenced me years back is Paolo Ucello's "Rout of San Romano", with its rocking horse like figures.
We learnt about it in art lessons at school, and could see it at the National Gallery.

Candy:
Dark chocolate with at least 70% + cocoa content

Food:
Blackcurrants, spinach, Stilton ( but not all together)

Drink:
Water, green tea, red wine

Movie(s):
Nowadays, anything with subtitles so that I can make sense of it.

TV Show(s):
Dr Who, Grand Designs, coverage of Glastonbury, Six Feet Under ...

Book(s):
Usually detective stories, but it must break down into short parts as I rarely get to read until I'm in bed and drifting off to sleep.

Guilty Pleasure(s): Laceweight wool/silk knitting yarn in purples

An away day, then a day in the garden

2008-06-15T23:14:00.005+01:00

A Saturday away from the Art Room. Finally, a day to enjoy on my own.

I woke early, but was too lazy to rush for the first train to London.

So I took the next one, arriving at St. Pancras round about 09.30.

Took the tube to East Putney, then strolled along to Stash only to find that I was 1/2 hour early. On the previous occasion that I tried to visit, a couple of years ago during a break in a conference, I arrived just after it closed on the Saturday and could only peer in through the window.

I went into the cemetery park behind the store to relax and wait for it to open.
There I came across Jackie and her dog "Lady".
We had a good chat, and I failed to get any more crocheting done.

I am using some handspun wool/silk mix using a complicated pattern, and am only on the third repeat having started it a month ago, so haven't memorised it yet.

At 11.00, I went to the store and found Nic was in, but teaching a sock class. I looked around, and it was so good to handle yarns I had only heard about. Although I see some at the shows, it isn't a relaxing environment to take stock of them then.

I ended up teaching Nathalie a slip stitch that I use a lot.

This is the only image I could find just now. (I must make a good sample and photograph it.)
I first found this stitch in a Swiss pattern book in 1971/2, and have only seen it a couple of times since, always in German publications.
It is great for colour mixing, and makes a warm fabric.

My lunch was a muesli bar from Mei's place a few doors down from Stash.

Leaving Putney I took the train to Waterloo and hunted down "I knit London".

Instinct should have taken me straight there, but I got a bit confused by the apparent number of sides that the station has. I arrived to find a small crowd that included Sue.
It soon got busy as people returned from the WWKIP treasure hunt they had run earlier in the day.

I did my best to browse the shelves, but gave up as it was hard to see them for the people. It was good to see that they have some Habu yarns.

Moving on, I loitered briefly in the Leake Street tunnel under the station. Crowds of people were there looking at what is left of the "Cans Festival" (stencilled art) held at the end of May.

This was just a brief interlude on my way to the Hayward Gallery to see the hyperbolic reef . This left a short while to visit the Royal Festival Hall for the British part of the reef, before heading back to St. Pancras and home.

There are too many inspiring parts to these reefs. What a pity that I had no camera with me.

Today I stayed at home, did laundry, re-found part of the path around the lawn and made bread. In the course of the day I cut back many hardy geraniums, and took samples of the flowers into the house in a shallow bowl. I could do with many more days like these!
This close-up shows one that grows under the back door step. The petals never open out, and the colour is such a deep pink.

April 30th is often a memorable day....

2008-05-11T13:14:00.006+01:00

... and this year was no exception.

Twice in my life, it was the final day of a contract at work, and both times brought about major changes to what I was doing.

In 1972, I finished working a winter season in the dining room of the Hotel Hohe Promenade in Arosa, Switzerland.

The next day I travelled down from the mountains, and encountered a change from late winter straight to late spring.

In 1977, I worked my last day as supervisor of the circulation department in the library at Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.

The following day I started to pack up my apartment ready for taking a ship home later in the month.

This year I took part in a day workshop on freeform with Prudence Mapstone.

Eleven of us gathered at Pauline's house for a day of fun.

Having remembered to take my camera along, I did document the day a little .

But most of the time we were busy with needles and hooks.

We started off looking at some garments Prudence had brought over with her.

Ildi modelled this coat to great effect.

By lunchtime we had all started knitting and crocheting, but were reluctant to pause for long.

Those of us working in the dining room came out to the larger group in the conservatory to see what they had made so far.

Towards four we put all our pieces together to give an idea of how a garment could be pieced. Once on the table it seemed to amount to very little.

Prudence pointed out just how she would join such disparate pieces together.
The pieces are set out on the full size pattern pieces for the garment before being sewn together.

As we prepared to leave, Prudence modelled some more garments, but I was so busy looking that I failed to take more than this one picture.

This shawl is long and narrow, leaving the arms free to move freely whilst adding warmth to the body.

During the day there were many "April showers" including some hail, but apart from the dimming of the daylight and some noisy sound effects we weren't bothered by it.

Before going, I had checked out when I had first come across freeform. It was in 1991 when I attended a workshop with James Walters and Sylvia Cosh. Since then I have used scrumbling ocasionally, but never to make a complete garment.

p.s. My voice is back! I've had it back for a week now. This time around I was without it for 6 weeks.

Silenced for too long

2008-04-03T17:08:00.002+01:00

Silence is fun, but not when it is forced on me.
Yes, I have the first cold of this winter, and as in the past few years it has killed my voice off.
Today is day 9, and I am trying not to put myself in the situation where I have to talk.

This is a bit hard, as I need to be at the Art Room doing things all the time.

In fact being at the Art Room is the norm now.
I did creep away for a couple of days to be at the stitching shows at the NEC and Olympia during the last couple of weeks.

This week we celebrated our 2nd birthday on Tuesday (April 1st).
We had our Have-A-Go-Day on Sunday, and it went well.

Quite a few new people came down to see us, which was good.
The next couple of weeks are the school holidays here in Derbyshire, and we will be running a series of kids workshops.
I will stay on the non workshop side of the barrier coping with all other comers.

Must head off now to walk back to run the evening session.
It is pretty warm, and I can go along the canal towpath knowing that I will be getting a lift back home when we close at 9.

More catching up soon, I promise.

A cool start

2008-02-20T23:56:00.004Z

Yesterday we woke up to find that the whole landscape had been gently frosted overnight.

This was the view from the bedroom when I got up.

With any luck, this being about the third hard frost in a week will have killed off all those lurking diseases in the soil.

The view out on to the road was almost as exciting. Not only the cars but the road surface had suffered. My Tuesday morning walk to catch the train into Nottingham was a bit slower than usual, and I just missed my train. Later on, at lunchtime my ten minute cycle ride to the Art Room was fairly comfortable, but I began to wish that I had taken a hat. The canal has partly frozen over, and there were a group of uncomfortable looking ducks trying to work out why they could stand on the water.

It is half-term holiday time again, and we are running a series of children's workshops. We have divided the studio, and I am staying on the adult's side as we are running the normal open studio sessions too. So far, so good but it still makes for a tiring day whether you are actively with the children or not.

This morning it was brighter with little visible frost, but the water for the birds was frozen solid. A robin was on the bird table looking very picturesque, but had gone before I could fetch a camera.

Famous for a few minutes, today!!

2008-02-07T17:20:00.000Z

Last week, I heard that I had been nominated for a Derby Evening Telegraph Community Champions award.
First of all there was the telephone interview, then the press photographer, then today at about 11.20, a live 2 minute slot on BBC Radio Derby together with the other Mary.

From checking the DET website just now, I assume that the piece is in the paper tonight.
so, if you are interested in a slightly exaggerated bit about the Long Eaton Art Room, check out this!
The photo shows me and the other Mary in the compact storage.
I am on the right of the picture.

Beaded wire jewellery workshop at Long Eaton Art Room this Sunday

2008-02-01T20:36:00.001Z

Here is a final reminder that we are running a beaded wire jewellery workshop this Sunday, February 3rd.

Josie Jenkins and I will be showing ways that wire can be combined with beads, either crocheted or knitted to make jewellery.

It will be held in the new (and much more spacious) premises of Long Eaton Art Room.
For those of you who have visited us before, it is at the bottom end of Leopold Street, about 200 yards further down the road to the left of the (closed) gate into the park.

The workshop will run from 10.00 - 16.00, and will cost £25.00.

Tea and coffee will be available all day, but please bring your own lunch.

Please ring 0115 946 1661 or check out our website for more details:
www.leartroom.co.uk

A great start to the year

2008-01-06T17:25:00.000Z

Actually, this was really last year, but who's counting?

A parcel arrived from Emma in France on New Year's Eve just as we were leaving for a day visit to London.

Although I opened it late that evening, I didn't have a chance to really enjoy it until New Year's Day.

In it was the most fantastic set of bags for my knitting, and some lovely Phildar yarn.

Emma has been busy sewing, and knowing my weakness for purple has made me a reversible tote bag, and a small project bag.

This photo hardly shows the Phildar lambswool 51 yarn, which is in the Clematite 0204 colour.

The colour is a subtle variation on purples. I might need to brighten it up with something else.

We had a great day in London, visiting Ian's brother and his family. After lunch at their home, we all travelled in to Charing Cross by train, and walked over to the South Bank. This was at 18.00, so the crowds hadn't started for the fireworks later on.

We all had supper at Tas Pide near the Globe, and then went our separate ways for trains home.

Later Ian and I watched the London fireworks on the TV.

Wednesday saw me travelling down to Luton to meet up with the knitters at the Whitehouse. Jenn was my spoiler in the latest round of Secret Pal, and she has set up a regular Wednesday lunchtime knitting meet up in the centre of Luton. It was lovely to meet with Jenn, Martina and Lizzie. We had a chance to swap some ideas about knitting, crochet and spinning.

Thursday saw me back at the Art Room for some of the back scenes work associated with our move. (I managed to get the old premises vacated and vacuumed on Dec 28th.)

As we hadn't been in properly since Dec 21st, it was cold at 5 C.

I wore long underwear and worked in my jacket to start sorting out all the stuff carried over from the stockroom. some had been put in the compact storage as it was brought down the road. More of it had just been placed on the nearest bit of floor in the new unit.

Much of this 3 day rearrangement meant taking everything off the shelving so that I could adjust the spacing, and then replacing it in the order I think will work for us.

Now all I need to do is list the location of everything.

This won't be such a hard task, as I had already listed most of it at the old unit.

By the third day I was quite comfortable without the jacket.

That was such a change from shivering on the Thursday.

Tomorrow morning we open to the public for the first time this year.

