Bit of this, bit of that, and a bit of learning inbetween.

Oh goodness the excitement of Yarndale still goes on......you see  I had played with some of my goodies,  and now have some more to play with. Yeah!  My friend L and I decided it would be nice to order some yummy colours of the carpet yarn so the crochet ladies could make themselves some bright colourful bags etc.  Choosing the yarn was a bit difficult as there were so many beautiful colours but we decided 20 cones was a good number, giving lots of choices.  Once the order came through I noticed there were 26 cones, I had left 3 extra colours as query's and, as L had 3 more she wanted to add, the final total was 20 + the extra 3 each = 26 cones.   Oh my! we must get cracking now.

One thing I saw at Yarndale was  a ceramic yarn container, but the price was £40 and as nice as it was I just could not justify that cost....SO, lets try to crochet one.....

+

It works well with hand wound yarn.

this bowl is crochet with the three yarns together, it has a hole for your yarn to thread through and a bit of a lip for your needles to rest in.  I now have to go make up a pattern, and hope the ladies like it.

I have also finished the socks for little Miss I.  I couldn't really find a pattern so just adjusted the full size pattern, I reduced it by 1/3rd, but I am beginning to think they may be a bit small.....back to the drawing board..

love the colour

they will fit someone.....

The other thing I have been knitting is a pair of fingerless gloves.  The pattern calls for 2ply yarn and 2mm double pointed needles. Phew!  that's fine and thin.....  I think the pattern is written by someone from overseas and there are stitches in it that I have never used before, so to say it was a learning experience is not an exaggeration (what did we do before Google and You Tube).  I am almost finished the first glove, but now she talks about casting off using the 'kitchener rib bind off'', I have never heard of that before, but she does direct you to a website where  there is a tutorial for the technique.   I'll let you know next time how that goes.

Must make myself some posh markers.

Last but never least.... On Saturday I went off to my lesson on 'quilt as you go' with Jan.  I had a lovely day and really thought I was steaming along, I had ideas of what to do next and Jan helped explain how to do it, Wonderful...what could go wrong!!!!!!  trimming some of my wadding that's what can go wrong! Oooop's!  I needed to trim back some of my wadding on seams already sewn, I had completed three of the sides of the quilt, and almost finished the last side when after a snip of those scissors I thought things didn't feel quite right........ good job it was just the one 'snip'

I decided it was time to go home. 

All repaired, even that little tuck has been fixed

Knit 1, Crochet 1 etc. etc,

After having a couple of great weekends I had to get down to "making"........It was going to be a bit hard to decide what to make first from my 'buys' at Yarndale, but first I had to finish those hats for the "littlies" in South Africa.

This one is for Miss I

And Master B chose this one

Now what to make next...... It gets so exciting when new projects and new yarns come into play.  I had decided that I wanted to make something from the carpet yarn to encourage my crochet group to play with this yarn, so I plumped for a bag.  I had to unpick a few times before I was happy with the results.  The base is made from half trebles (easy bit) then after a number of starts and 'unpicks' I decided the best way up the sides was making treble clusters.

One more round to finish the base

Phew!  done just in time for crochet group

I also started this (I have no idea what you would call it). I saw it hanging on a coat hanger and the way they had it hanging it looked like the rib would go around your neck.......cosy for those cold days 

I thought this bit went around your neck

but look how wrong I was .... the rib goes around the waist

This will keep me warm this winter

and remember the beautiful blanket pattern I showed you?  I can't justify buying the correct yarn (silk and expensive) so I thought I would try it with the left over bits of the sock yarn....... I think it will work.

Now I just need some time to carry on

So it has been busy busy busy and my fingers now need a bit of a rest,......well for a day or two!

Bit like Buses

Weekend breaks are a bit like buses...... go months with out one, then two come along....... Last weekend was the trip up to Yorkshire, and this weekend we took a trip to London.  The main reason for the visit was to visit my family and to get to see some of the newer London sites.  On Sunday we planned to visit the Olympic Park, and what a beautiful day we chose.  The sun was shining and, as we are early birds, we had the place to ourselves when we first arrived, so we thought we would take the opportunity to have a trip up the ArcelorMittal Orbit.  The trip up is via the lift, and you can choose your decent......either the lift or the stairs.  There were two viewing platforms, and I have to say the views were stunning, we all thought the Orbit views were probably even better than the London Eye.  We spent time searching out the old landmarks and 'oohing and aahing' over the new ones.

What a picture!!!!

There were T.V>screens that told you each of the larger landmarks

Mr. D and I decided to walk down, and every 12 stairs there are different sounds with explanations...... one was the sound of Petticoat Lane, another children playing in the park, men working on a building site, Lee Valley nature reserve etc which made the walk down the 450 steps much more interesting

Mr D listening to the sounds of Construction

We spent a number of hours walking around the park, and were very impressed with the walkways, cycle paths, and gardens.  I know there is still a lot of work going on around the Stratford area, and all I have seen is a great improvement on the old Stratford.

Monday was a planned visit to the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the mode of transport was the 'London Buses'....... have to say the journey took longer than we first thought, but what a treat to travel through the city and spot places where we worked in our younger days.  The city has change tremendously as well, and spotting roads was not so easy as we thought it would be, but we made it to the the 'V and A' and had a few hours wandering this beautiful building.  

Tuesday we again caught the bus and this time headed towards the Tower of London to see the Poppies........  I was amazed and so pleased we got to see them.  I take my hat off to the designer of the Poppy sculpture it is very thought provoking......there are 888,246 Poppies, that's one flower for each soldier from Britain or the British colonies who died in WW1.  

A sea of Red

'Swept Lands and Sea of Red'

We then walked across Tower Bridge to catch a bus to North Greenwich so we could have a trip across the Thames on the Emirates Cable car.  Its years since I have been back to this part of the world, and I didn't recognise one iota of it.....oh yes I did, there is still one Gasometer standing near the Blackwall Tunnel. Once again the views from the gondola of the city (and more) is great and I would highly recommend the trip if you are ever in the area.  

Gondola to ourselves

What a trip

So different to the docks I remember 

We had a great 'long' weekend, the weather was kind to us and the sites amazing.