Cornish adventures

Hello from the beautiful county of Cornwall! Mr JK and I have rented a cottage in the village of Port Isaac on the north coast of Cornwall. If you are familiar with the TV series Doc Martin, it was filmed here. The streets are narrow and winding, and lead down to the harbour. The sun was shining this afternoon so we went out for a stroll.

This is Doc Martin's house - I bet the people who live there get fed up with all the photos!!

Our cottage is really lovely; beautifully furnished with sea views. You can see it in the photo below - it's left of centre towards the top of the photo - you can see two white windows in a grey roof as well as the windows in the first floor of the property. I could hear the cries of seagulls as I lay in bed this morning. I think we are going to have a wonderful stay here.

The day started early because Mr JK wanted to take part in the Park Run at Lanhydrock. More than 200 runners were taking part, with the fastest man and woman both receiving a chocolate bunny! There were plenty of mini chocolate eggs for all the runners too! Although we have been around Lanhydrock before, we enjoyed seeing the gardens at a different time of year. There are some beautiful magnolias and camellias in bloom right now.

I just got a new camera before the holiday, and am trying out different settings. Luckily, this little robin was happy to sit patiently waiting for me to find the zoom!

We went around the house too. The kitchens and the servants' quarters are particularly fascinating and having watched all of Downton Abbey in the last year, both Mr JK and I could imagine Carson ruling the roost along with Mrs Hughes and Mrs Patmore!

Afterwards, we drove down to the south coast to the small town of Fowey. It was a place that I visited as a child, but I have to say that I didn't remember it at all! More narrow streets with quaint shops and the smell of hot pasties filling the air.This photo shows the view from Fowey to Polruan.

I spotted these knitted cakes in the window of a teashop! I can promise you at least one cream tea during the coming week. It just wouldn't be polite to come all this way and not enjoy one now, would it?!

 Not too sure yet what we shall be doing tomorrow. I do know that Mr JK has an early morning run planned along the coast path, but I shall stay in bed snoozing!  xxx

I do NOT need another hobby!

But I'm tempted! I went down to Suffolk to spend the day with a friend. I have known Cheryl for several years, first through the UK knitting forum Phoenix Knitters and latterly on Ravelry. I had forgotten that I had made a felted tea cosy for Cheryl back in 2010 in my early days of swaps and it was lovely to see that it was still in use!

Cheryl got a spinning wheel fairly recently and I went down to do some spinning with her. I know just how helpful I found it watching someone else spin when I was a new spinner. I showed her how to Navajo ply as she is hoping to spin some gradient yarns and this is the best way of keeping colours separate. We spent the morning spinning and after lunch, Cheryl's daughter Heather showed me how she makes lampwork beads. It was absolutely fascinating, watching how a tube of glass becomes a bead. And guess what?! I had a go too! It was quite tricky and certainly has made me appreciate all the effort that goes into making the beautiful lampwork beads. You start off with a rod of glass which gets heated in a flame until it starts to melt. This molten glass gets wound around a thin metal rod called a mandrel and then you rotate the mandrel whilst heating it so that the glass melts and flows into a rounded shape. You can add all different adornments; I rolled one of my beads in some tiny chips of blue glass called frits and then continued heating the bead until they melted into the bead. Once you are happy with your bead, it is removed from the heat and left to cool for a couple of hours in some vermiculite. Then it is put into some water to loosen the bead release coating on the end of the mandrel, removed with some kind of pliers very carefully so it doesn't break and the inside of the bead is cleaned with a pipe cleaner. Here are a few photos to show you.

First, the coloured glass rods. Aren't they just beautiful? Sometimes the beads end up a different colour depending on what temperature the glass is heated to and if there are any other additions to the bead. Fascinating stuff!

In this next photo I have already melted the end of a glass rod and wrapped it around the mandrel to make a bead, and am turning the mandrel in the flame. Towards the back of the photo, you can see a couple of white pots with mandrels sticking out of them. These are beads cooling in the vermiculite. 

Some cooled beads that Heather had made earlier. You can see the bead release coating on the end of the mandrel; it's a bit like a coating of slip (used in pottery.) 

Some examples of Heather's beads. They are just beautiful!

 

And finally, my own efforts! I shall sew a couple of bags and use them on the zippers I think. 

It was so much fun making the beads, I would love to do more of it. Cheryl gave me the name of the company Heather uses to get her equipment and glass supplies from (what a good enabler!!) and you can take a look at Tuffnell Glass to find out more if you are interested! I don't have room for this new craft at the moment, but who knows what the future may bring! xxx

And then there were socks!