We have changed our opening hours, and will be open from 09.00 - 12.00, 13.00 - 16.00 Mon to Sat.

Wednesday and Thursday evenings we will also be open from 18.00 - 21.00.

At least now we have a landline and internet access in the Art Room, so are much more approachable.

We are busy planning a varied programme for the year, check the website for more information.

Exchanges

2007-12-24T13:02:00.000Z

Suddenly it is nearly the end of the year, and here is a little about a couple of exchanges I have taken part in.

I can now reveal my downstream pal in SP11. Despite releasing the parcel into the Christmas post, the final reveal has happened. Gisela lives in northern Germany, near the border with the Netherlands. Rather like Jenn did for me, I managed to find exactly the yarn that Gisela had looked at. We even went to the same shop about a month apart, and picked out the same items. I didn't know that she had been there.

The Online Guild has had a stash exchange in December. I received this fantastic parcel from Doreen in Wales. The box has been tied with paper string in two shades.Inside the box is a selection of fibres, yarns and fabric, mostly indigo dyed.

Accompanying it is a list of the items with information about how they have been dyed.

Some items were dyed with fresh leaves (home-grown) of Japanese indigo (Polygonum Tinctoria).

This surely is much more satisfying than the selection boxes containing chocolates that we were given as children. It will certainly last much longer.

And then there is the other exchange that has taken up so much of my time lately. Here in Long Eaton, the Art Room has been moving into much larger premises. We have the opportunity to expand, and to provide more opportunities for local artists whatever their experience. For the first time we will be able to make all our equipment available, without having to constantly shift things around. Of course it will mean more work, but mostly it will be FUN!!
I want a couple of days at home, then to get back in there to organize all the items that have just been moved into the new premises. All of this must happen before a private party on 6th January, and we open to the public again on 7th January 2008.

I've been at home during daylight hours!!

2007-12-11T19:00:00.000Z

And now you can see the tremendous bounty I received from my upstream Secret Pal, Jenn.

The parcel came towards the end of November, but I was never home for long enough to take photos.

So, here we have an overview of the contents, which were all wrapped beautifully in tissue paper.

And now for a few close-ups: Firstly some pretty notelets and "The Friday Night Knitting Club". All I need is a bit of time to read!Secondly, the sweetest Santa I have seen in ages. I forgot to take a close-up of the seasonal teatowels.And lastly, some yarn. I really think that Jenn is a mind reader. I had just been at Harrogate, and at the last minute bought two skeins of this lovely laceweight alpaca. I wasn't sure whether to get two or three. Along with it is a skein of Araucania Ranco Multi ina fantastic blue mix. Just a few days earlier I had been disappointed not to win one of these on eBay.Now I must get on with making up a second bed in our guest room, as tonight we have two friends staying with us.

I've been away again ....

2007-11-26T22:01:00.000Z

... and got back to find the most amazing parcel from my secret pal.

In it was yarn I would have bought for myself , given the chance.

And yarn I had bought for myself, but wasn't sure if I was buying enough!!

She is near enough a mind reader, and I'll reveal her identity when I have a chance to take some photos.

We're back from Cornwall

2007-11-19T22:11:00.000Z

In fact we got back on Saturday evening, but had an Art Room business meeting that took up most of yesterday.

Then to add to it, we had no internet today, when I was at home all day.
It is the only day in the week that I have no other things on.
I used to go to a lip-reading lesson in the morning, but that is no longer running.
I miss it, but am glad to have the free time.

I did read my way through a backlog of e-mails including some UKHK that I had ignored when they arrived.
My inbox looks a lot healthier now.

But I couldn't do some of the things I had been counting on doing.
I did all the things I could think of to get it up and running, but forgot that making a phone call had sorted it out previously.

I am still pecking away with only the index finger from my left hand in use.
The swelling is starting to go down, and the flesh is almost the normal colour.
That finger is still much warmer than all the others.
It feels a bit like a chilblain, and is very sensitive to cold weather

I did a couple of loads of washing, and that is still on the line, as it rained sometime after I had hung it out.
As far as I am concerned it can stay there until tomorrow.

I made bread, and it should be ready to bake now.
The long finger on the left hand hardly gets involved when kneading the dough.
It is amazing that I can do some things that would have been impossible a week ago.

As for our time in Cornwall, it was fantastic.
I first went with my family when I was 17 or 18.
It was the last family holiday I went on.
The rest of the family have been down there several times since, though.
My father had wanted to retire down there from London, but died 19 years ago.

We had fun, ate a lot of good meals, gave a few bus drivers a purpose in life, and had a couple of fantastic coastal walks.
It took us pretty much all day on Monday to travel down, and the same again on Saturday coming back.
Part of that trip was on a rail replacement bus from Plymouth to Tiverton Parkway.
That wasn't fun, as it was packed, and we took about 20 minutes to drive a few hundred yards away from the station, as there was so much traffic.

I did do a lot of knitting on the journeys there and back, and Ian's sweater is growing.
The last time we were down in Cornwall must have been about 10 years ago.
So we visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan and the Eden Project for the first time.

At Heligan, we arrived on foot, having walked along the coast from Mevagissey via Pentewan.
I had one of the best bowls of soup of my life there, spicy pepper and tomato.
We had just enough time to see most of the gardens before they closed.
It was dark at the bus stop in the car park, and we were relieved when the bus pulled in on schedule.

The following day we went to Wheal Martyn near St. Austell, and then on to the Eden Project.
The china clay industry is well documented in this old pit, and walking to the top of the site brings some current workings into sight.

We had discovered that we could get a bus from Lostwithiel, where we were staying, direct to Wheal Martyn.
What we hadn't counted on was the tour through some northern estates of St. Austell picking people up to go shopping in Tesco's, or in the town centre.

The same bus service goes past the Eden Project, so on our return we were dropped off nearby.
We walked down thus getting a reduced entrance fee as we had walked in.
We didn't have quite enough time at the Eden Project, so might be tempted to make use of the annual pass.
We had another anxious moment waiting in the dark for a bus to take us back to St.Austell.

There we had a drink in the hotel that had suggested to us that we might not like to stay there as they have karaoke on Wednesday and Friday, and it gets noisy.
Having seen the size of their amplifiers, perhaps they were right in losing our business.

Going down there so late in the year is great, as we saw hardly any other tourists.
We had great weather, sunny with strong cool or cold winds most of the time.
The only rain was on Tuesday in Penzance, and we ducked in to Iriss of Penzance for five minutes on our way back to our hotel, missing some of the worst of it.

As we were dripping, and in a hurry I wish that I had done some homework first.
I would have liked to have seen the Gotland yarn that they have on their website.
Gotland is one of the best breeds that I have spun.
The colours are varied, going from white to black with fantastic dark greys.
It overdyes well, and has a bounce that is fun to knit with.
It is also very warm when spun finely as it holds so much air in the frizz that coincidentally resembles my hair.

Next time we should go for longer.
I was just limbering up to walk further each day!

More haste ... less speed!

2007-11-11T21:57:00.001Z

Although we have been together for nearly 13 years, I don't think that I have ever knitted a sweater for Ian. I've thought about, spun and sampled for them, but none seem to have come to fruition as yet. The dingy image above shows some recent sampling, which is now slowly being translated into a garment.

One of my favourite stitches is a k2, p2 moving rib. It can be knitted on smallish needles, yet gives a fluid warm fabric. It is great for mixing colours. The stripes are still visible, yet meld just a little. Here is an example using some of my handspun:

The other thing about it, is that it comes up to the same widthwise tension as garter stitch.

So, having acquired some wool, roughly 4 ply thickness that is in three distinct brown shades, I have been designing. Together with some ancient Rowan Donegal tweed colours it is taking shape.

The sample above was just to tell me whether the colours worked. Certainly my photography didn't! We are going away to Cornwall for a few nights, and this will be with me for the long train journey down to Penzance and back. I will be able to measure it against Ian and sweaters he has with him, what more could you ask for?

Of necessity, this trip was planned months ago, long before we had any inkling that the Art Room would be moving into larger premises. I will be missing out on some of the good stuff, and some of the nitty gritty, but hope to come back more able to help out.

This past week has been very busy. The other Mary was out in schools running sessions making pots for Diwali. I was running most of the open studio sessions, and making sure that the pots were dried out, and packed into the kiln for firing. I was glad that I didn't get to cope with the masses of children that came to the free event at Long Eaton town hall yesterday. There had been about 160 children there during the day, from 10.30 - 13.30.

And now it is time for those of a nervous disposition to look away!

On Wednesday, round about 16.40, I was leaving the Art Room (at 16.00 my 4 New Deal workers had left when the session ended). I brought my bike round, and as I was closing the heavy metal gate my left hand got in the way.

Now I know why Ravelry asks for a favourite swearword when filling out the profile.

Mine is roughly this: tsc#*=#, which you could well have heard had you been there.

This is how it looked this afternoon. Most of the swelling has gone down, and the other side isn't quite as black as it had been. This image makes it look much better than it is in reality.

It doesn't throb as much as it did, but is still much warmer than my other digits.

It limits what I can do. The feeling is now rather like a chilblain, but it is getting easier to touch it. For the first few days drying my hand was the worst thing I tried to do.

BUT I can still knit, not for as long as usual though!! I have been typing with only the index finger of the left hand in use. The others, and the thumb make a protective fist. This makes me even slower than usual in everything. I don't think that I'll make that mistake again. It all happened because I didn't want the metal gate to clang as I was tired.

ACJ Midlands ... a quick mention

2007-11-06T17:41:00.000Z

We had a fantastic time in Birmingham on Thursday night.
You can see some of it here.

No time to chat now, as I have to go to a meeting that starts at 18.30.
The next week or so will be amazingly hectic at the Art room, as we work on transferring into the much larger studio.
As there is no heating there at the moment, we will have to run all our sessions in the current premises.

More of that later.

Must dash, as it will take me about 20 minutes to cycle to my meeting.

Parading our jewellery in Birmingham tomorrow evening

2007-10-31T17:53:00.000Z

Tomorrow night we launch the Midlands branch of the Association for Contemporary Jewellery.

21 of us will be parading our wares in the foyer of Symphony Hall before and during a Lesley Garrett concert.
We all have a box to sling around our shoulders.
We can fill this as we want, and will carry them, thus forming a mobile display.

So no knitting tonight, just the final planning for the event which kicks off in a few minutes less than 24 hours!

