Attic24

Carcassonne Crochet Retreat :: Part 2

A few weeks ago I posted a blog all about my recent crochet retreat in the south of France (the post is ((here)) if you missed it), and I really enjoyed sharing the project that I designed and taught to the guests during our week away. We stayed in a really lovely four star hotel right in the heart of the old walled city of Carcassonne, and the week was a perfect mix of crochet and leisure time, and of time spent indoors and outdoors. Four days of the week we were based in the hotel retreating with our yarn and hooks, and two days were spent out and about on organised excursions.

Carcassonne is a very, very very old medieval town and there is much to learn about the life and history of a place that spans across many centuries. 

The history is more than a little bit mind blowing - in fact, Carcassonne has about 2,500 years of it and has been occupied in different ages by Romans, Visigoths and Crusaders. It's a walled citadel built high up on a hill, and you can see in the above photo that it's constructed with two sets of stone walls. 

The outer walls and towers are incredibly well preserved to say how ancient the town is, and over the years there has been a fair bit of restoration carried out to keep it in such good condition.

The walls are around 3 kilometres in length with 52 huge towers, and this is about the only thing I can remember from the ninety minute guided tour we had of Carcassonne.  We had a wonderful young French lady tell us all about it and she was extremely good at explaining the intricate layers of history that surround a place this ancient. It's just that my memory doesn't really hold onto that depth of information any more, but if you are at all interested, then Wikipedia can fill you in.

I just loved being there to soak in the ambience, and to appreciate how lucky I was to see such a famous and historical town with my own eyes.

There are four entrance gates which allow you to pass through the impressive stone walls and enter the old town inside. On the morning that we arrived, our coach dropped us outside the walls, and we walked through the main gate (pictured above) to reach our hotel - I'll never forget the >>wow<< that I felt seeing the old streets for the first time.

It was almost impossible to photograph our hotel because the streets were all very narrow and the buildings tall, but you can see part of it in the above photo on the right hand side. It was a gift staying in such a central location (I think there are only two hotels inside the walls), and at every opportunity I spent time walking around and soaking in the atmosphere.

The above photo shows the main square which was just a few minutes walk from our hotel, and the place where we went most days to eat lunch (and dinner too). Oh my goodness, it was such a pleasure! I mentioned in my first post that we were exceptionally lucky with the weather and during early October we were treated to temperatures in the high twenties. Imagine that?! For this sun-loving soul living in the cool north of England, this kind of sunny warm weather is the stuff of my dreams.

I can tell you that I really, really enjoyed my food in France. Lunches were a relaxed, leisurely affair and I especially enjoyed eating outside in the sunshine with a cheeky little glass of chilled rosé wine to help things along. A had some amazing salads (hello, warm melty goats cheese) but I think my two favourite and most memorable lunches were the above French onion soup (it tasted absolutely incredible, and I had it twice)....

....and snails! I've eaten snails before, many years ago in Paris when I was on a student art trip, and they are an interesting thing to put in one's mouth. In all honesty, I think perhaps I enjoyed mopping up the melted garlic and herb butter with my crusty bread a little bit more than the actual snails themselves, but it was a wonderful culinary experience for sure.

Carcassonne is an extremely popular tourist destination and I can imagine that in the height of the summer season it would be insanely busy. In fact, that's just reminded me of something else I remember from our guided tour - the numbers. Apparently there are only 47 residents living within the old city walls, but the town receives almost three MiLLioN visitors every year. That's rather a lot, isn't it?!

Luckily for me, October was a perfect month to be there and it was possible to really enjoy the unique atmosphere of the old streets without the crowds.

I absolutely loved walking around the streets - I abandoned my map pretty early on when I realised that I actually couldn't follow it (I kept getting lost no matter how hard I tried). 

I discovered that it was more fun to just meander along random streets, turning corners here and there and allowing myself to relax into the "lost" feeling. Eventually I would end up either back where I started (quite literally walking in circles), or popping out between buildings and suddenly recognising where I was.

On the day of our guided historical tour, we decided to leave the high old walls behind and descend down to the lower and newer part of Carcassonne. It took about half an hour to walk....

....and we discovered that the new town was just as delightful and full of character as the old town.

We arrived just as the morning market was coming to a close which was a bit of a shame as we only caught glimpses of a few stalls....

....but it was as beautiful as you would expect.

The lower part of Carcassonne has a huge town square complete with a fountain and a multitude of places to eat and drink. I find this sunny outdoor lifestyle so appealing and enjoyable, and at times I felt like I was existing inside a film or a travel brochure. It was pleasure overload!

It was a stunning afternoon (around 28 degrees I think) and the walk back was slow and hot. We crossed over the wide river....

....then began the slow climb back up the hill to the old walls. It was lovely though, very scenic and a really nice balance to the rather intense days of indoor crochet concentration.

Our second day of excursions took us by coach to another beautiful medieval town called Mirepoix.

There was no agenda here, just the opportunity to spend some hours pootling and enjoying the place.

I'm not really much of a shopper (although I do quite like browsing), but many of the guests really enjoyed all the little independent boutique shops here in Mirepoix. All along the ground floor underneath the arches there was a mixture of shops and cafés...

....lots of things to see and tempt you to part with your Euros.

I am much more of an outdoor tourist and would rather spend my time looking at trees and buildings and views than the inside of shops.

Mirepoix had some very beautiful and picturesque streets...

....and some delightful refreshment opportunities too.

I enjoyed a morning coffee, and then later on....

...a really incredible hot chocolate. You see that glass full of whipped cream?

Yup, alllllllll that cream went into my hot chocolate and it was possibly one of the richest, sweetest and most indulgent drinks I've ever experienced.

In the afternoon we were taken to another small town to visit a textile museum - this was mostly focussed on natural dyes, spinning and weaving techniques. It was interesting to learn about the importance of textiles in the region and see some of the very early spinning and weaving machines in action. 

