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As the photos are in reverse order (and I cant be bothered to move them all around..)
This is what I came home with:

From Winghams - I really wasn't going to get another batt... but this one called to me - it is red & brown, then there are mini carders, and a bag of silk loveliness.






My best bargains - from KCG, these were £1 each..
The large dk natural weighs 2.6kg,
the green light aran 1.1 kg,
the natural skinny lace (front right) 1.4kg,
the bright green lace also 1.1kg, and
the grey like fiddlesticks at the front 450g.

The large cones are pure wool and I think there is some silk in the natural lace...

And I'm going to try my best to use them and not give them away next year !!


And from Coldspring - two lots of pure undyed dk at less than 1p per gram, and some freedom spirit.

The camping shop had a small handbag for walking and a water bottle with a holder that goes round the waist.

From the Skep two hanks of very skinny silk - 100g for £5.




And these were the results of swaps and things that I was given...

The bag has three different coloured batts, there is lama there and some balls from the Spinning Fishwife.
And a Fat Feet in my colours :-)







And now where we stayed before Haworth - Mankinholes.

This is the view when we came back from our walk...









And some sheep - and the Stoodley Pike monument, which is where we walked to (and back down...)

We used a path up the steep front bit !!









A close up of the sheep - they were put there in 2000 and looked rather splendid :-)












Another shot of the way we went showing just how high up it was...












And someone managed to climb up it - I had height issues so stayed on the ground....

















There were real sheep at the top :-)














And a close up ish view... just to prove that we got there !!!


















And these were very young - probably not even a day old - they were very wobbly on their legs...

Please stop messing with my head

I went up north a few weeks ago. I had a day & night in Sunny Southport and on my why back to the Wirral for a birthday party I thought I would stop at Antony Gormley's Another Place.

I'd seen photos of it but never realised exactly where it was.


Many many years ago my Gran was in a nursing home and we used to take her out once a week for a cup of tea (made in the car, in a teapot, not free flowing in the car, that would be silly!) and an icecream. We stopped at a carpark overlooking the river Mersey where there were some loos (just in case).

As I pulled in to the carpark (that has changed a lot in nearly 30 years) The loos are still there, but you have to pay to use them now. I'm sure the coastguard station was there but I cant remember...

This was my first thing of the weekend that rolled around in my head.

I really should have read this sign before going on to the beach !!



Luckily I had my wellies in the car otherwise I would have got very wet feet ;-)








I did have a sock with me, and this was the only man I found that would hold it for me !



I started on the heel flap of the second one this morning..

Much to the amusement of several old dears in the village...








Some of the men had nothing growing on them, whereas others were covered with 'things'



This is one of my favourite faces, having a bit of a bad head day me thinks !!










And a clean man looking out to sea,













And this is what he has just seen, a boat going past the wind farm.



I remember watching lots of ships, getting very bored with the same conversations each week, the smell of tea filling the car (this might be one of the reasons why I dont do tea).

I nearly had a icecream from the van, but thought that would push me over the edge and make me very late...



More photos are here including jellyfish, crabs, footprints...



And then there was the party in the evening. I did have knitting with me but was not allowed to take it out of my bag :-(

It is strange when you meet people that you last saw over twenty years ago at their wedding. Talk went to how the photos are not the same as people had died. The bloke sitting nearest me then thought it would be interesting to see who had the worst count. He could only get to a couple (his wife kept saying, no dear they are still alive...). Then I started counting up, at nine he told me to stop as I was scaring him, the bad thing was that I'd only have been married 16 years this week, and that I dont know what had happened to over half the guests (and there were less than 100) and that most of the nine were family...

Then there was the usual divorce talk... getting into a sleeping bag at 3am, ticking clocks, a long drive home when feeling very dehydrated (I should know that I need to drink a lot of water when travelling..)


All these thought of people that are no longer around has been pulling me down into a deep hole.