More from SP11, and a new friend

2007-10-23T18:43:00.000+01:00

My upstream Secret Pal has spoiled me again.
I found this lot waiting for me when I got in from Nottingham this afternoon.
It was getting dark, and even with flash this picture doesn't do my latest goodies justice.

There are two hanks of merino for felting (or spinning) in a fantastic cerise shade; two lots of dark chocolate; PURPLE sock needles and the cutest little sheep keyring.

What a pity that I have too much going on at the moment to try out the merino.
There are too many deadlines looming for the end of the month in various parts of my life.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today I had a great time in Nottingham after the ceramics class.
I didn't need to rush back home to Long Eaton, and despite the half-term crowds was able to do some shopping. Popping in to the John Lewis store in the Victoria Centre for some glass headed pins, I paused in the knitting section. I was hoping to chat with Helen (the Rowan rep) .

While waiting for her to be free I got into conversation with a girl working on some lace knitting.
Jazz turned out to be having problems making sense of some of the instructions at the start of a shawl. I took a look, and talked it through with her. So now she is going to start afresh with different needles as the ones she had with her were pulling on the yarn too much.

I've checked out her blog and Ravelry entries, and hope to get together with her again soon.
That might be a bit hard with all I've got on, but it was so much fun talking knitting.
Eventually, I had a brief chat with Helen before making my way to Primark for tights on the way back to the station.

Last night I went "shopping" for yarn in the loft, and have a project in mind.
First I have to do some sampling, and then settle on a sweater shape.

"Knit with us" and Ally Pally

2007-10-21T11:32:00.000+01:00

Some months ago, Pauline Fitzpatrick suggested that we should hold a National Knitting Week event in the Art Room. After lots of thinking, we decided to call it "Knit with us", and settled on Saturday 20th October as the date. As we are running children's workshops during the half-term break, we put a note on the flyer to help advertise it.
I also e-mailed as many knitters/crocheters as I could think of in the area.
Miss Bell posted to the Notts Ravelry group about it too.

We had a small group on the day. The largest number of knitters at any one time was seven. The nudge of a special event made a couple of my friends finally venture out to find us.

All of this adds to local awareness for the Art Room. During the afternoon, Mary Hawkins and I went to hear Joni Bamford talk to the Trent and Erewash Valley branch of the Embroiderers' Guild about baskets as textiles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And now to Ally Pally!

It was a long day for me at Ally Pally.
I got up at 05.30 so that I could catch the first train down to St Pancras.

When I arrived, I made good connections to Alexandra Palace station and stopped off at a nearby newsagent for a litre of apple juice.
Then I strolled up the hill, and arrived shortly before 09.00.
Yvonne arrived just as I finishing the complicated formalities for being on a stand, but only for one day. They no longer issue exhibitors passes for people such as me.

Yvonne, and I sorted out some of her paperwork, and then round about 09.30, I set off to look around the show.
I passed by the stand round about 10.30, and stopped for a bit to help out, before continuing to look round.
By that time the few volunteers already there were busy teaching youngsters to knit.

By 12.00 the stand was heaving with teenagers, and I barely drew breath before 15.30 came around.
At that time I went for a bit of a wander, and fetched a cup of tea for John Gillow who rarely has a chance to get away from his stand.
Typically, I didn't have time to catch up with his news, or tell him more than the bare bones of news about mutual friends, who like me no longer live in Cambridge.

For me, the best newcomer at the show was Alice of Soctopus.
I came across her when it wasn't too busy, and we had time to chat briefly.
Later in the day I dropped by again to show off the knitted wire piece that I had finished during the show.

My purchases were not many.
Firstly I don't need anything much, and secondly I wanted to spend as much time on the stand as possible.
I bought some wonderful multicoloured carded fleece from Piiku, a Finnish company (colour 102).
For the past two years I have seen their stand at the show, but it was too much of a crush to get to it.
This time there was a little gap, and just enough time before I was due on our stand at 12.00.

I had squeezed in at Habu earlier, and came away with some paper yarn, in charcoal, wine and green.
Paid for on my credit card with US $, this will be cheaper than their sterling prices.

Just before I left, I stopped off at the Natural Dye Studio where I bought a few buttons.

I then found my way back to Jeni at Fyberspates.
I love the lace weight yarns that she has, and bought a skein.

I walked back down to the station and found a friend of mine there, so had a good chat while waiting for the train. Earlier in the day, Heather had passed by the stand, but I was so busy, I barely had time to say hello to her.

So that was Ally Pally for another year.

Last week, this week ... next week, maybe!

2007-10-09T19:49:00.000+01:00

Last week was pretty busy.
Tuesday morning was the first of eight weekly ceramics classes I attend in Nottingham.
Then I rushed home to have my hair cut.

Wednesday was an ordinary Art Room day, except that I was there for all three sessions.
Thursday was an Art Room day also.

On Friday I had a fairly early start, as I went to Harrogate for the stitching show at the Yorkshire Showground. In fact I only caught a train at 07.16, and was at the show by 10.30.

This time the Knit'n'Natter was the location of the Shaun the Sheep Picknit project.
We seemed to get a lot of response to both parts of the stand.
I ended up sitting on the floor when teaching teenagers to knit, as we hadn't enough chairs for the volunteers and learners.
It is a smallish show, and predominantly sewing rather than knitting.

As far as I know, we were the only people promoting hand-knitting there.
There were a few stands in the Hobbycrafts section selling yarn etc.

On Saturday it was back to the Art Room.
We were fairly quiet, with a few people dropping in for a bit, but only one client staying for a full session.

On Sunday, we slept in, gardened etc.
We have picked most of the remaining french beans to keep for seed, or cook up during the winter. A few plants are still producing new beans.

Tomorrow I will finish in the Art Room at 16.00, and then need to be on the train to Birmingham for a meeting of the Midlands group of the ACJ.

On Thursday I will be travelling down to London pretty early to go to Ally Pally.

As usual I am volunteering on the Relax and Knit stand.
I go on the first day, and cover the lunchtime period (12.00 - 14.00 plus some more time which I fit in during the day as necessary).
Although it can be hard to hear them sometimes, I love being there for the school groups.
We get enthusiastic teenagers wanting to learn how to knit or crochet.
It is tiring, but very rewarding.

It seems that the Relax and Knit will be in the Great Hall this year.
At least there will be a chance that we will be away from the noisy fashion show that has been the bane of our lives for so long.
So there was a quick rundown of what I have been up to, and will be up to in the near future.
The rest of the year looks nearly as busy.

In the meantime, our mystery courgette (?) is starting to produce fruit in October, and they are round. I've never come across them like this before. Have any of you?

... just missed ...

2007-09-30T22:11:00.000+01:00

I knew that it was close to the date that I started blogging, and just checked.

In two years I have racked up 111 posts. That is a lot more than I had expected.

Now on to today's business.

We had a day out yesterday, so had to do a lot around the house today.

The rudbeckia is still going strong, and looked glorious in the morning sun.

The flowers are at my head height. They are interfering with the pears, so I don't mind cutting them, and as you saw already we have had some in the house for weeks now.

This year we planted a couple of blueberries. This one yielded 5 dried up little aplogies for fruit, but is making up for it with a beautiful display of colour now. The other one had one fat fruit, that I cut in half for our cereal a week ago.This charming character was lazing near our pond this afternoon, and unusually made no attempt to move when I arrived. If only we could train these cats to use their own gardens rather than ours for a toilet, I'd feel a lot more friendly towards them.

And here are the promised sock pictures. I started out with the remainder of the red yarn for Sylvi's socks, and tried it out with a ball of rainforest Parrot. It was promising, but lacking something.

Then I tried the Parrot out with this yarn. Again it was promising, but also sadly lacking in character.So I went further than usual, and added them together. Here is the result. Juggling three balls is a bit of a pain, but the result is well worth it. With three strands being carried, it may prove to be a bit thicker at the beginning of the round. I'll have to wait until they are finished, worn and washed to see how it all works out. In the meantime, the effect is just right for me.

She gave me Smiles

2007-09-25T15:51:00.000+01:00

Back in the spring at one of the shows in the NEC, WyeSue handed me a paper bag.
In it were a handful of seed potatoes of a variety new to me, Smile.

We squeezed them in with our other potaoes, but all of our crop has been a disappointment this year. Due to our 3-bed crop rotation, they were in the worst bed this time. This is the driest, most shaded one, near the hedge and ash trees.

This weekend Ian dug out all the remaining potato crop, and it came to just one bucketful. I couldn't see any noticeable Smiles in there. So, it looks as though they never produced a crop at all. We will have to try to get a few to try again next year in what will be a far better position.

Knitting wise, I am working on a pair of socks for myself, that I need to photograph.
I am also untangling a skein of laceweight cashmere yarn, that got extremely tangled up. It is on my swift, and I am having to use my magnifying headband to see to sort out some of the tangles.

Of course my brain is racing away with all sorts of projects. I have a couple of small projects good for travelling. One is a small skein of indigo dyed cotton that I was given, which is crocking, and making an interesting record of the way that the yarn passes through my hands. Next time I work with it, I will have to get someone ese to take a photo.

The other is a skein of laceweight mohair from Mobair that I am slowly knitting into a scarf with two of a set of ancient bone dpn's. This helped me to remain sane last Wednesday, when I was a very short distance from the station at Loughborough and saw my train go. I had been rash in thinking that I could catch that one. The result was that I had to wait an hour, and then it took 45 minutes rather than 10 to get to our station. (The last train of the day doesn't go direct, but rather diverts to Nottingham and back again).
So there I was sitting at Loughborough slowly churning out froth as it was raining steadily in what appeared to be a horizontal way. Earlier I had trouble controlling an umbrella, and it wasn't worth the effort to walk back to get to a pub for the wait.

Now to hang out my second load of washing, to join the lot that has had an extra rinsing of rain. It is showery here today, but not as bad as it was early yesterday when one of the mini "tornados" caused havoc less than a mile away.

Then before I get further sidetracked, back to do a bit of spinning. I have a sample of an interesting wool/silk blend that I want to play with.

Sheep and shows

2007-09-14T09:52:00.000+01:00

Last Saturday I was at the rare breeds show at the Melton Mowbray cattle market, representing the KCG (Knitting and Crochet Guild).

I took my camera along, but only took a few pictures of sheep busy breakfasting.
I can't even tell for sure which breeds they are.

I think that these are North Ronaldsway. Seconds after I took this, a bit of friendly rivalry broke out, and horns were pointed in a menacing way.