There were many times during the week when we really enjoyed the beautiful little walled garden at the hotel. It was such a peaceful oasis and a lovely place to spend time.

Often we would find ourselves drawn there in the lull before heading out for our evening meal, enjoying the last of the sun and the company of lovely crochet friends.

I have to be honest and say that as much as I really loved teaching and being a part of the group, it was quite an intense experience and usually by the time 5 o'clock rolled around I was ready for a recharge. I would often head out by myself at this time to soak up the beauty of Carcassonne...

....and I think these quiet, early evening strolls were some of my favourite times.

It was impossible not to fall in love with Carcassonne, it was just so ridiculously beautiful!

I found that by the end of the week I really, really didn't want to leave. 

I loved being somewhere that was so unique and picturesque and I absolutely LOVED the dry, sunny, golden warmth. I mean, of course I'm sure I would have enjoyed it in dull grey weather too, but the gift of a hot, blue-sky week in October was appreciated so very much. Did I mention that I didn't want to come home?

After seven wonderful days I had no choice but to get on that plane and fly north back to England, and look, we brought the sunshine with us! London looked amazing from the air and although I still had some long hours of travel ahead, I was full of gratitude for the week I'd spent in France.

Well, I really hope you've enjoyed seeing a little more of my French trip - I've tried hard not to waffle too much and believe me when I tell you I'm only showing you a fraction of the photos I took. Haha - you've had a lucky escape!

The retreat was organised by Stitchtopia craft holidays which is part of a much larger travel company, and I can't recommend them highly enough. Everything is very well organised and each group is led by an experienced tour manager so you feel very well looked after. 

Hopefully very soon I'll be able to share news of my 2023 crochet retreat, it's exciting to think that I've got something so lovely and pleasurable to look forward to next year. A week of sunshiny crochet and beautiful views? Yes please!

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x Carcassonne retreat post : part 1 x

 

 

 

Friday

Hi all

Just testing out a blog post, to see if my photos load - Typepad has really been in bother this past week and I admit I've been both frustrated and worried. This is the first time it looks like it might be working again for me - please could you leave me a quick comment below, so I can see that it's all working - thank you so so much for your patience, and hopefully I can write some more to you over the weekend xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Typepad Issues

Morning my lovelies

It's Tuesday morning here in rainy North Yorkshire and I'm hoping this little bit of text reaches you. I just wanted to let you know that Typepad is having some issues and I'm so sorry to those of you who are trying to access patterns, or who simply want to see my photos. All Typepad blogs are suffering after a scheduled technical update at the weekend did not go well, so all we can do is wait it out I'm afraid.

Keep all your digits crossed!

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Carcassonne Crochet Retreat :: Part 1

Spending a week in the south of France in early October sounds pretty dreamy, don't you think? The sunny warmth, the amazing views and the relaxed atmosphere, it was everything I'd dreamed of and so much more besides.

So would you like to know how I came to be standing and gazing at the above view? Well five years ago, I was asked by a travel company if I would like to be one of the "craft experts" on their popular Stitchtopia craft holidays. As the name suggests, the holidays and retreats are all about textiles, and honestly, the more I learned about the quality of the trips and how well they're organised, the more I knew that I would say YES to pretty much anything. Spend a week in a French Chateau and teach colour and crochet to a group of lovely ladies? Join them on scenic excursions and partake in wine tasting and the such like? Sit and crochet in the sunny garden of a chateau in the French Alpes surrounded by beautiful mountain views? Yes, yes and YES please.

As it happens, when my first retreat launched in the summer of 2018 it sold out within the first 24 hours, and with a growing waiting list I was asked if I would consider doing a second week. So in the Spring of 2019, I went twice to France and did indeed get to stay in a chateau and taste wine and view scenic views and teach crochet - and it was absolutely WOnDErFUL.

The following year, I was due to go and tutor two different groups in Madeira but we all know what happened to travel plans in 2020. The trips were postponed to the following year.....but sadly with the world still in disarray, they too were cancelled. So I still haven't managed to visit Madeira, but in amongst all the chaos of postponed and cancelled holidays, another French retreat was planned for me, which is the one I finally got to take up earlier this month. Hurrah for life finally getting wings again!

The above photo is us - the Stitchtopia Attic24 crochet retreat of 2022. We had just arrived in France after a yawningly early start (Heathrow airport at 4.30am? Yes, it was that kind of early). In the middle of the front row you can see me looking all smiley and blooming ridiculously happy to be feeling waaaaaarm and sunshiney and south-of-Francey. In the back row on the far right is Allison who is the Tour Manager, and she's been with me on all three of my retreats.

Most of the ladies are from the UK, with the exception of one lady all the way from Sydney in Australia and another from the US. Some of them were new to these kinds of retreats, and some had already been on other crafting holidays over the years. It was also a real joy for me because out of the twelve guests, 7 of them had been with me in France in 2019, so I guess my teaching must be OK if they were game enough to come back for more?!

We were spending the week in picturesque Carcassonne, a very ancient medieval walled citadel high up on a hill. We were lucky enough to be staying in one of the handful of hotels right inside the old walls, which meant a short stroll through one of the old stone gates, along the most atmospheric cobbled streets and right into the heart of the old town. I will never forget seeing it for the first time - the above view gives you a flavour of what the main streets of Carcassonne are like, and I could honestly not get over how lucky I was to actually be staying there.

Our hotel was ancient (as you would expect from a medieval town), but the internal modernisation was beautifully done. There was so much character - old stone walls, tiled floors, wonky staircases, twisty-turny little corridors - if you want to take a peek, you can look at the hotel website ((here)) to see some photos of it. Walking into my bedroom made me feel like I was walking into a French film - something about the height of the windows and the way they open fully to welcome the outside in....oh, I fell instantly in love with the Frenchness of it all. 

