apples and hearts

Stourhead,

you have been here with me before.

This weekend we came here not only for a walk on a beautiful autumn day, but also to visit the Apple Day at the Stourhead farm shop, a regular annual event.

It gives us an opportunity to taste and buy a large selection of locally grown apples.

I love some of the wonderful names given to apples, for instance "Slack-ma-girdle"!

This area is also known for its apple cider and there are many producers here, old and new.

A relatively new company is  Fosseway Somerset Cider, which had a stand here today and we had a chance to sample their cider which is very nice.

 Needless to say that we came home with some of the "tastings".

I think I should explain a little the name "Fosseway".

Fosse Way was a road build by the Romans, which connected Exeter in the Southwest of England with Lincoln in Northeast.

It is possible that it was originally a defensive ditch to mark the western frontier of the Roman rule in Britain, and later filled in. Many parts of the original road still form parts of the roads today.

Fosseway runs through our county of Somerset, hence the name is used quite often here.

You can read more about Fosseway here.

Of course I could not help myself and I had to make an apple pie when back home, to keep to the spirit of the day.

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My stitching week has been taken up mainly with the small blocks for the Scandinavian Christmas border. I am now glad that I have decided to finish the quilt as per the original pattern, it will give it a nice finish.

I have found this sign in the National Trust shop at Stourhead.

I think it will go so well with the quilt.

I have also made some progress on the Norwegian design jacket.

During the week I received my order of this beautiful lace yarn, from Nimu Yarns,

a mixture of alpaca, silk and cashmere. I first saw this yarn on rubysasha's blog, thank you rubysasha for "discovering" it!

I plan to make a large scarf rather then a shawl, when I decide on a pattern.

I have a couple of lovely patterns in mind. I like both of them very much, I just need to make up my mind.

I wish you all a very good week!

September Sunday

Despite the heavy rain all night, we went for our early morning walk in the forest, as we do most weekends. It was very wet and slippery, but the smell and the freshness of the forest in the morning blows the cobwebs away.
No luck with mushrooms today. We had a couple of very cold nights during the week and that combined with lots of rain, the little we did find was well "past the sell by date".

With the changing colours, the forest has a definite autumn feeling about it.

Our walk takes us past the AlfredsTower, looking quite spooky in the morning mist,

and the Convent, which is now a private property, hidden deep in the forest, behind high hedges and therefore I have to "borrow" this picture. It has a very much the look of Hansel and Gretel.

There are many beautiful trees in this forest, like this  Douglas Fir, so tall I can't take a picture of the whole tree! 

Damp and hungry, we returned home, to our weekend treat, a breakfast of bacon and eggs, and a large pot of fresh coffee.

Later I made a plum and almond flan, using up the last of our plums.

Last week was a busy one for me, so I haven't done much stitching, but I did get on with my knitting, mainly in the evenings.

Downton Abbey returns to our television screens tonight, in the new, 8 part series.

Apparently, while away, Matthew has got engaged, but NOT to Lady Mary!?!

There is not going to be very much of counting stitches in the front of the television tonight!

Solveig Hisdal

I used to knit a lot many years ago, but with changing fashion and new stitching interests, knitting needles found their way into a draw. But with so many beautiful wools and designs around I felt recently that I would like to "knit something", but I could not find the right project.
My dilemma was solved when I came across this beautiful book by a top Norwegian designer, Solveig Hisdal.

All the designs in this book are knitted using Norwegian technique (knitting the whole body of the garment in one go on circular needles and then cutting into it for openings ), which I have not done before, but I want to try. It wasn't easy to choose which design to make. Also, the wool used is not available in UK, but I like to knit using the original wool, as it can be sometime difficult to find the right substitute and right colours.

Fortunately I was able to order the required wool directly from the Norwegian manufacturer, Ull.no.

Placing my order on Thursday, my wool arrived yesterday!

I can't wait to get started!

freeform designer bag

A couple of days ago I attended a lovely workshop, Freeform Designer Bag with Julia Hall (mother of Jane Hall) at Stitchncraft in Semley.

We were making knitted and crochet bag. The requirements listed Noro yarn, but we could use anything we wanted. I chose Noro as I have never used it before and the colours are so beautiful. In fact, I have not done any knitting for a long time, so I was really looking forward to this workshop. It makes an interesting change from knitting garments.
The idea is to knit and crochet various shapes and then attach them to the plastic bag frame. When the whole bag is covered, it then can be embellished with buttons, beads etc and a handle is stitched on and the bag is lined. Julia brought some bags she designed and made herself, they were fantastic. I can see that it is something which can become addictive, as so much is left to you own imagination, no two bags will ever be the same. Also, it is something that can be picked up and put down at any time, while working on the individual shapes.
I have already been looking up books on knitted and crochet flowers on Amazon!

This is as far as I got on the day! I will try to make as many pieces as I can before arranging them on the frame. So, watch this space!

day out with a friend

My friend and I have decided to have a day out, something we have not done for a quite a long time and we were starting to have withdrawal symptoms.
So we set out this morning, with the weather definitely on our side.

Our first stop was the Enchanted Plants shop in Shaftesbury, for a little bit of retail therapy Enchanted Plants.


Their hand made organic soaps are the heaven!






Then we drove, with a small stop for a browse in an antique shop, to Stitch'n'craft in Semley, to buy some of the materials needed for a designer bag I will be making in the next month's workshop.

 
 
 
 
 
By then it was time for refreshments and as we were not very far from the Pythouse, we decided to go there.
We set on the shaded terrace, overlooking the walled vegetable garden, with a pot of coffee and a couple of their scrumptious cakes.

 
Our last stop was a small shop called Clementine, in the courtyard of the Compton Marbling. We have not been here before, so we needed to investigate.
We found a lovely shop, in the depth of the countryside. It was a lot larger the we expected, full of all those things you don't need, but a fantastic place if you a looking for a present, for all ages.
 
Time to go home. It was a lovely day.

in the beginning

I learned to stitch from my grandmother,
who also gave me her treadle Singer sewing machine.
As a teenager all I wanted to do is to make my own clothes.

Later, when I had my own home and a family,

I made my curtains and cushions,

and I also did quite lot of knitting and crochet.

This is something I made when I became more confident
knitter.