These are longwool sheep. Just think about spinning their fleece.

And these sheep seemed to be waiting for something to happen. It was only 07.15 in the morning, so it was very quiet in the sheep pens.

The rest of the day was fun. We knitted, and talked knitting and crochet with passers-by. The Leicestershire guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers had a stand next us as usual.

SP11 has got off to a good start. I received this little package on Tuesday. It contained the perfect colour of Zephyr (Plum), and a Chibi. I used this to good effect when sewing up a cardigan that had been knitted by a friend of mine.

Yesterday was the first day of the autumn shows for me. I was at the NEC for the Knitting and Stitching show on the Relax and Knit stand. We had fun, and taught several people how to knit.

Blowing in the breeze

2007-09-10T14:56:00.000+01:00

Last week much was going slightly wrong.

Well, here is a success story:

The yarn that I dyed on Monday, still on the line on Tuesday.

And looking a little better from this side:

I'm not sure about a couple of the skeins, and may resort to ovedyeing. They are meant to be fairly subtle in colouring, so I might just wait until I've wound them off into balls.

This was hard to show off, but we have some very tall rudbeckia this year. It was planted a couple of years ago, and vanished. This year it was suddenly all over the place, and is flowering at nearly 2 m.

As it is pushing up into our overladen pear tree, I cut a stem off and brought it in to the front room. Full marks if you can make it out against the cotinus outside.

I did eventually remember to photograph a couple of our floor surfaces for one of my sisters.

So, although you may have seen them before, here is the kitchen/back lobby flooring: a composite tile with coloured glass inclusions.

And this is the bamboo that covers much of the remainder of the ground floor. This is probably quite familiar, as it is the background of many pictures in earlier posts. This is the most walked on segment, just inside the front room. It was installed about 6 years ago, and still looks stunning.

... slipping

2007-09-02T18:46:00.000+01:00

This seems to be the theme of most of my posts. Time is slipping away, and all those thoughts that I have when sitting at traffic lights when cycling in to town never seem to get onto the page.

So, as a dreary type of drizzle is making a mess of my line full of laundry here are a few thoughts.
Some aren't quite as complimentary as I'd like.
Those are the ones about why the sock yarn I dyed is now getting gradually wetter, when I want to check out the final colours.

And here is one I prepared earlier, an account of last weekend:

We had a great time last weekend.
On Saturday we walked around Long Eaton, running a few errands.
We had lunch at the cafe in West Park. This only opened about a month ago, despite the building having been finished a couple of years or so ago.
Then we hid from the sun for the afternoon, and did a bit in the garden in the evening.

On Sunday we did a bit more in the garden, then drove to Stapleford near Melton Mowbray to see the model railway.

This was great fun, and on the way back we visited a few of the churches nearby, starting with the Stapleford estate church.
We walked through the gardens to get there.

We went on to visit the churches at Garthorpe and Saxby:
The church at Saxby is in the process of being sold at the moment, and we couldn't get in.

On the way back we stopped off in Sawley for the flower festival in the church.
There was also a good display about flooding in 1947.
Then we had a quick visit to the beer festival at the Harrington Arms.
We could have walked there, but we were passing in the car, and that limited the amount of beers we tried.

On the Bank Holiday Monday, we had another outing.
We took the train to Willington, and then walked along the Trent and Mersey canal towpath to Burton-on-Trent, a distance of about 5 miles.
On the way we stopped off to visit Claymills pumping station, which was in steam.

On Tuesday I attempted to do all the things I had been thinking of doing on the other three days before we decided on having so many outings.
So the garden was full of laundry.
The house was full of chaos as I sorted out some of the many piles of paper etc.

This is likely to be the scene again tomorrow!
And I must take a photo or two of the latest socks.

Jenn's SP11 contest answers

2007-08-22T09:31:00.000+01:00

To get her group started, Jenn has asked us for answers to the following questions.

1. What is the one knitting accessory you could not live without?

A pocket calculator for working out quantities of yarn needed/stitches from gauge etc.
It takes so much longer just using pencil and paper.

2. If you're heading on vacation, do you take knitting with you? Ifso, how much and what type of project?

I most certainly do, but it is mainly socks.
I travel light, and aim to take only carry-on baggage when flying.
On occasion I have put my sock needles into my pencil case to disguise them.
Last year at a small French airport there was a long discussion about my then current pair of socks as they were still on the wooden needles, and showed up on x-ray.
I also aim to bring home at least one ball of sock yarn as there isn't usually room for more.

3. Where have you travelled to that you'd consider your favourite spot?

The best places I have travelled to were the Yemen (1992), and South Korea (1999).
A night camping on the beach east of Aden was magical. We arrived after dark and had to pitch our tents by moonlight. There were so many stars in the sky (I didn't bother to sleep in the tent), and we saw dolphins frolicking in the sea in the morning.

4. What is your favourite knitting book at the moment? Do you own it?

Montse Stanley's "Handknitter's Handbook", which I have had since it was published.
I used to live in Cambridge and knew Montse.
Sometimes I had the pleasure of an afternoon at her house talking about knitting and looking at her some of her vast collection.

5. Do you listen to podcasts? Which is your favourite(s)?

I haven't done so yet.
I listen to the radio when on the computer, as it helps to mask my tinnitus.

SP11 questionnaire

2007-08-21T19:35:00.000+01:00

1. What is/are your favourite yarn/s to knit with? What fibres do you absolutely *not* like?

I love fine yarns spun from wool, linen, silk, hemp, you name it, as long as it is natural.
I have no use for eyelash type novelty yarns or acrylics.
I do like my sock yarn to be 4 ply, and to have up to 25 % polyamide or the suchlike to strengthen it.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?

Various items, including a beautiful needle roll given to me in the most recent round of secret pal.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?

I could knit before I started school, and have continued to do so.
In some areas I am advanced, in others merely a beginner.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?

Yes, but not accessible.

5. What's your favourite scent?

Rosemary or ginger or other natural single fragrances like seaweed for soap.
I don't use bath oils etc, or candles

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favourite candy?

I only like chocolate with 70% + cocoa content.

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?

I make ceramics from porcelain, anything from a small bead upwards in size.
I spin, and particularly like blends of wool with other fibres such as silk.
I sew occasionally, but frequently recycle clothing from charity shops for that.

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)

My taste is all encompassing, it depends what is on the radio at the time.
Otherwise, how about Jan Garbarek, Arvo Part?

9. What's your favourite colour(so)? Any colours you just can't stand?

I love purple, magenta and other jewel colours, and small amounts of the complimentary colours like acid yellow/greens.
Pastels are only good for overdyeing.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?

We are three adults here now, all the goldfish died long ago!

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Scarves and gloves; and a hat when it gets really cold (but I have a handspun one anyway).
Never wore ponchos, and can't imagine taking to them now.

12. What is/are your favourite item/s to knit?

Anything that will satisfy my curiosity, which means lots of socks ( I work in a place with a concrete floor, and heating from above).
Otherwise small creations from fine wire, possibly with beads or sequins too.

13. What are you knitting right now?

Socks, and sampling for designing a cardigan.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
I love to, and give them too.

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminium, plastic?

Sets of 5 sock needles, especially ina hard wood like ebony.
Circulars for the rest.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?

2 of each, and 3 niddy-noddies!

17. How old is your oldest UFO?

I'm not sure, sometime, I'll have to root around and find a Shetland type sweater that I started long ago.

18. What is your favourite holiday?

Any time away from work, appointments etc.

19. Is there anything that you collect?

Yarn, fibre, fabric, seed beads, sequins - should I go on?

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?

Jane Sowerby's "Victorian lace today", especially after hearing her talk at the Knitting and Crochet Guild AGM.
I'd like to try out Fleece Artist Sea Wool, as it sounds interesting.
I like the idea of casein needles, a 2.5 mm set of dpn's would be just the job.
I subscribe to Yarn Forward, and Spin-Off.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?

I'm much more likely to work them out for myself!

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?

Yes, I knit socks all the time as they are so portable, and invariably get people talking to me.
Continental 39

23. When is your birthday?

June 12th

24. Are you on Ravelry? If so, what's your ID?

Waiting for my invitation, 2388 people to go first.
Mind you there are 15, 242 behind me in the queue.
This will give me plenty of time to work out an ID!

Grandmother's footsteps - or how it all creeps up on me!

2007-08-20T19:24:00.000+01:00

Do you remember that playground game?

We went away for a week, to the AIA (Association for Industrial Archaeology) annual conference in Preston, and now I am catching up. More about that later, not to mention posting my replies to the SP11 questionnaire.

Everything in the garden romped away while my back was turned.
Yesterday between showers I tackled some of the foliage trying to make it across the pavement to the kerb.
We have a beautiful Cotinus coggygrria that puts on a lot of growth.
In the past 5 weeks it has grown over a metre in every direction.
This is how it looks from the garden side, leggy and a glorious colour:

We also have an ivy twining around the gatepost.
Two or three times a year I trim it back, but leave enough for the car to bounce off if necessary when backing on to the drive. I discovered that it is much easier to trim when it is dripping wet.
Between these two is a berberis that also sticks out, ready to poke out the eyes of passers-by.
This is how it all looks after my ministrations:

All this was after hanging out the first load of laundry.
As I went in to fetch the props for the lines, the heavens opened and it all ended up wetter than when hung out.
Today I tackled the remaining laundry, and it is all hanging outside, drying slowly.

The back garden revealed all sorts of goodies too.

A while ago, near the back door we cleared some pink geraniums away and scattered some seeds. And for a while it looked as though we might have some young hollyhocks although neither Ian nor I had knowingly sown any. Today I cleared away more creeping lengths of the geranium, and found this:

Not a hollyhock at all, but a courgette or marrow. I would have preferred hollyhocks! It takes a lot of effort to eat courgettes before they get too big. At least we won't have far to go to pick them.

Most of the other vegetables are down at the bottom of the garden. Opposite these is our plum tree. Here it is with a good crop of ripening fruit:

I've already eaten about 6 of these today.

A little closer to the house is our pear tree. When we saw the house in 1995, the previous owner proudly pointed out that it had 2 pears on it. Once we bought the house, we had his row of conifers (the dreaded leylandii) removed from alongside the pear. Now we have alternate years of enough and then glut. As you may be able to make out this is a glut year.