Isn't the view dreamy? I was very lucky to be looking out over the garden from my bedroom and loved the stately lines of tall trees and the bell tower in the distance (with bells that struck on the hour). You can see the low single story building on the right of the photo? Well that was our crochet classroom for the week....

....it had many doors opening directly out to the garden and was the perfect setting. You won't really be able to tell from the above photo, but the week we were there we were blessed with insanely great autumn weather. Loads of sunshine, and beautifully hot days averaging around 25 degrees. When it rained, it came in the night - heavy downpours which made the mornings feel really fresh and clear. It was utter perfection.

We had six full days in France, four of them were filled with crochet and the other two were designated sight seeing days. Breakfast each day was a truly delicious affair - strong café au lait (yaayyy!), and a mouth watering selection of pastries and cake (yes, I discovered that cake for breakfast is a thing in France), rustic breads, continental meats and cheeses, fruit, nuts, yoghurts and granola...oh my goodness. Such a treat, and definitely a great way to start each day.

In the weeks before going to France, I worked on designing a teaching project especially for this retreat - you've probably already seen and read about the Bouquet Cushion (the post is HERE if you missed it). I used the above collection of mini-balls as my starting point and designed a circular cushion....

....and I really love how it turned out. There are twenty four rounds of crochet on each side, and I used the pattern to teach elements of colour design. I have an arts background and in my four years of training (art foundation diploma, followed by a 3 year BA degree in textiles) I learnt a great deal about colour. It's a vast subject with a lot of theory and science behind it, but when I teach I do try and keep it practical and simple and specifically tailored to work with yarn and crochet. We used the colour wheel and learnt about blending and tonal values, and about how to create harmonious colour contrasts and balance. 

On the days that we were in the classroom, we split the day in two. Morning sessions ran from 10 to 12.30, then there was a two hour lunch break (essential in France as lunch is a sociable, leisurely affair). Afternoons ran from 2.30 until 5pm.

I loved teaching my project, and I loved watching it come to life in their hands. The ladies were all good crocheters but were keen to learn some colour confidence from me - I guess choosing colours and learning what works can be challenging and not something that everyone finds easy.

I took the above photos at the beginning of day 2, so this is after the first full day of crochet. You can see the centre of the circles are all about soft colour blending, and then we worked with harmonious contrasts for the outer part. Learning about colours that jump forward and those that recede, those that dominate and those that add a gentle touch.

It was funny because I kept reminding the ladies that this was a retreat as opposed to a classroom, and that they were free to take breaks, use the garden, stretch their legs, drink coffee as often as they wished.....and yet my goodness, they worked HARD! 

Our lunch breaks were well earned I think, and I know I certainly enjoyed this part of the day very much. Although it was October and the holiday season was starting to quieten down, there were still plenty of tourists around and the cafés and restaurants were buzzing with happy folks enjoying their food in the sunshine. Tables and chairs which spill out onto sun-dappled, cobbled squares is an aspect of southern European life which I absolutely adore. Oh, I LOVE eating outside in the sun and it seems so far removed from our cool, damp British lunch time culture which is very much a cosy, indoor affair.

Every day once I'd finished my lunch, I took a little bit of time just to wander around and soak in the atmosphere of old Carcassonne. As I have zero sense of direction and can't read a map to save my life, I inevitably spent most of my time wandering in a semi-lost daze. However, I soon realised that being in a walled citadel had it's advantages because most of the little streets went round in a circle of sorts, so it was fairly easy to eventually find my way back.

Carcassonne is a ridiculously picturesque place and I took a LOT of photos during my lost wanderings, but I'm saving those for another post.

Back to the crochet and we are jaunting through the week now, with glorious circles of colour taking shape everywhere you look.

It  was so inspiring to see how much confidence grew as the days passed....

....and I loved watching the ladies become bolder with their colour choices.

On the last day of the retreat, most ladies had managed to complete both sides of their cushion and started working on their floral decoration. 

I'd created patterns for three different types of flowers, some berries, and two different sizes of leaf, but left the final design and composition of the floral bouquets open to interpretation.

I appreciate that there is maybe a little bit of apprehension held in the notion of becoming the Designer of a project. It's one thing to follow a pattern and maybe choose one or two colours here and there, but getting to be in the drivers seat for all of the colour choices in a project could be a little bit daunting?

The ladies on my retreat exceeded all my expectations, and with my help and guidance throughout the week they produced some really glorious work. I felt so proud of them, especially those who had started the week saying that they couldn't "do" colour and had seemed very unsure about all the decisions I was asking them to make. I can tell you in all honesty that they all did terrifically well....you'll see for yourself in a bit when I show you some of the finished cushions.

Even with the five hours a day we were spending in the classroom, the crochet didn't stop once five o'clock ticked around. One of the joys of being in a warm, Mediterranean climate was the fact that we could sit outside in the early evening and enjoy some golden hooky time. It was absolute bliss! In the above photo, I'm sat in the hotel garden working on my own cushion using leftovers from the Fireside blanket. What you can't see in the above photo, just to the left, is the bottle of sparking wine that had been popped open, and the lovely ladies I was spending time with.....all of it combined to make a wonderfully chatty, laughter-filled happy hour.

Crochet is such a wonderfully portable project, it really is the perfect thing to have in your bag when you are out and about. There is nothing nicer than sitting in a beautiful place and chatting to friends while your hands are quietly creating with yarn. In the above photo we were out on a day trip, spending time in a gorgeous little medieval town (I'll show you more in my next post) and had stopped to have a morning coffee. It was a delight for me to see my cushion design "out in the wild", and to to know that the ladies were enjoying it so much. Well, I really hope they were enjoying it - haha - maybe they just felt like they had to get some more rounds in?!

Throughout the week, I made sure to take time each day to go around the room and share everyone's progress. I think we can learn a huge amount by working alongside others but also learning to view our own work with an objective eye so to speak. However, even though we'd been looking at each others work every day and discussing the progress, it was still a wonderful surprise to see the cushions all together at the end of the week. 

