So Proud

Yesterday, my husband and I had a trip down to London.  We only had three hours there, but it was well worth the visit.

We met up with Eve and walked to the Brick Lane Gallery on ... Brick Lane.  The reason for our trip was to see the exhibition entitled East End, the place we call home.

The exhibition is only at the Brick Lane Gallery this weekend.  After that it goes on tour around Tower Hamlets.

We were very impressed with the colourful pictures and captions that told the story of the East End over the past ninety years.  The story was told thematically around the idea of building and providing homes for East Enders.

There was also a very interesting film in which residents talked about what the East End meant to them.

The exhibition had been formally opened on Wednesday by the Duke of Kent and I understand he was very impressed with the display and enjoyed meeting many of the people who were included in the film and who contributed to the exhibition.

And one of the main people who has worked on this exhibition for nearly a year is my lovely daughter, Eve.  I feel so proud of all her hard work and what she has achieved.

It was just a shame that we weren't able to spend more time with Eve, but hopefully I'll be able to get down to London and see her again soon.

We might have only had three hours in London, but we certainly had many hours on the trains!  On a positive note, this did give me some extra knitting time.  I have started knitting up a Fair Isle cardigan using leftovers of Jamieson and Smith 2 ply jumper weight yarn.  This is as far as I've got on the sleeves.

I'm using 14 different colours so it will be a riot of colours and patterns!

The Fair Isle was too fiddly to take on the train, so I cast on a shawl with some of the yarn I bought at Yarndale.

I love the way it's knitting up and I'm tempted to carry on knitting this now but I want to concentrate on the Fair Isle so the shawl will be put to one side for now.

October is going to be a colourful Fair Isle month.  I've already made some mittens this month, using up tiny bits and pieces of Rowan Fine Tweed.

I ran out of yarn on the tip of the last thumb!

This yarn has been a favourite of mine since it first appeared five years ago.  Sadly it is now discontinued, no idea why Rowan have done this.  It's so annoying when they constantly change their yarns.

Anyway, I'm getting back to my colourful cardigan.  Have a good weekend and if you're in London see if you can get down to Brick Lane!

And It's Over in the Blink of an Eye

The three weeks of the Tour de France just flew by.  I've spent the time, whilst watching the cycling, concentrating on my stash busting and I'm pleased to say that it's been an enjoyable three weeks.

In my previous blog post, I showed you the first six projects I had completed.  I'm pleased to say that I managed to complete another six projects by the end of the Tour.  That's one better that last year.

I blitzed the Schmancy Shawl that I had started knitting.  It blocked up beautifully.  For this project I was using up some frogged Rowan 4 ply.  You can see full details of this project on Ravelry, here.

The edging blocked out beautifully and I love the drape of the shawl.

The next project completed was a crocheted basket.  I had two balls of rather rough cotton which I used doubled and it created the perfect fabric for the basket.

Next, some mittens.  I used some beige 4 ply for the cuff lining and the main body of each mitten was knitted using some unidentified yarn that I had picked up in the charity shop very cheaply.  These should be lovely and snug when it gets colder.

Some leftover angora yarn made a colourful and fluffy yarn bag.

And some leftover lace weight wool & silk yarn became a mini shawl and a doily.

In total I used 603g.  This was less than last year but in my defence, I was using much finer yarns than last year, so I reckon the yardage used this year was higher than last year.

So all in all, I'd say that Chris Froome and I have had a very successful 2016 Tour de France.

With all this successful stash busting, I'm joining in with Linda's Stash Buster Party once again.  I must admit, it has been a great incentive to me over the last few months and I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel (or even the craft room).  Next month it will be six months since I had my stash weigh in and I'm planning on getting the scales out again to see how I am progressing.  At the moment I reckon I have busted over 6kg of stash, which is one third of my starting total.  I have a few works in progress that I'm hoping to get off the needles in the next few weeks and reduce the total even further.

In other news, we had a lovely weekend down in London visiting Eve.  We went down on Friday and came home yesterday.  The weather was hot and sticky but we manged to get out and about with Eve every day.  We had a great trip to Greenwich on Saturday - so much to see and great views across the river to Canary Wharf.

It was lovely to see Eve again and to be able to explore more of London.  There's still so much more we'd like to visit, so plenty more trips down to London  are definitely on the cards.

Well the Tour de France may be over, but we have the Olympics to look forward to very shortly.  I haven't decided if I'm going to do a themed knitting and crocheting challenge for this, but whatever I decide, I'll be glued to the television for the duration!

Have a good week.  See you soon.

Weekend in London

Well I finally it made it to London for the weekend to see Eve.  And what a wonderful weekend it was.  It's always lovely to meet up with my daughters, I miss them so much.  Eve is very settled now in London and it's good to see her happy and enjoying her life.

We spent most of our time chatting and laughing and just enjoying each other's company, but we did manage to fit in a trip to the V & A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.

There was a very moving special exhibition on Child Migrants, as well as one on the Clangers and Bagpuss.