The big problem with the pears is that they all seem to ripen together. And even worse, they don't keep well, and they ripen from the inside out. So you can get some idea of our diet at the moment. And I never even mentioned the beans, potatoes, salad stuff and tomatos!

Plenty to share with the slugs and snails this year!

Lavender laundry .. and other missed opportunities

2007-08-10T11:32:00.000+01:00

No pictures, as it is a shameful thing to do!
I took a short cut, and washed some purple things in with whites.

I thought that the purples and one black item were colourfast, and only found out later that they weren't.

That came at the end of a silly day, when I had gone into Derby to run a few errands.
I had plenty of time to go to a fantastic needlework shop to browse.

The previous time I had been in Derby was three weeks earlier to have my eyes tested.
During the test they put drops in my eyes, which left me extremely sensitive to light, and unable to focus properly until the evening.
I even had to find and buy a pair of sunglasses in order to walk back to the station to get home.

So here I was this week all prepared to explore Textile Art Studio in depth, but when I got there I found that it had shut down, the previous week.

Living halfway between Derby and Nottingham means that I often have to choose where to shop for items unvailable here in Long Eaton.
During university term times, I go to Nottingham on a weekly basis.
As a consequence I had been completely unaware that they had an 8 week closing down sale.

It is such a pity when specialist shops close down.
I suppose that I should be thankful that I did visit it, if irregularly, while it was trading.

Travelling, gardening and knitting too!

2007-07-31T19:22:00.000+01:00

I seem to have been on the go for a long time.

During the past month or so we have been travelling a certain amount.

First Ian and I snuck in a weekend in the Czech Republic at the end of June, visiting my friend Sylvi.

Ian had to be in Prague for a meeting on the Tuesday, and so we took off on the Friday, and visited Sylvi who lives an hour and a half's drive north of the airport.

We had a good time with her, and saw some sun.

Meanwhile it was raining here!

Then a couple of weeks later we had a quick visit to Hertfordshire for a family party.

The next day we flew from London City airport to Stuttgart to visit Carola.

We managed a quick side trip during the week to see another friend of mine, Tom, who lives very near Basel.

In the meantime it rained here again, and that is why our path looked like this at the weekend:

After dodging about a bit with my secateurs, trying to avoid the ants, it looked like this:

I meant to take a third picture later on, but it was too dark by the time I remembered. It all looks a lot better after being swept.

In order to cope with all the geranium foliage I had to turn the compost heap, so we are all set up to be able to tidy the garden sometime soon.

Sitting out in the garden for breakfast on Sunday (before rediscovering the path) the sun was shining through these honesty seeds:

All of which brings me to the latest socks. This time they are for Sylvi. She asked for reds/rusts, and this is my mix of yarns:

The dull blue one is a pale patterned yarn that I overdyed with a shocking pink to dull it down.

Together it all comes out like this:

The next socks are meant to be for Carola. I haven't decided on a colour scheme yet.

Cloudbursts ... or steady rain?

2007-07-06T10:32:00.000+01:00

This is how our weather seems to have been for a while now.

It is sometimes possible with cloudbursts to arrange life so that you miss cycling through them.

Steady rain is another matter though!

So the garden is neglected and lush, but that doesn't mean that lots of knitting or spinning has been done.

I have had to do washing without recourse to a washing line for the drying.

So for the past few days we have had t-shirts on hangers above nearly every door downstairs.

The wettest items have gone straight to the airing cupboard.

BUT today, I have some things out on the line.

Whether they will get wetted again is another matter.

So, no recent photography in the garden, but just for fun here are a few perfect images from earlier on.

An orange poppy without its petals.

A primula.

A sliced pear (not from our garden)

A summer/autumn flowering bulb (slightly dried out).

I had put aside some bulbs to go in pots for the front door, and they got mixed up. As a result this was left unplanted for rather too long.

When I went to plant it, I couldn't remember what it was, but loved the veining so much that I had to take a photo.

Lots of design inspiration here, for spinning/knitting, ceramics, drawing or even enamelling.

More missed events

2007-07-02T19:34:00.000+01:00

Wendy recently held a raffle in aid of Breakthrough, and I was one of the lucky winners.

Here you see a skein of Fleece Artist merino in the "parrot" colourway.

Although I received it last week, I had no time to take a photo until today.

This has been sitting alongside my bed, tempting me to ball it up, and try it out.

After a couple of days with long train jorneys my current socks are nearly done, so maybe this will be next.

Saturday saw me off to Cambridge, back to visit the Cambs. guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers.

The June meeting was a combination of a bring and buy sale and a talk by Anna Crutchley about Marianne Straub.

Marianne was a member of the guild, and I enjoyed a few brief visits to her house while delivering the guild newsletter.

Then yesterday I was off travelling again, this time to London for Nickerjac's baby shower.

Lixie hosted this gathering in south London (unknown territory to me as a north Londoner!)

Foolishly I forgot to carry a camera with me, so you will have to rely on the pics taken by Nic and Lixie.

Not an inch of yarn to be seen !!!!

2007-06-17T18:38:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we had rain, again.
The past few days we have had rain, sometimes too much too fast, but good for the garden.
There has been localised flooding, and one local supermarket was closed because of flooding.

It was the day of the Long Eaton Carnival, and the other Mary was there with helpers to promote the Art Room.
I stayed at the Art Room in case anyone was eager enough to visit us straight away.
(We did have 5 visitors, but not as a result of receiving one of our new flyers)

The rain fell, but not during my lunch break, 12.30 - 13.00.
Just as I locked up at 16.00, the heavens opened, and I waited a while before testing my new summer jacket. It was fun cycling through puddles a few centimetres deep, but not so good when I had to walk across sodden playing fields to get to the marquee to see our stand.

Heading for home I got even muddier, walking acros slimy mud pushing my bike.
That was one occasion when walking made more sense.

And when I got home all this lot was waiting for me:

No yarn, but what treasures!
My upstream pal had been reading my blog well and with a little help from Nickerjac all the gifts I have received have been spot on.

More on this later when I have had a chance to play with my goodies!

Recently received ...

2007-06-15T23:00:00.000+01:00

... but never mentioned.

My SP9 upstream pal (to be revealed later) had problems with a parcel sent to me. No-one knows what happened to the original parcel, but I recently received a replacement:

Here are the goodies.

Then a day or so later, this lot turned up, my Fiber Swap goodies:

Hiding in the middle is a wrap per inch gauge (YellowHeart), then working clockwise some dyed mohair that Lucy found at a local fibre fest.

Again local to my pal is the beautiful brown alpaca. To satisfy my desire to try out some exotic fibres, she sent an exotic sampler pack, that has buffalo, baby llama, casmere, baby camel, guanaco, yak and baby suri alpaca.

There is just enough of each to give a feeling for the way the fibres handle. I haven't yet had time to try any of them out.

To top it off there is a hank of hand painted BFL, colourway Rocky Mountain High.

This is definitely in my favourite range of colours. See this image (taken last week) of a few flowers from the geranium phaeum that self seeds down one side of our garden. I had accidentally pulled this off when weeding, and didn't want to miss out on the sumptuous colour:

Lately ... in the Netherlands

2007-06-10T15:50:00.000+01:00

I've been back for a week, and haven't had time to report!
We started out by each travelling separately to Rotterdam.
Ian got there on the Thursday night after a couple of days on business in Brussels.

I took the Eurostar on the Saturday, and after arriving in Brussels took the next train to Antwerp. Ian was there to meet me, and thanks to text messages we managed to locate one another. The station has just been redeveloped, and the arrivals information is not displayed anywhere prominent.
We walked down the road, and had supper before heading on to Rotterdam.

The next day we took the train up to Groningen in the NE of the Netherlands to meet my friend Gerben, and his girlfriend, Mijke.

We had a great day with them, and even managed to see some Open Studios, fortuitously open that day.
Amongst these was the silversmith, Willem Tredgett.

A quiet day in Rotterdam lead up to the opening of the railway signalling conference. We managed to wangle a visit to Folly DOCK Heijplaat, which should have been closed as it was a Monday. This international sculpture exhibition is in a now less used area of Rotterdam's docklands. Heijplaat is a model village, now in decline.

It is hoped that Folly DOCK will bring more people to visit the area. This exhibit is by a Scot.

The first day of the guests programme (Tuesday) included a visit to Amsterdam. I left by train before the rest of the party, so that I could do a few things on my own. I had been told by a lady on the train going to Groningen that I should visit a wool shop in the city centre, de Afstap. She said that they have lovely yarn. It was good, a Rowan stockist, and easy to find. While waiting for it to open I found a good architectural bookshop Arhitectura & Natura nearby.

Later, after a little shopping, I met up with my downstream SP10 pal, Clasca. I was able to take her some heavier goods than I would have posted. We met in the cafe where the Amsterdam SnB group meet, Cafe de Jaren.

Most of the time I was struggling to speak, but suddenly, shortly before we parted my voice came back. It was a pity that we had so little time together.

I rejoined the group, and after lunch at the Star Ferry we went to visit Gassan Diamonds.

Here we were able to handle rings and other diamond jewellery, some pieces costing up to €9000.00. As I carry a x10 magnifying lens with me, I had a great time looking at the details of the settings.

Back in Rotterdam the next morning I saw this unusual use of public transport to move bottles of water and soft drinks. The train was moving, and I was too hasty to wait for my flash to wake up.

On the Thursday I missed out on the first part of the guests programme, as I got stuck on the 6th floor of our hotel. With the lift not responding, and no normal staircase, it took me too long to work out how to use the fire escape stairwell to get down. I missed the boat!

So I skipped the visit to Kinderdijk. I had cycled there from Rotterdam with friends nearly 20 years ago. No doubt the windmills hadn't changed much in the interim.

I took a train to Gouda, and walked around a bit before catching the bus to Schoonhoven to meet the boat party. Schoonhoven is well known as a silversmithing centre in the Netherlands. Arriving an hour before the boat,

I had already worked out the galleries I wished to visit. One was in this watertower:

It also houses workshops for 4 silversmiths. It was an inspiring place to visit.

Next I went to Studio 925 which Willem Tredgett had recommended. Unfortunately the exhibion of jugs he had taken part in, had finished at the beginning of the week. I did see a few that had been sold, and were waiting to be picked up.

We then visited the silversmithing and clock museum, where Henk de Leeuw den Bouter gave a demonstration of silversmithing techniques.

Enough of our trip now, as the sun has come out, I think I have a voice, and I need to do more in the garden!

Too much time spent in changing rooms ...