WOW, they looked FanTAStic!!

Here we are on the last day, all happy and hookered out!!

↑↑ This was the first cushion to be crocheted together and declared finished, and it received a well justified round of applause and a beautifully glorious ta-dah moment in the hotel garden. Bravo Donna!!

Since we've come home we've carried on our crochet chatter via WhatsApp and I've really enjoyed celebrating the visual ta-dah's. Don't the finished cushions look amazing? They've turned out even better than I could have imagined, and I think it's so interesting to see how such different cushions came from the same pattern and the exact same collection of yarn. They each have their own personalities and represent a lot of joyful creativity, and I'm so happy that I was a part of the journey.

So - how do you think I enjoyed my week in France?? Do you think it made me happy right down to my toes? If you answered "yEs" then you would be absolutely right - I enjoyed it so so much that I really didn't want to come home! I remembered how much I enjoy teaching, how fulfilling it is to watch one of my own designs come to life before my eyes, and to see how much pleasure and confidence it can give to others. And of course it was pure bliss being transported up through the clouds and deposited somewhere warm and sunny for a while - that sunshine and clear golden light made my heart and soul insanely happy. 

I hope you've enjoyed this little insight into what a Stitchtopia crochet retreat with me looks like, it really was a super experience from start to finish. In my next post I'll take you walking so that you can see more of Carcassonne, it's honestly one of the most picturesque and atmospheric places I've ever been to. 

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ps, I've had lots and lots of requests on my social media for details about future retreats and how to find out about them. I'm going to be doing another one abroad next year and am just waiting for confirmation of the dates and finalising details before it's released on the Arena Travel website. I'll be sure to tell you as soon as it's available for booking, both here on my blog and on my Facebook/Insta pages too. Maybe you might be tempted to come with me for some sunshine hooky next year?! xx

 

 

 

The Bouquet Cushion :: Ta-dah!

A cardboard box containing fifty eight dinky little balls of yarn in a mouth watering palette of colours. I wonder what passes through your mind when you look at the photo above? Does your heart beat just that little bit faster? Do you start to immediately imagine all the things you could make with those delicious little balls of temptation? Or do you just like to gaze at the colours and sigh with pleasure? For me, it's all of the above. Plenty of contented sighing for sure, but also a fountain of ideas which does indeed make my heart skip a beat or two. So. Much. Potential!!

In case you've not come across this collection of yarn before, let me fill you in. It's a mixture of two popular yarns by the Dutch brand Scheepjes and the yarns are called Stone Washed and River Washed. They are a neat mixture of cotton and acrylic (it's a 78/22% blend, so feels very much like a super-soft cotton with a slightly woolly feel). Both balls come as standard 50g balls which you can find at retailers who stock Scheepjes yarn, and this box contains miniature versions of every colour available.

The balls are quite weeny as there is only 10g of yarn wrapped up here, but as that equates to approximately 26m in length it goes a surprisingly long way. I can tell you that it's wonderful to crochet with, a real delight. It's soft and works up quickly, and the blended nature of each shade means that it's perfection for any type of colour work.

At this point, I should explain that I bought this box of yarn with a very specific project in mind - it was to be used as the starting point for a retreat workshop that I was going to be teaching in the south of France. When I teach these kind of retreats, I like to give the guests a decent palette of colours to work with so that I can include colour theory and planning as part of the creative process. And the project? Well, for this retreat I decided on a circular cushion cover which essentially gave us two large circles to crochet - plenty of opportunity for colour play.

The pattern I settled on is a larger adaptation of the Yuletide Mandala and as you can see it's a super design for colour work. For the centre of the cushion front I deliberately wanted to focus on colour blending to create a soft, graduated circle of colour. I chose to use shades of blue (above), but I also crocheted some alternatives to demonstrate how to use the colour wheel when choosing which shades to blend...

....on the left I blended yellow, greens and turquoise, and on the right I blended orange, reds and purples.

The idea was to create a centre for the cushion that would act as a soft, blended background for some extra decoration.

This is my finished front - a blend of cool blues for the centre, then a jolly mixture of random brights to bring it all to life.

Once the front was finished and I'd written down the pattern and made sure all the maths was working for each round, I immediately made a start on the cushion back. I was in a frenzy of colour bliss working up these bright and cheery rounds...such fun to crochet!

Ooooooooo, isn't it lush? I love love love how the second circle turned out....

....and here they both are together. Eeeeep, such happy crochet!!

I think I used around 40 different colours in total, just in case you were wondering.

Now, remember how I mentioned that the blended blues on the front would have some added decoration? Well, of course it had to be flowers. Yes, a cute little bouquet of pretty blooms!

I designed some new flowers especially for this project, and I think they turned out beautifully.

I hadn't really planned how to arrange them at this point, I just made a collection of flowers, leaves and berries that I thought would work well together and took my time playing with them.

The long tail ends are left on purpose as they are used to stitch the flowers to the cushion....

....which was a really enjoyable part of the process for me. I do love a bit of quiet, mindful stitching from time to time.

Let me show you how it looks once everything has been stitched in place.....

....ooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!! Look how pretty!!

I tried to keep the flower arrangement from being too symmetrical which is harder than you might think. I wanted it to look a little bit random somehow, as if I'd just picked a posy from the garden and plopped them into a little jug.

The cushion measures around 40cm across, and the joining method includes a very cleaver button closure so that you can pop a cushion pad inside and remove the cover for washing in future. It took me aaaaaaaaaages to work out how to do this, and I'm so chuffed with how it worked out!

I used small 10mm clear buttons which sit neatly in between the two scalloped edging layers. So happy with the neatness of it!

I ordered a 45cm round pad to fill out my cushion and make it all plump (from Amazon here) and I was really excited to take the Bouquet Cushion all the way to France for its official moment of ta-dah-ness.

This is the reverse which turned out so bright and jolly.......

