Ten days ago ...

... I intended to keep this blog up to date.
As you can see I have been too busy to do so.

No images to go with these words either!
Some of it is deliberate, otherwise I'm waiting for my camera battery to charge up.
I knew that I should have charged it last night, and only remembered this morning when I wanted to use it.

The past week went by in a blur of activity.
Monday was a great day.
I went to the first half of my lip-reading class and then excused myself.

I caught the train to Derby, and went to pick up my new reading glasses.
So now I can see without eyestrain.
After much hunting I had found frames in a maroon/purple colour that look good on me.
They don't sport the logo of some designer/sports firm etc. which is even better.
(And the overall price was only £129.00.)

Then I caught the train to Sheffield, where I changed onto another one to Rotherham.
A short walk took me to the bus station.
There I boarded a bus to Wentworth, in order to visit Wingham Wool .

I hadn't been to Wingham for about 15 years or more.
This time I was only able to stay for an hour, which concentrated the mind.

I bought plain and coloured merino for felting or spinning (some for myself, some for the Art Room).

But I did find some rainbow merino/silk mix in several colours, that should fulfil a few spinning/knitting projects I have in mind.
The return trip was uneventful, just the reverse of the outward journey, but with a longer wait in Rotherham. that gave me a chance to look at my booty.

Since then I took the rainbow mixes in to the Art Room, and tested out the spinning wheel there. This led me to ordering more of a couple of colours, which arrived on Friday, so no more excuses, I have what I need.
Now I need to buckle down to doing the production spinning, which is a bit boring, as I want a fairly fine yarn. At least Ican do it both at home, and at the Art Room.

Wednesday evening at the Art room, and we had a couple of people in, one of them a 12 yr old boy new to the place.

Then we took in a couple of lodgers.
The family of someone we know has turned out to have allergic reactions to her guinea pigs.
So the two boys (guinea pigs) are with us for a short while. I was there to accept them.

They can't stay for long, as they take up too much of our bench space.
Also in the first few days, I have noticed my sinuses clogging up more.
We are hoping to broker an adoption but will settle for a foster home.

Sunday saw a group of us driving over to Sleaford to the Hub to see the latest exhibition.
Nine of us went in two cars. It was a change for me to go by road, rather than rail.
I still managed to do a fair bit of sock knitting on the journey.

I was the only one who had been to Sleaford before.
We walked down to Cogglesford Mill, and I now have some bread flour to try out.
I also managed to visit Navigation House, which had always been closed on previous visits.

So there we are, up to date, sort of.
The end of January looms, and the ceramics class I attend in Nottingham resumes tomorrow.
Am I ready for it, not yet.

I dashed in to the Castle Museum in Nottingham on Friday afternoon, to see the Wedgewood exhibition, which closed yesterday.
Typically, I hadn't found the time to visit since it opened in mid-November.
It sparked off some ideas that I hope to put into practice starting tomorrow.

Too windy to signal

That was the state of the weather here yesterday.
We had sudden gusts of wind interrupting the blustery winds we had the day before.
Now it sounds as though it is blustery again.

Thank heavens I only had to travel the mile + between home and the Art Room.
But I did it three times.

We live in a fairly flat place down in the Trent valley.
As a consequence we get letters from the Environment Agency each year telling us how we will be informed if the river is in danger of serious flooding.
Fortunately our current risk status is LOW.

Anyway back to the dangers of cycling when it is very windy.
I find that in order to maintain progress I want to keep in as high a gear as possible.
Yesterday lunchtime I was brought to a standstill as I was going up over the canal bridge, and was caught by a sudden gust of wind.
I had to get off the road and walk a few steps.

Yards later when I came to turn right into our road I didn't dare take my hand off the handlebar to signal, and just trusted that the cars behind me could tell what I was about to do from my road position.
Today was a doddle in comparison.

Sock magic

I have finally knitted some socks for Ian.
All I need now is for him to try them on before I sew the ends in.

The yarn is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, and as before I have combined two colourways to get an even better colour.

On the left is Jeans, and to the right is Baltic Sea.

In the skein these look really exciting, but less so when wound into a ball.




But somehow a little magic happens when you knit them together.

Colours appear that aren't in the yarn, here a deep red seems grow out of the darker brown of the Baltic Sea.

Or perhaps that is all in my imagination!

Either way, as he has long narrow feet, I can use the same number of stitches as for my socks, and just knit a longer foot.

A brief appearance on Channel 5 TV news

Mary Stewart has recorded a bit about LE Art Room which is going out on Channel 5 news today.
It was on just before 12.00, and will be in the 17.30 bulletin too.

The link above gives a longer version than I saw this morning.
I star briefly, cutting some red tape, wearing a grey sweatshirt.

A good start

After a stormy end to 2006, we woke to sunshine. Last night the wind and rain were energetic to say the least.

During the afternoon, I had triple pegged items to the washing line to prevent them blowing away.
Despite a few icy showers most of it was nearly dry when I brought it in.
Hanging the t-shirts over the edge of the breakfast bar lets the warmth from the underfloor heating in the new (2000) part of the house get to it.

So this morning Ian went out and has been redesigning the area around our raspberries and gooseberries.

I ventured out later to plant out some climbers that have been sitting in pots for months waiting for us to renew some trellising near the pond.

Over the past few weeks we had put up the trellising, and Ian had painted it green to match.
All I needed was enough time in decent weather to do the planting.
Here is how it looked last May.
I hope that this coming May we will have a great display on the trellising to the left in the picture.

Otherwise, travelling to visit relatives over the past week has meant that I have finished off a pair of socks for Ian. All I need to do is sew the ends in and photograph them. I am already halfway through the next sock for me.