I have had some wonderful parcels in the post that have helped. Martha sent me a lovely amazing lace swap parcel from the States..

The tops might have to be spun up as practice tomorrow...

And these have been keeping the postman busy as well...

Ebay is a wonderful place on a Saturday night when there is no one else bidding on old books !

And the lace weight is a well received thank you present.

I do have good things to look forward to this week. The lovely Anne phoned me earlier to tell me about Wingham being in town and Ruth holding spinning classes on Monday - Morris is going on his travels :-)

And then on Thursday & Friday I'm going to Ally Pally. For the first time in years I'm going as a person, not working on any stand (apart from covering for friends if need be). I've got my tickets and show guide and a new camera. Hopefully I will have time to look at the exhibitions and not get too lost on the way (or on the way home - the North Circular is not good if you go East instead of West...)

I also have a car of ferrets (if you see Gill from the Woollyworkshop do ask her why)

And I have been knitting whilst I've been gone - I do have a Wicked jumper, a back of another, and the collar of a cardi, and most of a lace shawl.. I stupidly cast on something that will keep me busy for a long long time, I'm using this in forest green, no photos for a while as there is nothing to see yet (only 8 rows). I really want to try and finish it before I go here

Still Alive...

..I think ;-)

In the last few weeks I've travelled from home to nearly Scotland and then back home before travelling down to nearly the south coast. I did remember what my name was but at one point last weekend forgot where I was or what I was meant to be doing...



The stand was very woolly (naturally) Daffy was joined by her cousin Rosie.

Thanks to all that helped and stopped to say hello, and made the show go well. I was suffering on the Friday from dehydration - I really should remember to drink when I'm travelling and enjoying myself with friends...





For friends that like steam trains, this is where we ended up in the drizzle....



We were in an closed carriage on the way up the hill (Ravenglass railway)



I've no idea what 'Boot' is but should probably look in the book of the history of the railway...



Rosie & I were brave on the way back - we were in a roofed carriage with open sides. Surprisingly we managed to keep relatively dry on the way back to the station.

We both found that taking pictures from a moving train was difficult - but I did manage to get a photo of these ....

And we passed another train at a station, luckily for us the school children got on this train and not ours....









There were lots of different types of sheeps living beside the track, these didn't seem to like the smoke from the train (or it could have been the rain...)






The Lovely Amber made me a new friend, isn't she great. She must have realised that I dont have my heating on much as she is modelling a thick coat ;-)









And look what I won in Sue's blog competition, made by Jan (from a pattern in her book)

Sorry it is a really bad photo, but a lovely shawl to cuddle up to in the cold - it might have to be my evening wrap...




And these are some of my purchases from Woolfest... two hanks from Krafty Koala, some braids of tops and cranford mitten kit from Yarn Yard.

I do already own the head at the right (or does he own me ?)

And the cone is some Wood & Milk lace weight from Uppingham yarns (might be a milk thistle at some point..)




And then there was some things to spin, and a bosworth purple heart midi to spin with....
(which I've just realised that I've cut off the photo...)

More batts from Yarn Yard, and assorted from nice people....



Last week was KCG AGM in Winchester, on the way down they played the Road to Hell on the radio, one lady couldn't get into her bedroom (the key she was trying to use had a honda fob), I was the youngest staying, I was also one of the ones that was running round trying to make everything run smoothly as possible...

And since I was made secretary I have been busier that ever since I've been home.

Sickly boy has got to have an operation on Wednesday to remove one side of his thyroid and have his teeth done - I'm hoping that it will sort out his levels, I'm thinking of starting knitting and spinning lessons for the rest of the waiting room in the vets...

And I'm trying to do some knitting with patterns from here
They are really well written and ended up buying lots of colours from here
They have the cheapest Cascade 220 I could find, and free postage and it arrived the day after I ordered :-)

Enough of my wittering, I thought I would share this, it made me laugh...how did they get it like that ??? And it made my local news...