....and here is the floral front which honestly I love so, so much. Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!

Getting to photograph it in the beautiful hotel garden was such a pleasure - the clarity of light in the south of France is something special I can tell you.

I was in France for a week with a group of super-lovely ladies, twelve guests in total. We had four days dedicated to crochet and I don't mind telling you that I was a little bit nervous on that first morning. Nobody had seen my cushion at that point, and the yarn was a surprise too.....eeeek.....I hoped with all my heart that they would like the project and would be happy about being colour designers.

In my next post I'll share my retreat experience with you, so you can see how I took this project from the Attic to Carcassonne, and what the ladies made of my design. Hint- it was WONdeRfUL!!

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ps a little note about the pattern - I created the Bouquet Cushion as an exclusive project especially for the retreat. And so for the time being it will remain with the ladies who came with me to France and won't be published online. Thank you for your understanding x

 

 

Home into Autumn

Hellooooooo to you all, how have you been? It feels like a good long while since I was here chatting to you but that's mainly because I've been away from home, and I think time away often moves at a different pace to the normal, everyday sort of tick-tock time on the home clock.

Actually, this time last week I was still travelling, making my way from the south France to London, then up along the backbone of England all the way north to Yorkshire. It took thirteen hours in total, a coach, a plane, the underground and two trains, with some weary walking up the hill at the very end. 

I've spent the last week resting quite a bit and easing myself back into gentle home routines. It's been a pleasure to allow my days to gently unfold and soak up the quiet, comforting homely vibes here at number twenty four. 

There has been a distinct chill in the air this past week and honestly, it has felt really beautiful. I've often said that I am happiest when our English seasons run true, and so far autumn is feeling wonderfully autumnal. Happy me!

It was my birthday last week and I celebrated fifty four trips around the sun. I had coffee with my good friend (we have a standing date at a favourite café every Tuesday morning) and she gave me a card, a little wrapped present, a bag of pears and a solitary beetroot (complete with roots and soil attached) which she'd dug up from the community veg plot on her way to the café. It was the funniest gift which made me double over with laughter, and that reminds me I really do need to cook it! I think I'm going to roast it in the oven. She also very kindly gifted me the most stunning bunch of fragrant stocks and I inhaled their sweet, peppery scent all the way home.

Don't they look lovely? Stocks and a muddy beetroot - what more could a girl want, eh?!

My birthday was on Wednesday and the day was bright and blustery, perfect for a lunch time stroll. 

J doesn't often take a proper lunch break when he's working (something which we often argue about), but on this day he made time  to come to the woods with me. We had Little Lady with us too, and I must say I am really, really loving the fact that I still have her at home for the time being. 

The leaves are just beginning to fall in the woodland and although it's still mostly green in the treetops, there are lots of leaves now on the ground. There is seasonal beauty all around, and I am absolutely here for it.

We are continuing to manage without our central heating, and I'm kind of getting used to the house being a bit on the cold side. I can't say I like it that much (I take after my late Mum, and really don't like to feel cold), but I am coping. I'm dressing in multiple cotton layers, adding a thick jumper when I need it, woolly socks constantly on my feet and blankets, blankets and more blankets. If I'm sitting, then I'm covered in at least two blankets. I shall be known as Lucy Layers this season. Thank goodness for the fire, my gosh I worship this thing, it brings me immense pleasure and comfort and I absolutely would not be without it.

Since I came home from France, I'm taking even more pleasure than usual from my every day views. I really do love where I live and looking at it as if I were a visitor is something I do quite often. Do you do the same I wonder? Or is this just another of my weird and wonderful habits?!

I walk along this narrow road beside the canal almost every day as it's the quickest route into the centre of town, and it's such a sweet way to observe the changing seasons too. 

On bright days when the sun has felt juuuuuust about warm enough for us to sit outside, J and I have had our morning coffee al fresco. There are a couple of small bistro tables outside our regular coffee shop and I've really enjoyed having the October sun on my face as I slurp my frothy coffee. These small pleasures bring such a lot of joy to my days.

I don't really have much to say about the above photo to be honest! It was an afternoon walk to the supermarket to pick up a few bits that we had run out of. The flowers caught my eye as I walked along the tow path to Tesco, and my immediate thought was to take a photo so that I could show you. Blogging is such a deep-rooted way of life for me that I very rarely stop to question myself over it. Take a photo of a boat with some flowers to share with the twenty thousand strangers who visit the Attic every day (give or take a few)? Completely normal.

I almost forgot that in between the slow, mundane, restful days at home last week, I took off on a very quick jaunt. Good job I snapped a photo of the platform or else I would have forgotten! So yeah...three days after returning from France I was back on the trains again, but a quick journey this time just over to York to visit some of my dearest friends. It was a reunion with the ladies who kept me sane during those very early new born baby days, celebrating twenty years of motherhood and friendship. It was honestly the best night, so full of laughter that I had to work hard not to actually pee my pants. I count myself very lucky to have these kind of friends, it's something special to be able to pick up with each other over the years and feel like no time has passed.

I haven't had chance to chat to you much about the Fireside blanket which launched about a month ago. But I just wanted to say a massive, heartfelt THANK~YOU to everyone who bought a yarn pack and started out on this cosy blanket journey, it's been wonderful for me to see so many new blankets taking shape in recent weeks. I know that many of you are new to using Stylecraft Highland Heathers yarn and it's been great to hear how much you've liked it. 

My own blanket is in constant use and it's the perfect size to wrap around my shoulders (my name is Lucy Layers, remember) or cosy across my legs.

A few days ago I came across a photo on Facebook which made my heart skip a beat, and I knew I had to show you.....

......what do you think?? Isn't it BEaUtiFuL??? It's made using the twelve Fireside colours following my random stripe order which you can find ((here)). The pattern is the Seashell Stripe (which I used to make my Dune blanket) and I think it looks absolutely stunning. Amanda, if you are reading this, I just love love love your blanket, thank you so much for sharing on Facebook, what an inspiration.

