Wales!

I have just returned from a fabulous weekend in Mid Wales, spent with old friends enjoying the good times!

This was my first visit to the land of the Red Dragon and I do hope to return and see more of it. The countryside is so stunning, very green and lush and there is an abundance of wild foxgloves and of course sheep! I discovered that even though I have spent a lot of time around sheep I never realised how difficult they are to photograph until now...



Our country retreat


Foxgloves


Cardigan Bay

Stitch Markers

As you may know by now I am a keen advocate of 'bus knitting'. It took a little while to get over the initial self-conciousness of knitting in such an enclosed public space but now I don't think twice about whipping my Addi turbos out!

My current bus project is the Gust scarf and today I made a mistake and desperately needed a stitch marker. I had a good rummage around the bottom of my knitting bag but to no avail, so I rummaged around my handbag hoping I could find a substitute.

This is what I came up with...


Can you guess what it is yet? Yep, it's the tear strip off my chewing gum wrapper and it worked a treat for the row I needed it for! It also seemed less snag free than the paper clip markers I caught my Mum using whilst knitting up her beautiful Habu silk cardigan!!

So, I wondered what have you used as stitch markers or other knitting notions when the correct tool isn't to hand?

The Lure of the East

Last year I joined a fantastic charity called The Art Fund who are an independent source of funding for UK galleries, museums, and historic houses. In return for funding to buy pieces for their collections the 'establishment' then offers Art Fund members something in return, usually in the form of discounted or free entry to their exhibitions or collections. Brilliant! So I get to contribute towards a little piece of heritage for the UK's galleries, museums or historic houses and I get discounted entry to most of the major exhibitions within London and the 'establishments' get their much needed funding.

Being an Art Fund member has meant that I have been to see a lot more exhibitions than I would have gone to had I just been a member at one gallery as I am not tied to one gallery. This morning I headed off to see The Lure of the East at Tate Britain. I was not sure what to expect so it was a very pleasant surprise!

The exhibition covers work by British artists from the seventeenth to the early twentieth centuries who were responding to the sights of the Near East, including Turkey, Egypt and Palestine. It is a very opulent exhibition, full of rich colour and texture making it perfect for anyone interested in textiles and colour combination.

These are my three favourite paintings:

An Arab Interior by Arthur Melville



Leila by Frank Dicksee



Edward Wortby Montagu in Oriental Costume by George Romney



They are not my usual 'cup of tea' but I am so captivated by the colours I can already feel a second visit coming on...

Repeat After Me

As me and my beloved are heading off to France this summer and I am currently in training for the Tour de France KAL, I have decided that it is time to refresh my French conversational skills. In order to do this with the minimum of embarrassment I have been looking at a few audio courses I can study at home or mutter quietly under my breath on the bus...

This appealed to me because of the word 'Active' in the title but I can still remember a few key phrases from school.



'Taking Off in French' sounds incredibly exciting but I don't fancy completing Le Tour on this bike!



Anything with food on the cover is always going to be a 'guaranteed' sale!



Vive La France!

Socks Are Friends

Last week was about finishing off a pair of socks I have had lurking in the bottom of my knitting bag for far too long and now they are done all I can think of is knitting more and more socks...just as well with the Tour de France KAL coming up!

I only learnt the art of sock knitting in February when I decided it was time to face my fear and attend a short course at I Knit being taught by Jane. It is true that you do catch the 'sock bug'. This pair are the outcome of Jane's gentle and patient teaching and I am so proud of them!



Before I had even finished the first pair I had chosen the yarn to knit up a pair for my beloved...



And then before before I knew it I was casting on a pair of Go With The Flow socks in lovely Yarn Yard Bonny Buxom just for me!





Socks are friends. You can take them anywhere. They don't take up a lot of room in your handbag. They are easy to squish if you need to jump off the bus in a hurry. But, what I have found most intriguing is that socks in progress encourage conversations with total strangers! It's great! I have chatted to a lady who was just curious, another lady about her cousin's generator and a man about his mother who at 90 could still knit on four needles and she was blind!

Tour de France Knit Along

Just a quick news flash!

I have just been accepted as a member of Team Credit Agricole for the second annual Tour de France Knit Along

Le Tour kicks off on Saturday 5th July in Brest and ends on Sunday 27th July in Paris by which time about 200 riders will have tackled 3,500 kilometers of road and I should have learnt a new knitty technique and cheered on my team! I am knitting for a Polka Dot Jersey, also known as King of the Mountains and it a project that will be a challenge to me.

Watch this space for updates during Le Tour and you can follow all the teams at the main website and cheer on all us sporting knitters.

Right, I better go and limber up!

Zippedy Gust

Following the success of the Hypoteneuse scarf I have just cast on another of Anne Hanson's patterns...




This one is Gust and is in Caber yarn by The Yarn Yard...I'm so excited already!!