Skipnorth 08

For the first time in three years I managed to take photos of the hostel !!

This is the inside of the front door...

It must have been an amazing place before it was all divided up...












A Pete action shot...

We had just come back from our Saturday shop and there were bags of yarn all over the floor.. Pete does like a suck on yarn and the poor lad didn't know which way to crawl !!








If he'd have turned round this is what he would have seen....


Knitters and yarn everywhere...















Someone bought a jumper from the KCG yarn mountain...

It nearly fitted....

Good luck to her when she cuts the bottom off to reclaim the yarn for the sleeves (it was a very strange design - but alpaca and for £5...)







Some people didn't want to put their purchases down - I think she was pleased with the number of skinny (technical term) cones of yarn I introduced her to...

I also think she won the 'most yarn for least price' competition...






On Monday morning I took Tut Mut for a walk to wake us up..

There is a suspension bridge going over the river - if you jump up and down on it (especially in the rain) it moves lots - I let her play on it before I ran over...







This confused us.

This is a church carpark.

There was no bull to be seen....














And this is what I came home with ...


From Coldspring Mills.

All cashmerino aran - enough for a jumper.. half price bargain...












These came from KCG yarn mountain...

And cost £1 each... hard to believe..

The pale blue is very skinny 1.5 kg

Red a bit thicker - probably cobweb 700g

And the turquoise cobweb 570g.


I do know what some of them are going to be but it will take a while..

Also from KCG some books

The Anna magazines were also £1 each and most of them have Neibling shawl patterns in...

And from Winghams, some different things to spin.

And one of my best bargain finds - a cone of thin alpaca for £15..

I am really sorry to all those I infected - mine is nearly gone and the olbas oil is beginning to smell again !!

Peacock and Purchases

I finally finished my Peacock Feathers Shawl from Fiddlesticks.

Made using Cherry Tree Hill lace weight (cant remember the colour..)

Photos were taken between rugby matches on Saturday..






The colour is not right - more purple and darker in real life...

It is quite big - 84 inches across and 40 inches to the point...

I love my foam mats for blocking and I managed to clear enough space in the conservatory to block - a lot easier than crawling across the spare bed..





The charity shops in Ross were good to me last week...

This lot was the bargain price of £3, love the note on the bag - Rowan Denim - dye comes out !!









And some vintage yarn - I just had to have !!

There were several packets of similar aged yarns in two different shops...











I think this must be older than me...

Patons and Baldwin, there was 2 ply, three ply and four ply...

And two more colours that I forgot to photograph... and they cost less than £4 for the lot..

And I managed to get a 500g cone of 4ply for £1 as well...


The aran jumper arrived, it fits, it has gravy down the front...... brothers !!!

Get Knitted

Yesterday saw a mass shop at Get Knitted. I managed to be one of the first to get there and get a seat of one of the sofas, and being remote from my camera didn't take any photos until late in the afternoon..

As you can see we had a good time - there were bags everywhere...







And the usually clear tables were covered with knitting, cake and patterns....












And more bags littered the floor round the other table/sofa...

There were people from all over - Wormhead came from London, Mary from Long Eaton, Kate from Somerset. Others (whose names I cant remember, sorry) came from Hampshire, Devon, Cornwall, and there were some locals.. Thanks to Terri for suggesting it - a good day was had by all !!











And for ages this was all that I bought... two pairs of very thin needles... I have a habit of bending needles and can knit lace easier on straight - so the plan is to eventually cast on the WRS (for the third or fourth time) and try and get past the first few rows...








And the someone mentioned that there was a box of variegated yarn out the back...
Dave was persuaded to bring it in... and we jumped - I have been looking for some for a while and this jumped me...

And I think it goes well with the cone I was gifted a while back....

Not sure of which pattern to use, think I might do another of the cardi pattern but with my own design...

And now I must go and try and finish that aran jumper - only the front to go, and then I can knit with some nicer yarn :-)