At the moment I'm using the leftovers from my Fireside blanket to make a circular cushion and I am absolutely crushing on the colours all over again. They somehow look different when in a circle, a bit brighter and more lustrous? Is lustrous a real word or did I just make that up...hahah....I kind of want to say Lush-trous?!! 

Anyhow, this is the second side of the cushion and I'm almost finished so I'll show you later in the week when it's done. I started the project when I was in France as I needed something fairly easy to work on in the teeeeny gaps of time when I was free from teaching and wasn't out walking and falling in love with stone walls and cobbled streets.

Speaking of France, I had a wonderful, amazing time teaching on my Stitchtopia retreat and I fell a little bit in love with beautiful Carcassonne. It was ridiculously picturesque and atmospheric and I took a gazillion photos which I've spent aaaaaages organising and editing over the past few days.

I'd like to share my trip with you, if you'd be interested to see what an Attic24 Crochet retreat looks like? It was pretty colourful (of course) and there was lots of crochet and coffee and beautiful views and the sunniest sunshine.....more soon!

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September Seasonal Shift

September was such a lovely month here this year, an absolutely perfect mix of summer and autumn. This seasonal shift has caught me by surprise in the best possible way, and I have to say that one week into Autumn and I am really loving it.

Early September still felt very summery with warm, dry weather and many days of sunshine. My toes were certainly happy :)

Little B went back to school in the second week of September and setting an alarm again after the ease of the summer holidays was a bit of a shock to the system. I do enjoy the school routine though, and once the youngest, noisiest child is out of the house for the day a rather delicious quietness settles on the home front. 

The kitty has wanted to be close to her humans just lately and in the quiet of the morning I really enjoy her cosy company. She's not a cat that you can entice onto your lap very easily, so these kind of snuggles are always very much on her terms and it's lovely when she decides I'm the place to be!

I bought summery flowers for my table and gave our downstairs living room a bit of a tidy up and a refresh. I don't mind telling you that I was very lazy over the summer months when it came to housework, but there is something about the back-to-school vibe which returns the focus to home routines.

I continue to really enjoy my weekly yarny meet-ups at the café and in September I was obsessed with knitting these socks. I managed to finish one sock down to the end of the toes, and the second sock is ready to start with the heel I think. I had to put them away while I concentrated on creating the Fireside tutorial, but with the colder weather snapping in I really want these socks off my needles and onto my feet. It's firmly on my to-do list.

Middle of September I was gifted some beautiful produce from my friend's allotment plot which almost made my cry with gratitude and delight. A punnet of the most delicious sun ripened tomatoes and a bunch of flowers for drying so that they'll last right through the winter months.

Such beautiful late summer colour wrapped in newspaper, a nostalgic reminder of my childhood too as my Mum used to grow these flowers on her allotment.

I made a caprese salad for my lunch with some of the tomatoes and ooooohmygosh it was ever so good. Such simple, fresh flavours and a real taste of summer.

This was a sunny Saturday afternoon walk around local fields and lanes because it was just too nice to stay indoors.

 I stood for ages watching that tractor ploughing up and down the side of that huge hill, it was crazy satisfying to observe the slow but pleasing toil of it somehow. I remember also thinking that the colours of the landscape in mid September perfectly matched the seasonal shift from summer to autumn.

I love this view as we get near to home after our walks out to neighbouring villages. We live in quite a hilly area of the town and I love to see all the old Victorian terraced streets following the contours.

We had some really beautiful weather once we'd passed over the autumn equinox, the sort of bright, clear skies that invite you to walk just for the pleasure of it.

I found myself wandering through the park and up to the farm shop one morning, just to get a feel for the season and see what was fresh and inviting. Lots and lots of baby pumpkins greeted me as I walked in the door, leaving no doubt about the season we are now in. Bye-bye summer.

I didn't buy baby pumpkins, but I did buy chocolate. This is one of my favourite local chocolates made in York and I just love it. I love the packaging and I love the gorgeous flavours they come up with - dark chocolate is my preference and this Blood Orange Gin flavour did not disappoint. Crikey it was insanely good.

Some days have felt very much more autumnal than others, and although September was a pretty dry month we did have our fair share of the damps. Low, low cloud pressing down on the landscape....

....spinning teeny, tiny droplets of water into the hedgerows and over everything, us included.

Other days were just amazingly golden and gorgeous, I mean, look how StUNning this light is!! Seven o'clock and the sun is just rising over the hilltops at this time of year, my goodness it really is something special to be out in the world at that time of day.

A gorgeous reward for those early alarms and a reminder that a brisk morning walk is so, so, so good for the mind and soul as well as for the body.

I am still wearing my sandals on days when it's dry and not too chilly, but I often find that by mid afternoon my toes need a little snuggle time. So far we've managed to keep the central heating off and have been making very good use of the crochet blankets and woolly layers as the temperature continues to drop. I light the fire most evenings now, and am truly embracing the cosy vibe of the autumn season.

So here we are into the beginning of Autumn and summer is most definitely over for another year. I've got an exciting trip coming up though, and I'm hoping for some wonderful, warm sunshine which will be such a treat. On Monday I'm going to be travelling south, all the way down to south west France in fact to spend a week in the medieval walled city of Carcassonne (pictured above). This is a working holiday for me - I'm travelling with Stitchtopia and will be teaching on a crochet retreat with a lovely group of ladies, and I'm pretty bloomin' excited I can tell you.

I'll look forward to catching up with you all once I'm back here in Atticland, I will probably have one or two photos to show you from France.........! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fireside Stripes

Morning my lovelies! I want to start today's post by giving you all a massive, big, squishy warm ((((HUG)))) by way of a thank you for all the beautiful comments and messages I've received about the Fireside Blanket. Its hard to put into words how this week has been for me, but overwhelmingly I am so very thankful for our happy, friendly community here online. I am just so bloomin' grateful for you all!! Huge thanks to any of you who hopped over to my shop to buy a Fireside blanket kit, it has made me feel quite emotional seeing how many thousands of blankets are going to be taking shape all over the world in the coming weeks. I hope with all my heart that these cosy colours bring you joy and contentment as you begin to work your own hooky magic.

