Archive for the 'excursions' Category

leaf and nupp shawl

Pattern: Leaf and Nupp shawl, from Knitted Lace of Estonia by Nancy Bush. I chose this pattern because the leaves in the lace pattern also reminded me of bluebells – a nice combination with the yarn, I thought.

Yarn: Posh Yarn Eva 2 ply cashmere/silk. This is the Bluebell colourway from Posh’s cashmere club. The colour is hard to capture, especially in the full sun in which these photos were taken. But it is a beautiful, utterly bluebell-y blue, with subtle tinges of lavender.

Needles: 3.25 mm

Notes: I spent this weekend at the wonderful Knitnation organised by the awesome Alice and CookieA. I’ll post more on that later, especially with details of my highly uncharacteristic stash acquisition (Wollmeise anyone??). But I also spent a day doing a workshop on Estonian lace making with Nancy Bush. I met some lovely people, and it was incredibly interesting hearing about this region’s history of making lace for the last couple of hundred years.

One of the things that I learned was that the nupps, that you can see in the photo above, work best in white yarn, because apparently light reflects differently on white than on any other colour. Which explains why they are not that prominent in my or other coloured versions, and made me think I’d like to try another nupp-based shawl in a natural coloured Shetland laceweight yarn.

I also wish I’d made the shawl larger, as it is really more of a large scarf size. Nancy Bush had a sample that she had knitted of the same pattern, in a pure Shetland wool, and it was much larger than my version. I hadn’t thought about it before, but once I saw the two together it was obvious that the silk content in my shawl made the yarn much less stretchier, and therefore block much smaller, than the pure wool shawl. Yet another reason to try a Shetland shawl!

And finally, just because a girl  in a sports car (yes, I am still harping on about our recent trip to France!) really ought to wear a headscarf, here’s one of me posing like mad…

Published on August 1, 2010. 14 Comments Tags: , , , .

featherweight cardigan

Pattern: Featherweight cardigan (rav link), by Hannah Fetig

Yarn: Malabrigo lace, in the colour Natural 63

Needles: 4mm, and 3mm for the ribbing.

I chose to do 1×1 ribbing for the bottom edge of the cardigan, finished off with my favourite tubular cast-off. I worked the front edge and sleeves in stocking stitch with a rolled edge.

As this is for me to wear during the summer, I didn’t mind that the edges rolled back quite a bit, and I like the way the rolled edge looks at the neckline.

Notes: I was happily knitting away on this cardigan when I read Bell’s cautionary tale about laceweight cardigans. She, and many commenters, talked about the problems they had with some laceweight yarns felting and just not being sturdy to last. I looked more closely at my knitting and realised that the yarn was indeed starting to felt a little, even before I had finished working on it.

This is most noticable on the sleeves, where I picked up the stitches that had been knit earlier. Blocking the cardigan helped, as it made the newer stitches also felt slightly, but you can still see a ridge where the two meet:

I am happy with how this cardigan turned out but, given that it started to felt before I even finished it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out not to have a particularly long shelf-life. On the plus side, it only took me four weeks to knit, so I guess I’ll just enjoy it while I can!

Photos taken here:

To celebrate our anniversary last week we spent a wonderful long weekend staying in a fairytale chateaux near Bordeaux. I couldn’t resist slipping a couple of photos into this post – if you’d like to see some more, the Flickr set is here. Not bad eh?

Published on July 4, 2010. 13 Comments Tags: , , .

coldharbour mill

We’ve had some dear friends from the States staying with us this past week. It was an incredibly special time, and we talked and laughed virtually non stop. I thought I would share with you one of the places that we visited: Coldharbour Mill, in Uffculme, Devon.

This is a working mill that has been situated in this Devon valley since 1799, and was in continuous wool and yarn production until 1981. It reopened the following year as a working museum and is now the only surviving woollen mill in the county.

It is one of the few mills in the country that has both of its original sources of power still in operation: a water wheel from the 1820s and a steam engine from 1910.

Taking a tour of the mill demonstrates the textile process from fleece to finished yarn.

A self-guided tour takes you through the different stages of making yarn into a finished woven cloth. You can see the original spinning and weaving machinery, some of which are still powered by the fully restored water wheel.

The mill continues to produce both worsted and woollen knitting yarns and is now home to John Arbon Textiles and their wonderful wool and alpaca yarn and products.

Dusty and smelling of engine oil, and with the constant clicking of machines, the mill is a fascinating insight into Victorian technology.

There are also glimpses into the lives of the people who worked at the mill.

Oh, and the yarn! I haven’t taken pictures yet of the yarn I bought there, but I’ll post them as soon as I do.

Published on July 26, 2009. 15 Comments Tags: , .

deer!

My local park is one of London’s Royal Parks, and is  home to more than three hundred deer. The deer were brought in when Henry VIII moved into the neighbouring Hampton Court Palace, turning it into Henry’s backdoor hunting ground.

The deer are amazingly tame. Yesterday, I was in the park on a perfect Spring day, and there were deer everywhere, wandering around amongst the people and dogs. It was truly picturesque.

Hope you’re having a good weekend too!

Published on May 2, 2009. 17 Comments Tags: , , .

pompeii: what we did on our holidays (2)

We spent a day of our Italian holiday visiting the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

In 79 AD the volcano Mount Vesuvious erupted. On that day, the surrounding area, including these two cities, were covered with  nine feet of burning gas and rock.

When Pompeii was excavated in the 1920s, holes that had once contained organic matter were discovered. The ash had solidified before this matter had disintegrated. And of what did that matter consist? Well, wooden objects such as doors:

And, more hauntingly, the bodies of many people and animals who had died in the ash. The archaeologists found that they could fill these holes with plaster and recreate the forms that had once taken up the space of the hole. The remarkable and poignant casts created from these voids speak of the last moments of these peoples’ lives.

Because of the way Pompeii was buried so completely, and the nature of the solidifed ash which covered it, the city remained incredibly intact. I thought I’d share some pictures of Pompeii and its sister town, Herculaneum, also buried in the volcanic ashes. Click on the arrow below to start the slideshow.

Published on April 20, 2009. 19 Comments Tags: , , .