2007-05-22T18:39:00.000+01:00

... seems to have netted great results.

The fashions around in England at the moment seem to suit me well.

I always dread looking for anything other than t-shirts.

Having discovered that Long Tall Sally has nicely fitting t-shirts that are long enough for me, I head there first.

This time round H&M also have t-shirts to fit me.

Every Tuesday for the past month I have been shopping for clothes.

About the only thing I haven't bought is shoes.

And when you see these socks on the feet, you will see that I'd rather show them off. I do go around in socks at home though.

I haven't posted much recently, as somehow not having a speaking voice makes me not want to say anything much to anyone.

So I have been out in the garden busily preparing to plant a few things that I bought, and some seedlings that I have been raising in the greenhouse.

As a result, I have been serenaded for hours on end by a bird sitting high up in the cedar towards the bttom of the garden. I am no expert at birdsong, and as it is too high to see, can only suggest that it is a blackbird.

While listening to this, I have been clearing hardy geraniums from an area near the house. It is fairly shady, and as I work I keep on disturbing frogs, and newts.

The second newt I saw was only about 3 cm long (1 1/4"). It would have been hard to miss.

One of the frogs stayed near me for about half an hour. During that time it caught and ate three items, insects I presume. Shortly after munching, one or other of the front feet was raised, and the mouth was wiped - how polite. It even put its tongue out and licked a small piece of coal that was in the soil!

Real rain ... and the latest socks

2007-05-14T21:03:00.000+01:00

We had next to no rain for the whole of April .

Coupled with unseasonably warm weather, everything in the garden is now about three weeks ahead of normal.

Well, the past couple of days have made a difference.

Yesterday, Sunday, it rained pretty much solidly all day.

When we had a bit of rain last week, we took advantage of it, and topped up our garden pond by siphoning off water from our rainwater tanks. The pond looked much better, the frogs and newts had more wet space, and we had half empty tanks.

Yesterday's rain has filled them again, and then they overflowed like mad.

The ground had been made receptive by the rain last week, and the temperatures are much more normal for this time of year. Today it ranged from 4 C to 11 C (40 F to 52F), and felt so much fresher.

Which brings me round to the subject of sock knitting.

When we had the warm weather, I found that I had to think about where I would be during the day, and dress my feet accordingly. The concrete floor in the Art Room makes it cool most of the year. Wearing handknit wool socks seems to work well when I am there.

These latest socks have been a long time in gestation.

I bought the Regia Stretch colour 81(Clown) when I first visited Blackberry Yarns in Mountsorrel. That was not long after it opened, roughly a couple of years ago.

Ian and I made a trip by train to the nearest station, in Sileby, and then walked across the fields, pausing to look at Sileby Mill on the River Soar on the way.

Recently I came across some Skacel Trampoline Stretch colour 239.

I had never heard of it, which, given the multiplicity of available sock yarns, is not too surprising. This has the same fibre compostion: 70% wool/23% nylon/7% polyester (elite).

Alongside one another they don't look too promising:

Both are rather bright, and I don't warm to knitting either of them on their own. Together though, I get the perfect "Liquorice Allsorts" effect:

Now I just want the weather/ArtRoom to stay cool enough for me to get to the end of the boring, slow growing, 3 x 3 rib tops so that I can wear them.

Dress code

2007-05-13T12:29:00.000+01:00

These words are scaring me right now.
In a couple of weeks time I will be taking part in the guest programme of a conference.

Having just received the detailed programme, I saw the heading Dress Code.

I quote: "For the events on the Monday and Friday evenings, gentlemen are requested to wear suits or blazers and ties. Definitely no jeans. A suit, dress or cocktail wear would be appropriate for ladies.
For technical visits and the guest programme, smart casual wear is acceptable, but no shorts or jeans please."

Anyone who knows me will know that since I left my job n Cambridge I live in jeans.
I have smart and less smart jeans for different occasions, but smart casual wear (whatever that is) does not figure in my wardrobe.

A couple of weeks ago I did some shopping, and got some new t-shirts for this event, now it looks as though I'll be faced with more changing rooms, if I can find the time.

So please pray that I can find a couple of pairs of linen or linen mix trousers in the shortest amount of time.

The best thing that happened so far today ....

2007-05-09T22:26:00.000+01:00

.... was getting my latest SP10 parcel from the post office.

What wasn't so perfect was finding that I had no voice when I went to ask for it. (I've had a cold for the past week, that has just got round to day long voice loss.)
That was the first time I had needed to talk today, popping in to the sorting office on the way in to the Art Room.

The contents are perfect!!!

First the overview: yarn, yarn and a card with a coastal scene from Scotland.

Looking a bit closer you can find that I was terribly impatient, and wound the smaller skein up into a ball while at the Art Room.

I even redistributed the stitches of my current sock which was in my bag, so that I could rob a couple of the needles. Using this will take a little thinking. There is just over 100 gm, so it won't go far unless stretched with another yarn. It looks really good in this simple slipped stitch pattern, which also makes a lovely firmish fabric.

Then here is a close-up of the lovely skein of laceweight silk:Winding that is definitely a job for a swift rather than the back of a chair!

Thank you so much Secret Pal. You really got it right.

Fiber Swap questionnaire

2007-05-07T20:02:00.000+01:00

What do you use your fibre for? I use fibres predominantly for spinning, but sometimes for wet felting or needlefelting (see some of the jewellery on my blog for instances of this).

What kind of spinning do you do or what do you spin for? I spin to knit (or sometimes crochet)
If you knit, weave, spin, crochet, needle felt, or do other fibery pursuits, how long have you been doing those things? In the early 80’s I won a fleece, and thus had to learn to spin. It was a Welsh Black Mountain, a lovely colour to start with. A year or so later I bought myself an Ashford double drive wheel. Since then I have spun when I feel like it.

What level of expertise are you at? I’d say I am an intermediate spinner. I don’t keep accurate records, but sample a lot before embarking on a project. I often dye fibres before spinning them. Just occasionally I dye my spun yarn.

What fibres have you worked with? I have spun various breeds of sheep (Gotland is a favourite), alpaca, silk, cotton and other plant fibres.

Which fibres, fibre blends, and types of fibres do you prefer? I like to spin fine yarn, and often blend silk in with fleece. That way I can get colour and/or shine without losing the elasticity that the wool imparts.

Are you interested in working with raw fleece? If so, what type? Anything that will result in a fine yarn, and that is naturally white or grey to black. I don’t like buff or browns.

What fibery tools do you currently have (e.g., spinning wheels, drop spindles, combs, cards, etc.)? As I mentioned before, I have an Ashford double drive wheel. I also have a Bosworth spindle, hand cards, swift, and a couple of niddy noddies.

Do you crave any tools, books, or videos? Amy R. Singer’s recent book “No sheep for you” sounds interesting. I haven’t yet seen a copy, so am not sure whether I would buy it. I already have an extensive library of textile books, built up over the past 30 years or so. I don’t have an inch/centimetre gauge, usually using a ruler when I want to check yarn dimensions.

What fibres are you absolutely dying to get your hands on? Having read of qiviut and buffalo fibres, I’d like to try them, just a handful or so. I’d also like to try out milk protein fibres, again in small quantities. Surprisingly, I haven’t yet tried Blue-faced Leicester.

Which fibres do you absolutely not want to work with? Anything artificial, course in texture and/or buff in colour.

Do you prefer natural colour fibres or pre-dyed fibres? I like both. I like merino/silk, merino/flax, and merino/cotton mixes.

What are your dye and colour preferences? My favourite colour is purple, and I like vibrant bright jewel colours, using either synthetic or natural dyes. Otherwise indigo is a favourite. I don’t like pale pastel colours, but do like the acid greens/yellows/oranges that are the opposite of my favourite colours.

Any allergies or things your pal should be aware of? I dislike smoke and animals anywhere near me or any of my things. I refused to spin some dog hair a few years ago for that reason.

Losing centimetres (inches even!) in the garden

2007-05-06T18:24:00.000+01:00

No, not me, not yet!

After having thought about it for a long time, we finally sorted out the fencing on the west side of our back garden.

When we moved here in December '95, we inherited a fence that we knew would need replacing sometime. Each winter we looked at it, and said "next year".

Well, this time round we had to do something, as our neighbours have a young dog who was gradually exploiting all the weak spots to look into our garden and bark at us (or passing cats).

Steve, Mr Smartfence came on Wednesday, and started the transformation. By Thursday evening it was done.

So here are more spot the difference pictures:

Here we have the quiet green decaying fence on the other side of the original 1920's (?) concrete posts.

And here it is with its posts hidden, and a new, (currently) two-tone brown fence.

This was a brilliant solution. Steve utilised the old concrete posts that were solidly in the ground.

In places he had to drill new holes through them to attach the wooden uprights before constructing a new fence.

Here it is undressed, on Wednesday evening.

The two-tone colour comes about because he had to go to more than supplier to get the right length of palings.

It seems that recently there has been a shortage of fence palings here in Britain, so we took what we could.

It will weather, and then we will paint it green to match all other fences on our property.

In the meantime I have other concerns. This bank holiday weekend, unusually, I am at home on my own.

Great, a chance to sort out SP10 parcels, and engage in the Fiber Swap run by Shelby.

But I have a cold, and woken by a sneezing fit at 02.30, I detected the sound of the central heating boiler (I can hear such sounds without my hearing aids).

After three exploratory trips downstairs, I was unable to sort it out, and dropped off to sleep around 03.30.

Today I have tried all sorts, and am not sure whether I have managed to tame it.

The boiler is spontaneously igniting, whether the timer is set to be on or not.

We never have the heating on at night, so it is even more disturbing.

Going back to SP10 and stashes, I had been looking for blogs of others in Shelby's group, and came across Baseball Knitter's post of April 28th on the way. Now that would have been the perfect parcel for me too.

35/30 years ago ...

2007-05-01T22:57:00.000+01:00

35 years ago on April 30th, 1972 I worked what I hope will have been my last day as a waitress.
I had spent a year in Switzerland at a couple of hotels working in the dining room each time.

First I was in Ennetbaden at the Hotel Hirschen, then went on to do a winter season at the Hotel Hohe Promenade in Arosa.
Hotel Hirschen was a Bad-Hotel, meaning that there were thermal springs and the hotel offered treatments as did most other hotels in the town, which is west of Zurich.