On Thursday we lit our first fire of the season. Even though it was the last day of Summer and I desperately wanted to at least wait until Autumn had officially arrived, we gave in when we found ourselves cold and shivering in the late afternoon. It felt so, so lovely, not just the heat of it, but the light too - the dancing glow of firelight is really something special I think.

As promised, I've spent some time working on creating a striped sampler using the twelve Fireside colours. This kind of design work makes me insanely happy, and I've been absolutely love love loving watching these colours blend and dance in front of my eyes. This is a seriously harmonious colour palette - rich and warm and very easy on the eye.

As there are only 12 colours in the Fireside yarn pack, a striped blanket made with this pack will turn out shorter than my usual 6ft blankets. In my experience, one ball of Stytlecraft DK weight yarn will comfortably give you six stripes if you follow the suggested starting chains for my stripe patterns (which give a 4ft width). Some patterns where the stripes are narrower (eg the Moorland neat wave or the Dune seashell) will give you seven stripes per ball. This will make sure you have enough yarn left over to create a border at the end.

When making striped blankets, I strongly recommend you get some digital kitchen scales if you don't already have them. They aren't too expensive to buy - I have these ones from Amazon and they are pretty accurate and a great tool for weighing yarn. You can weigh a yarn ball, crochet up a stripe, then weigh the ball again and you'll see how many grams you've used for one stripe. It's a simple technique but really useful.

As a rough guide, a 4ft width blanket will use approx. 12-13g of yarn per stripe.

You will also need to have roughly 20g of yarn left over to create a single border round.

I figured you could use any of my existing patterns (I've listed ten below) to create your own Fireside Stripe blanket. All you need to do is use Cairn (the pale blue) to start and follow the relevant patterns for the number of starting chains, then use the worksheet to know which order to work your colours. 

Trellis Stripe (Sweet Pea) 

Neat Ripple 

Cosy Stripe 

Granny Stripe 

Meadow Stripe 

Spike Stitch (Dahlia) 

Seashell Stripe (Dune) 

Neat Wave (Moorland) 

Woodland Ripple 

Easy Eyelet Ripple (Harbour) 

I've created a stripe order with just 72 stripes (6 of each colour) for the Fireside as this works with the yarn quantities. If you end up with enough yarn to add an extra set of stripes at the end, you can just repeat the colour order again from row 1, does that make sense?

This will obviously give you a shorter length blanket, I'm Guestimating that it'll be somewhere around the 5ft / 150cm length. I hope this doesn't sound too vague, and those of you who have already made some of my striped blankets in SSDK will have enough experience to use your own judgement (helped by the scales!) to work out the number of stripes to make.

Anyhow, here is the link for the PDF worksheet :

FIRESIDE STRIPE WORKSHEET

Well, I hope my waffle has made sense today, please do ask me any questions in the comments and I'll reply to you directly.

And finally - I really hope you enjoy these colours as much as I do, they are lush, aren't they?!

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Here are a few useful links >>

♥ FIRESIDE YARN PACK (includes a 16 page full colour printed pattern)

♥ FIRESIDE TUTORIAL

♥ FIRESIDE TA-DAh BLOG POST

 

The Fireside Blanket :: Ta-dah!

Good morning! If you want to go and grab a Fireside yarn pack, here is the link to Wool Warehouse >>

FIRESIDE YARN PACK

Please do read on if you'd like to find out more about the blanket design and drink in lots of colour!

I've been crocheting with Stylecraft yarns for over twelve years now, and this is the first time I was tempted to abandon my beloved Special DK to try something different. For those of you who don't know this particular yarn, it's called Highland Heathers DK which is a premium acrylic yarn with a rich depth of colour. The colour palette is heavily inspired by nature, so the shades are quite earthy and natural with a few brighter surprises to lift the overall tone and stop it from becoming too dreary.

I was very excited to try it out as I'd heard nothing but good things about it in the few years since it launched, and a warm, snuggly blanket for Autumn seemed like the perfect project for it.

Sadly, this yarn is a bit camera shy so it's hard to get a good photograph which shows off the true lushness of the colours. You have to trust me when I tell you it is absolutely BEAuTiFUL. The "heathered" look is created by heavily blending several shades together giving them a subtle tweeded effect, and it really is lovely.

The yarn itself is also slightly more floofsy than Special DK and it has a really soft, slightly fuzzy appearance. I think the technical word is "halo" - yes, this yarn definitely carries a halo, in that there are teeny, fine fibres all along the surface of the strand which really help to add to the soft, blended appearance.

Because this yarn is a little more expensive, I opted to make a smaller sized blanket so that I could create a neat palette of a dozen colours.

Twelve balls (100g of each colour) is enough to make a blanket measuring approximately 120cm square.

The Fireside colours from left to right...

♥ Tayberry ♥ Whiskey ♥ Lichen ♥ Loch ♥ 

♥ Thrift ♥ Marmalade ♥ Gorse ♥ Firth ♥ 

♥ Thistle ♥ Heather ♥ Bracken ♥ Cairn ♥ 

You can find the Fireside yarn pack in my shop at Wool Warehouse, click on the link below...

FIRESIDE YARN PACK*

*the yarn pack contains a 16 page full colour A4 printed pattern

I've been lucky enough to work with Wool Warehouse for over eight years now, and they continue to do such a fantastic job of sending my yarn packs out all over the world. They are lovely, lovely people too - a young family business, run by folks who genuinely love their customers and want nothing more than to make everyone happy.

You probably already know that I earn a small commission on each pack sold through my shop, so I want to take this opportunity to thank you so much for supporting me in this way. I am extremely grateful, thank you, thank you.