There were also cases and cases of toys, games, dolls and teddy bears.

A great afternoon out.

On my way to Eve's on the Friday, I walked via King's Cross Station to see Platfrom 9 & 3/4.  There were plenty of people queuing to have their photo taken.

(I don't know who this person is,
she just happened to be in the queue for the photo!)

I then walked to Angel.  A very interesting area of London with many small and quirky shops.  I loved the angel wings statue at the entrance to the shopping arcade.

My main reason for wanting to visit Angel was the gorgeous knitting shop, Loop.  I have heard so many wonderful things about this shop that I just couldn't resist a visit.  As usual, my photos were all shaky, so these are images I googled.

Picture by Homegirl London

Picture by Wonderwoof

I knew that I would have to exercise extreme self-control when visiting, so I thought in advance what I wanted to buy in terms of yarn and browsed the online shop, so that I wouldn't start impulse buying yarn when I got there.

And I'm pleased to say, as far as yarn is concerned, I was very very disciplined.  I bought the 6 balls of Sheltand Spindrift I wanted for a Fair Isle cardigan and no other YARN !

HOWEVER, I did get a bit carried away with knitting needles and knitting patterns - but they are all so lovely.

Whilst in the shop I was lucky enough to meet the lovely Juju Vail.  She was very chatty and we talked about knitting top-down sweaters, about Fair Isle knitting and she helped me select the colours of yarn I wanted.

It was a really memorable and pleasant visit.  Even if I did spend far more than I should have, I'm glad I visited and maybe one day, I'll make another trip there.

Now I'm back home, I need to clear the backlog of yarn, so that I can cast on for the new Fair Isle cardigan and knit up some of my lovely new patterns.  Have a good week.

London

Thank you all for your lovely wishes for my weekend in London with Eve.  It really was the most perfect weekend and just what I needed to revive my lagging spirits.

I had a lovely walk from Euston Station through to Aldgate, where Eve lives (not far from the Gherkin).

 Can you see the Gherkin in the distance?

St Paul's

The Bank of England

The 'Walkie Talkie' Building in the distance

Getting nearer to the Gherkin.

I love the contrast between all the styles of architecture.  The church in front of the Gherkin, in the picture above, apparently dates from the sixteenth century.

On Saturday we explored Old Spitalfields Market (my favourite) and then on to Covent Garden.

At Covent Garden, we had an "interesting" encounter with a street entertainer!

Can you see the juggler?  I think he's spotted us!

I got pulled out the audience and had to dance while he juggled!  I reckon my dancing was probably more entertaining than his juggling.

Then Eve was pulled out to assist in one of his juggling stunts.

We felt rather traumatized after that so had to go for tea and cake to revive us.

We finished off the afternoon with a visit to the National Portrait Gallery - always very interesting.

The evening was very relaxing, watching A Royal Night Out on Netflix and drinking wine with Eve's two flatmates.

We had a lazy Sunday morning, then went for a pub lunch before I caught the tube back to Euston.

It was a wonderful weekend, we had so much fun.  I didn't get to Brick Lane for a curry - maybe on my next visit we can fit that in.

The train journeys each way went smoothly, although they were very long.  On the plus side, it gave me plenty of time to make progress on the two cardigans I have started knitting.

The back of the Olivia cardigan

The ribbing all done on the Fair Isle cardigan for Eve

So I'm feeling refreshed, revitalised and full of energy, it's a new month and I'm ready to meet it head on.

Off on an Adventure

Thank you for all of your lovely comments recently.  It's so good to build up happy virtual friendships with you.

I've been busy making plans and enjoying myself in the process.  The Fair Isle leftovers cardigan will not be finished this month, but it will be completed next week.  The Fair Isle part of the knitting is all done, there's just the neck band and button bands to be picked up and knitted.  So not much more to do.  But instead of stressing myself about that, I've distracted myself by picking colours to crochet squares to make into another bag, like the one I completed last year.

A lovely rainbow of colours to brighten any grey day.  This bag is going to be a vibrant mix of all the colours.  I'm using the same motif as last time, as it produces a lovely dense square.  It's called Rosie Posie Grannies Square and it's by Sandra Paul.   I've made a start and completed a square!

I've also cast on for a plain grey cardigan for myself using my Olivia pattern.

My Kate cardigan (below) is a favourite with Eve.

Whenever she's home, she borrows it from me, so she's asked for a cardigan of her own, using exactly the same colours.  I've now also cast on for that.

But the biggest and most exciting planning I've been doing is for a trip to London to see Eve.  By the time you read this I should be on the train down, knitting away.

I've got a few hours in London before Eve gets home from work, so I'm planning on walking from Euston to Eve's flat in Aldgate (about 3 miles) and taking in some of the sights on the way.  With Google maps I've got a route worked out, with a scheduled stop for tea and cake on the way!

As for the rest of the weekend, well it will just be wonderful to see Eve and spend time with her, but I'm sure we can fit in a visit or two to the amazing markets down there.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I look forward to telling you all about my trip when I get back.