By contrast the Hotel Hohe Promenade is in Arosa, a ski resort, not far from the border with Lichtenstein and Austria.
Here I managed to go skiing only once.
Some days I did get to skate during my two hour afternoon break.
More often though I was laundering my uniform and and starching my aprons.

I worked until 20.00 on 30th April, and left the following day, travelling down to visit friends near Luzern.
That day I seemed to see several seasons, as I went from winter right through to late spring as I descended from the mountains.

Five years later, April 30th 1977 was the last day I worked in Canada, as I worked out my notice as a senior library assistant at Brock University in St.Catharines, Ontario.
Towards the end of May I travelled home to England on a Russian ship out of Montreal.

So at this time of year I always think of the good friends I made during my 5 years in Canada.
I am still in touch with many of them, and am very thankful for the wonders of e-mail.
My erratic blogging helps to keep some of them at least, up to date with some aspects of my life.

Yes this is the time of year for moving on, sometimes ...

Spot the difference ....

2007-04-27T21:14:00.000+01:00

In this latest round of Secret Pal, Shelby has asked us to show our stashes to the world.

Now this takes me back to October 2005, when stashes were being shown before, and here comes the contest.

Spot the difference!

This is what I first see when I sit up in the morning.

Above you see the view I had in October 2005, below is what I saw this morning.

Neither of the images is greatly in focus, but they give the gist.

Now don't get the idea that this is all of my yarn, this is just the acceptable face of it.

I already had a tendency to hoard all sorts of odd balls of yarn, but felt quite justified when Kaffe Fassett gave a talk in Cambridge sometime back in the '80s (I think), and suggested that we should have a palette of colour to work with.

These two images are much the same. Occasionally, I go looking for something, and it all gets changed around.

Sometimes I use some, and then fill up the gaps.

Either way, it is a treat to see this from bed.

The shelving came from a shop in Cambridge, Anne Rowena, some years ago.

Cheekily, I had once told the the staff there that if they ever got rid of their pigeonholes I'd be interested in having them.

Naturally, our loft is also well insulated with yarn!

Departing ... and ... returning

2007-04-23T23:23:00.000+01:00

Departing ...

The Brooklands School, has been sold and is being demolished.

As far as I have heard no planning application has yet been lodged with the council, so soon there will be an empty site. It will make my journey into the town centre much less interesting.

Ever since I was at art college in 1995 and started sketching I have meant to spend a little time standing in the street to sketch the rooftop decorations on Brooklands School.

Well, I haven't done so, and may not be able to do so, as this photo was taken at 09.45 today.

They may not still be there tomorrow.

Fortunately, I was able to stop on the way to my lip-reading class, park my bicycle and whip out a camera. It was too damp for sketching. See what happens when you put things off!

The skies were grey and threatening rain, but made a good backdrop.

The roofline was quite dramatic, with two different decorations.

This slender decoration ran across the Tamworth Road end, while this one was set back, part way through the building.

Until Friday there was also a small metal turret vent placed on the three raised parts to the left of the above picture.

Returning ...We had a little rain today. Barely enough to wet the ground, but the first for weeks.

With it came the return of the snails and slugs.

These two pretty little things were up near the house, well away from our baby vegetables.

But I did have to remove a couple from the inside of the greenhouse.
Time to get vigilant!

A great start to SP10 ...

2007-04-13T00:05:00.000+01:00

I may have fallen foul of the rules here, as I forgot to photograph and blog about this.

This is the inspiring start to SP10 (received last week):

Chocolate that has such a high cocoa content that no-one else I know will want to compete in eating it.

I can't eat much at a time, so will get a lot of pleasure from it.

Also a lovely tower containing beads, with some great colours, in a size that could be used for so many different things.

I am enjoying this exchange so far!

Accepted ... once more

2007-04-09T14:07:00.000+01:00

It nearly didn't happen!

I only saw that there was a Cedric Ford exhibition again this year on the first day for submission of items.

With a bit of effort, I got an entry together, and delivered the next day.

Late last week I heard that it has been accepted.

This time I have much a larger porcelain element with a hand-felted (wet felted) centre, suspended on a stainless steel pin.

This is the best image I have of it, during its construction.

This is the first piece where I marry wet-felting and porcelain in jewellery.

The fibres used are predominantly two shades of scarlet cut with a razor to show off a vivid velvety surface deep inside the "bone".

Rushing around

2007-04-03T19:26:00.000+01:00

Last week, as you know was a bit hectic.
On Tuesday I went over to Newark to Crafty Notions for some wool fibres for spinning, for the Art Room.
Talking to Sarah shortly after I arrived, we found out various people we both know.

As a result, on Thursday when I went to the stitching show at the NEC, I took a small parcel to Yvonne.
She was surprised to receive some boucle yarn that was barely dry from the dyepot.

In turn Sue brought me a lovely surprise, a paper bag containing some "Smile" seed potatoes.
It was good to see the other Sue too.

I finally bought one of Ziggy's lucets. I see him regularly at the shows.
This time he was within sight of our stand.
Haven't had time to try it out yet though.

Leaving later than usual worked out well.
The show closed to the public at 17.30, and we stood around relaxing for a bit before dispersing.
My train connections were easy.
But best of all, on the train from Birmingham to Derby the men next to me opened a bottle of red wine, and offered me some!
I've never had that happen before.

Thursday was over in a rush, and I was back to the Art Room on Friday and Saturday to prepare for our first anniversary opening on Sunday.

Sunday was a very busy day. It went by in blur

Some recent knitting

2007-03-22T22:14:00.000Z

As part of SP10, our hostess has asked us to post something about what we are working on.

That is easy.

I have been knitting three different things today.

The first was a hotchpotch of my knitting and some from two other people.

Last Thursday I ran a workshop on knitting with wire (and beads) for the Derby branch of the Knitting and Crochet Guild.

Clearing up at the end, I found one piece of deep purple wire knitted and cast off, and a piece of deep pink wire still on the needles.

Getting up at 05.25 this morning, I grabbed these, 4 dpns and another reel of wire.

On the 06.06 train to London I joined these bits of wire together, and knitted a bit more before casting off. Having done that I reverted to knitting my latest pair of socks.

These are being made from some leftovers, half Opal Hundertwasser, and half Fybrespates.

These are my favourite socks at the moment, and are nearing the point when I have to try them on in order to gauge when I should turn the heel. Not easy to do on the train though!

They are being knitted toe up with a simple short row heel, as I usually do now.

Most of the leg part will be 3x3 ribbing.

I'll change to that when I think that I want a change of action.

Most of my socks are fairly similar in construction.

I just have fun in deciding which yarns to mix.

Having arrived at Olympia this morning for the Stitching show, once Yvonne was there and the stand set up I went to browse, and found some fantastic sequins. Back at "Relax and Knit" I threaded some onto the trailing end of the purple part of the knitted wire, and sewed them on.

I wore the piece all day, and then gave it away.

So no photos, but it looked so good against Chris's jacket that I just had to give it to her.

She always teases me that I never wear the same piece of knitted wire when she sees me.

The clothes might be the same or certainly similar each time though!

Later I threaded more sequins on to the turquoise wire, and cast on a few stitches.

I asked someone to choose a number between 1 and 9.

She chose 6, so that was the frequency with which I placed the sequins.

Here is the piece, looking way too flat for my liking.

I am not sure how it will develop.

I nearly always design on the needles when working with wire.

Watch this space!

I may wear this at the show at the NEC next week.

Of course now I am at home, I have my full range of 0.02 mm wire to choose from.

That could make a major difference.

Who this will be for I don't know.

I will probably wear it initially.

It may then go on display in the Art Room.

I may sell it (if I am lucky), or possibly give it away!

Of one thing I am certain, I will not duplicate it!

The latest socks on my ebony needles are always my favourites, but here are the ones I finished earlier this week.

I grabbed them this morning, and wore them despite not having sewn the ends in yet.

And here are the two colours of Lorna's laces Shepherd Sock that produced this combination. I'm not sure of the names right now.

Today was the first show of this year for me (back to the Art Room tomorrow). It was great to see Yvonne, Nic, Adrienne and Fred. I'll be seeing Yvonne and Fred next Thursday at the show.

Yvonne was wearing a cardigan, that has inspired me. Unusually I have some thick (DK, but thick for me) yarn, wool in a bright purple. This has been hanging around for the better part of 20 years.

I now have some thoughts about how I might knit it up. Must go to bed and think on it!!

A variable week

2007-03-19T18:18:00.000Z

There was no lip-reading class today, so I was able to meet with a couple of friends for lunch.

The venue was the Reflections Cafe at the Attenborough Nature Centre, which is just off the road to Nottingham from Long Eaton.

As it was quite a nice day I turned down the offer of a lift from the other Mary, and cycled.
It takes about 20 minutes, depending on wind and traffic.

The reserve is in some former gravel pits, and attracts an amazing range of birds notably waterfowl. The link to sightings will tell you what has been seen/heard there recently.

Tomorrow is the final ceramics class of this session in Nottingham, which will mean that I have more time in my week from now until May. I am going to see some new pieces that will have had their second firing. Last week, the kiln was just cooling down, which was frustrating.

Then on to an evening event at the Beetroot Tree in Draycott , to take part in the launch of artsderbyshire.

Wednesday should be an ordinary Art Room day, or as ordinary as they ever get.

Then Thursday will be the first show date for me, at Olympia on the Relax and Knit stand, promoting hand-knitting and crochet.

Back to the Art room for Friday and Saturday.

Having fun

2007-03-13T23:10:00.000Z

My latest parcel for the SP9 exchange only went in the post last week, the reason being that I put some time-consuming gifts in it.

Before posting, I photographed one item.
In fact I tried to photograph it several times, as it was a difficult subject but I wanted to keep a record of it.

This bag went off to Margaret in Maryland in the US.

Check out her blog for other images.

I had the greatest of fun spoiling her and her daughters in Secret Pal 9.

I really wanted to reveal myself from the beginning, but had to wait until I knew that the parcel was on its way.

I must learn to not spend so much time making the gifts that go in my parcels.

SP10 questionnaire

2007-03-12T21:23:00.000Z

1. What is/are your favourite yarn/s to knit with? What fibres do you absolutely *not* like?
I love natural fibres, and only fine yarn ( I can always double it up if need be). I do not like artificial fibres.
I also knit with fine wire.

2. What do you use to store your needles/hooks in?
Needles and hooks are kept in a variety of large containers (some are ex-whisky tubes), as I have so many.