Evening all! I got back home from Devon earlier today after a busy weekend of knitting, cake munching and tea drinking! The sock knitting went very well. We started off with a mini sock so that everyone could work through all the stages of knitting a sock. None of the girls had used double pointed needles before, so that in itself was a challenge to overcome! Add to that some revision on casting on and how to purl and it took longer than I had expected to complete the socks. However, the sense of triumph and delight when the final toe was grafted was tangible! Here are our mini socks for you to admire.

We made a start on the 'proper' socks using patterns from the Violet Green sock pattern generator. I like the fact that you can customise the pattern for both foot length and width and have always found it fits well. Flora managed to get the ribbing done before she had to leave.

After a hiccup with her casting on, Kay decided to work on her sock at home that evening, so Diane and I spent the evening knitting away together with the cats keeping us company. (Shhhhhh, don't tell Flo!!)

Kay popped back for a couple of hours yesterday morning and got her ribbing established and was so happy to have learnt a new skill. Diane was determined to finish her first sock and make a start on its partner. Just before lunch today, we had a grand 'ta dah' moment when we were both able to show off our finished socks.

Perhaps even more exciting, a new knitter was 'born' this weekend! Diane's 14 year old son was watching us fascinated, and wanted to have a go himself. Needles and yarn were found, stitches cast on and some progress was made on a skinny scarf! I cannot wait to follow the scarf's progress!

The girls are planning to get together this week to continue knitting their socks, and Diane is already planning her second pair!! Success! xxx

Devon, I'm in Devon!!

Or at least I probably will be by the time you read this! I'm off to spend the weekend with a friend from University. I taught her how to crochet last summer and she wants to learn how to knit socks, having been on the receiving end of several pairs from me in the past! She's invited a couple of other friends to come along too, so I have been busy putting together sock kits!

The tote bags were a surprise extra from Shiela at p2tog.com. I ordered three sets of double pointed needles from her and when she found out that I was making kits up for friends, she very kindly threw in the bags for them to carry all their sock paraphernalia around in. We are going to start off by knitting a mini sock to learn all the different stages of sock knitting, before starting on an actual pair. Just look at this little sock, so cute!

I am hoping for a clotted cream tea at some point over the weekend as well as plenty of knitting and chatting. I'll report back on how everyone gets on next week. See you then! xxx

Twinkle toes!

Evening all! I am celebrating the completion of my sparkly socks. I started them on the way to London last weekend and grafted the toe of the second sock this afternoon. The yarn was one of the skeins that caught my eye at Fibre East last summer, and I am trying to knit up my purchases from last year before buying souvenir skeins this summer. The pattern is Gabriola by Kim Swingle and knits up nice and fast.

As a reward for finishing my school reports, I went to the Sewing for Pleasure show at the NEC in Birmingham yesterday. Mr JK stayed at home and I went by bus, so had plenty of knitting time! The show had a lot of things I was not interested in such as card making and scrapbooking,  but I did manage to bring home a few bits and bobs; four fat quarters, some tiny wooden buttons,  a kit for making a scarf, a dress pattern and a sewing magazine. The scarf looks like it will be fun to make, and I have been inspired by the British Sewing Bee programme on TV to have a go at sewing something for myself. Talking of the Sewing Bee, I was browsing at some fabric when I happened to look up and standing next to me was Ryan from the show. He was a lovely lad, very friendly and happy to chat.

This afternoon we made the most of the spring sunshine and went for a walk around the gardens at Blickling Hall. We are so lucky to have so many beautiful places right on our doorstep. Back soon, I am counting down the days until the Easter holidays. xxx

Time Lapse no.2

We spent the weekend in London as Mr JK was running the Vitality North London Half Marathon today and I took the opportunity of some uninterrupted car knitting to make a start on my Fibre East sock project. Here's how the weekend panned out.

Friday 15:01 Norwich

19:42 Chigwell - a delicious dinner at the Ghandi restaurant.

Saturday 08:54 Woodford Tube station, heading into London for the day.

09:38 Victoria Embankment, looking towards the London Eye and Westminster; perfect strolling weather.

13:56 lunchtime carbs loading for Mr JK (and me!!) after browsing around Borough Market.

Sunday 09:48 Allianz stadium, North London, after waving Mr JK off on his half marathon, some al fresco, rather chilly knitting!

14:35 Woodford. A tasty snack in Costa Coffee before the drive back to Norfolk; finisher's medal worn with pride by Mr JK who finished the race in under 2 hours, beating his previous best by almost 15 minutes! Yay for Mr JK!!

18:08 Norwich. Back home and ready to chill out. xxx

This weekend....

........  I have enjoyed the spring sunshine sat drinking tea in the garden. Bliss!!

........ finished spinning the first half of my braid of pink fibre.............

.............. and knitted the third of my blocks for my Love Squared blanket.

This weekend, Florence has enjoyed the sunshine outside.......

.........assisted me with some spinning.......

.........  and kept a beady eye on the progress of 'her' blanket!

See you very soon! xxx