3. How long have you been knitting & how did you learn? Would you consider your skill level to be beginner, intermediate or advanced?
I learnt from my mother and grandmother, and could knit before I started school.
I am expert in some areas, and a novice in others.

4. Do you have an Amazon or other online wish list?
Not available

5. What's your favourite scent?
I don't use scented bathroom items or candles.

6. Do you have a sweet tooth? Favourite candy?
I love dark chocolate (70 % + cocoa content)

7. What other crafts or Do-It-Yourself things do you like to do? Do you spin?
I spin, sew a bit, crochet occasionally and make small-scale ceramics.
I also frequently dye yarn or fibres for spinning

8. What kind of music do you like? Can your computer/stereo play MP3s? (if your buddy wants to make you a CD)
I listen to the radio mostly, but have extensive musical tastes, particularly jazz

9. What's your favourite colour(s)? Any colours you just can't stand?
I love purples, other bright jewel colours and the complimentary acid yellows (in small quantities).
I don't much like pastel shades, but they are good for overdyeing.

10. What is your family situation? Do you have any pets?
We now have an all adult household.
No pets, as my nephew's goldfish all died of old age years ago.

11. Do you wear scarves, hats, mittens or ponchos?
Scarves and gloves when it is cold enough. Ponchos - never, and a hat only when it is really necessary

12. What is/are your favourite item/s to knit?
For clothing I knit lacy scarves and socks mostly.
Otherwise I knit all sorts of sculptural forms from fine wire, sometimes with beads and/or sequins.

13. What are you knitting right now?
Socks as usual, and planning a lacy scarf.

14. Do you like to receive handmade gifts?
Yes

15. Do you prefer straight or circular needles? Bamboo, aluminium, plastic?
Circular and sets of 5 sock needles. Ebony for socks, steel for fine wire.

16. Do you own a yarn winder and/or swift?
2 of each

17. How old is your oldest UFO?
So old that I'd be guessing at 30 +, maybe 40 + years!

18. What is your favourite holiday?
Any time spent with friends away from work.

19. Is there anything that you collect?
Glass seed beads and sequins to knit along with wire.

20. Any books, yarns, needles or patterns out there you are dying to get your hands on? What knitting magazine subscriptions do you have?
I'd like to try out a Susan Bates Silvalume sock needle set, as they look so colourful.
I subscribe to SpinOff and Yarn Forward.

21. Are there any new techniques you'd like to learn?
I'm still hoping to invent some.

22. Are you a sock knitter? What are your foot measurements?
Yes, continental 39

23. When is your birthday?
June 12th

Finally ... I got lucky

2007-03-06T19:04:00.000Z

I haven't had much luck with this computer recently.
Whenever I have time to log in, I find that the broadband connection is flickering on and off, or the virus checking is slowing it all down, and so I give up, and do something else.
Then yesterday, perversely, I couldn't log in to this site.
I've freshened up with a new password, and should be back in business now.

My absence had been noted by friends, that is nice to know.

So what happened over the past 6 weeks or so?
I have been finishing off the items for the three exchanges I have been in.
SP9 is just about done and dusted.
I got a large parcel into the post yesterday for Margaret much later than I had intended.

My "colors of spring" swap, arranged in Germany was great fun (pictures to follow).
My upstream partner was generous. Her parcel however arrived partially open.
It looks as though it was all there. I was most surprised to see that the parcel came from Langen. This is the town in Germany that is twinned with Long Eaton, where I live.
All of this was just coincidence.

My downstream partner Kerstin received her parcel, and was pleased with it.

The third exchange was the Interweave Press "Spin to knit".
Here I am rather slow, as my skeins are still waiting for me to pack them off to Canada.

In turn I received this fantastic yarn sent from the US by Aleeta.
It is a mix of subtle greens/blues and greys.
This was the skein for January, and was influenced by the costumes for "The Lord of the Rings" .

She also sent this skein for February.
In an email, she commented that all her friends wanted this one. I can see why!

In the meantime at the Art Room we are preparing for a Have-A-Go Day to celebrate the first anniversary of our opening a year ago. This will take place on Sunday April 1st at the studio.

We have had able assistance from the local CVS. They have sent us help through the New Deal scheme. Our first assistant finished her 13 weeks in mid February. Fortunately she was able to overlap with the second one for a couple of weeks.

Yesterday was a great day. After attending my lip-reading class I went to the studio to meet Miss Bell who was donating some art materials to us.
No time to take it all in then, but there is lots for us to play with!

Ten days ago ...

2007-01-29T14:45:00.000Z

... I intended to keep this blog up to date.
As you can see I have been too busy to do so.

No images to go with these words either!
Some of it is deliberate, otherwise I'm waiting for my camera battery to charge up.
I knew that I should have charged it last night, and only remembered this morning when I wanted to use it.

The past week went by in a blur of activity.
Monday was a great day.
I went to the first half of my lip-reading class and then excused myself.

I caught the train to Derby, and went to pick up my new reading glasses.
So now I can see without eyestrain.
After much hunting I had found frames in a maroon/purple colour that look good on me.
They don't sport the logo of some designer/sports firm etc. which is even better.
(And the overall price was only £129.00.)

Then I caught the train to Sheffield, where I changed onto another one to Rotherham.
A short walk took me to the bus station.
There I boarded a bus to Wentworth, in order to visit Wingham Wool .

I hadn't been to Wingham for about 15 years or more.
This time I was only able to stay for an hour, which concentrated the mind.

I bought plain and coloured merino for felting or spinning (some for myself, some for the Art Room).

But I did find some rainbow merino/silk mix in several colours, that should fulfil a few spinning/knitting projects I have in mind.
The return trip was uneventful, just the reverse of the outward journey, but with a longer wait in Rotherham. that gave me a chance to look at my booty.

Since then I took the rainbow mixes in to the Art Room, and tested out the spinning wheel there. This led me to ordering more of a couple of colours, which arrived on Friday, so no more excuses, I have what I need.
Now I need to buckle down to doing the production spinning, which is a bit boring, as I want a fairly fine yarn. At least Ican do it both at home, and at the Art Room.

Wednesday evening at the Art room, and we had a couple of people in, one of them a 12 yr old boy new to the place.

Then we took in a couple of lodgers.
The family of someone we know has turned out to have allergic reactions to her guinea pigs.
So the two boys (guinea pigs) are with us for a short while. I was there to accept them.

They can't stay for long, as they take up too much of our bench space.
Also in the first few days, I have noticed my sinuses clogging up more.
We are hoping to broker an adoption but will settle for a foster home.

Sunday saw a group of us driving over to Sleaford to the Hub to see the latest exhibition.
Nine of us went in two cars. It was a change for me to go by road, rather than rail.
I still managed to do a fair bit of sock knitting on the journey.

I was the only one who had been to Sleaford before.
We walked down to Cogglesford Mill, and I now have some bread flour to try out.
I also managed to visit Navigation House, which had always been closed on previous visits.

So there we are, up to date, sort of.
The end of January looms, and the ceramics class I attend in Nottingham resumes tomorrow.
Am I ready for it, not yet.

I dashed in to the Castle Museum in Nottingham on Friday afternoon, to see the Wedgewood exhibition, which closed yesterday.
Typically, I hadn't found the time to visit since it opened in mid-November.
It sparked off some ideas that I hope to put into practice starting tomorrow.

Too windy to signal

2007-01-19T21:26:00.000Z

That was the state of the weather here yesterday.
We had sudden gusts of wind interrupting the blustery winds we had the day before.
Now it sounds as though it is blustery again.

Thank heavens I only had to travel the mile + between home and the Art Room.
But I did it three times.

We live in a fairly flat place down in the Trent valley.
As a consequence we get letters from the Environment Agency each year telling us how we will be informed if the river is in danger of serious flooding.
Fortunately our current risk status is LOW.

Anyway back to the dangers of cycling when it is very windy.
I find that in order to maintain progress I want to keep in as high a gear as possible.
Yesterday lunchtime I was brought to a standstill as I was going up over the canal bridge, and was caught by a sudden gust of wind.
I had to get off the road and walk a few steps.

Yards later when I came to turn right into our road I didn't dare take my hand off the handlebar to signal, and just trusted that the cars behind me could tell what I was about to do from my road position.
Today was a doddle in comparison.

Sock magic

2007-01-06T16:08:00.000Z

I have finally knitted some socks for Ian.
All I need now is for him to try them on before I sew the ends in.

The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, and as before I have combined two colourways to get an even better colour.

On the left is Jeans, and to the right is Baltic Sea.

In the skein these look really exciting, but less so when wound into a ball.

But somehow a little magic happens when you knit them together.

Colours appear that aren't in the yarn, here a deep red seems grow out of the darker brown of the Baltic Sea.

Or perhaps that is all in my imagination!

Either way, as he has long narrow feet, I can use the same number of stitches as for my socks, and just knit a longer foot.

A brief appearance on Channel 5 TV news

2007-01-02T17:23:00.000Z

Mary Stewart has recorded a bit about LE Art Room which is going out on Channel 5 news today.
It was on just before 12.00, and will be in the 17.30 bulletin too.

The link above gives a longer version than I saw this morning.
I star briefly, cutting some red tape, wearing a grey sweatshirt.

A good start

2007-01-01T14:50:00.000Z

After a stormy end to 2006, we woke to sunshine. Last night the wind and rain were energetic to say the least.

During the afternoon, I had triple pegged items to the washing line to prevent them blowing away.
Despite a few icy showers most of it was nearly dry when I brought it in.
Hanging the t-shirts over the edge of the breakfast bar lets the warmth from the underfloor heating in the new (2000) part of the house get to it.

So this morning Ian went out and has been redesigning the area around our raspberries and gooseberries.

I ventured out later to plant out some climbers that have been sitting in pots for months waiting for us to renew some trellising near the pond.

Over the past few weeks we had put up the trellising, and Ian had painted it green to match.
All I needed was enough time in decent weather to do the planting.
Here is how it looked last May.
I hope that this coming May we will have a great display on the trellising to the left in the picture.

Otherwise, travelling to visit relatives over the past week has meant that I have finished off a pair of socks for Ian. All I need to do is sew the ends in and photograph them. I am already halfway through the next sock for me.

Knitting theme

2006-12-24T10:22:00.000Z

The Google holiday doodle has more knitting content than this blog at the moment.
Kangaroos knitting with tinsel, what next?

We are packing up now to visit my sister over Christmas.
Speak to you all soon.