Also, you know I always publish my patterns here on my blog for free, but in addition to the online tutorial I've created, there is a 16 page full colour A4 printed pattern included in the Fireside yarn pack. Yes sixteen pages! 

The design for the Fireside blanket came together very slooowly over many weeks of sampling. I opted to combine some ideas from previous blankets that I've made - I think I was maybe searching for some familiar comfort, something that would bring me back to my roots so to speak. So you may well recognise the look of the fireside squares because they are very similar to the ones I designed for my Summer Garden throw. And you might also think that the layout looks familiar too, because I made a blanket many years ago which combined two different sized squares (the Sweet Flower granny).

Having said all that about wanting comfort and familiarity, this blanket journey was NOT especially comfortable! I spent a lot of time in the sampling stage (way more than usual), and then once I was about a third of the way through I realised it wasn't working out as it should and it then spent an extended period (almost three months) in the naughty corner. Eventually I decided that the only thing I could do would be to start all over again, so that is exactly what I did. And do you know, from that point on it was an absolute, total pleasure.

The centre rounds of any square design can often feel a little bit fiddlesome, so my preferred method is to crochet them all at once and get them done and dusted. If you would like to do the same with your own Fireside blanket, then here are the numbers for you :

5 of each : Loch : Thrift

6 of each : Bracken : Firth : Gorse : Lichen : Tayberry : Thistle : Whisky

7 of each : Cairn : Marmalade : Heather

There should be 73 little circles  in total which form the first round of each square.

As part of my design process I also needed to make all of the round-two circles in one go too. This was mainly to make sure that I used all twelve colours evenly, but they are also very photogenic arranged like this, aren't they? It's not necessary for you to do it this way, although of course you could if you wished.

Turning circles into squares is very easy and a little bit magic. I deliberately selected contrasting colours  so that the circles would stand out against their backgrounds.

I really like to join blanket squares using the join-as-you-go method where you use joining slip stitches as part of the final crochet round of each square. It's a wonderful, fast method which allows you to see your blanket grow as you work. I explain the technique in full in the tutorial, but if you really don't like joining in this way then it's perfectly OK to stitch your squares together instead.

I'm in my element here, working steadily away, making colour choices on the fly and designing the colour placement pretty much as I go along. In the above photo I'm away by the sea in Saltburn, spending many blissful hours listening to music and hooking those little circles into squares.

Home again - it's mid July now and I'm about half way through the joining process now. This is my favourite kind of design work as it's all about the colour balance and is a really delicious challenge for a colour-addict like me. 

I'm almost at the end of the joining now, and Tilly is on hand to inspect my work and make sure the yarn is pulling correctly. Whatever would I do without her?!

YAY!!!!!!! All the squares have been joined now, and I'm super happy with how it's looking. It's time to design the border, and I spend a long while working on samples and deciding on the order of the colours. I know the border is going to be big and wide and will use all twelve shades and I'm majorly excited about getting stuck into those long, soothing granny rounds.

We went off on a summer holiday at the very end of July and it was lovely to have the border to work on while I was away. Because I'd already made all the colour and design decisions, it was pure, hooky bliss! We stayed in a small fisherman's cottage which had a beautiful, sunny enclosed garden full of flowering shrubs and potted geraniums. I spent most afternoons sat there with my crochet on my lap, drifting in and out of seasidey daydreams as my hook did it's thing.

I also took the Fireside blanket to the beach, well of course I did. We were staying in a very special place - the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in Northumberland - and this quiet beach was just a few minutes walk from the holiday cottage.

I was absolutely living my best life during this week - oh, happy, happy, happy me!

Every day we would head to the beach in the evening to watch the sun set - it's around 8.30pm in the above photo. I would settle on a bench with my hooky while J and Little B went off to beach comb for sea treasures. So many happy summer memories stitched into the border of this blanket, which I hope will carry me through the cold months to come.

I made twenty-one rounds of granny stitch for the border, nice and wide to frame the squares.

And then a final round of dainty little scallops just to add a delicate finishing touch. In the above photo I had just made the very last slip stitch and knew that the blanket was finished. Such an odd feeling - huge joy in finishing up a project that has spanned many months, but also an acute feeling of loss too. Bitter sweet indeed.

I really, really LOVE the border and it does its job so well. It holds the squares in place, keeps them from looking chaotic and disorderly. It brings a calming finish to the whole blanket and allows the colour palette to sing.

Surprisingly for a blanket made up of squares, there wasn't really any need to block it as it looked wonderfully smooth and neat. But I think blocking is a lovely way to finish off a blanket journey and well worth the effort, so I did treat my Fireside blanket to a little spa treatment (blocking advice is given in the tutorial).

SO would you like to see it?

OK..........here it is.............

........................ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so, so happy with how it turned out, and absolutely ADORE it. The colours are really rich in real life (the photos really don't do it justice) and the blanket is warm, soft, cosy and snuggly - everything a blanket should be.

I really hope you love it as much as I do.

At the weekend I quickly worked up a stripe sample using all twelve colours arrange in a rainbow order. I'm calling it a "heathered rainbow" which I think is quiet poetic?! I used the super-squishy Hydrangea Stripe pattern for my sample, but if you wanted to make a striped blanket you could of course use any of my existing patterns.

I'm going to be working on a random stripe order during the next few days as I've already had many requests for this on social media. I'll share more stripy info in a separate blog post at the weekend for those of you who prefer stripes to squares.

Going back to the Heathered Rainbow - I followed the exact colour order on this lovely wooden shade card, made by my friend Veronica. You can buy these lovely birch wood cards via Etsy, they are brilliant for keeping a record of colours, and for reference while you are making your blankets. In the Fireside palette for example, the two blues (Loch and Firth) can look very similar, so it's really useful to be able to check which is which!

(wooden birch shade cards can be purchased via Simply Shade Cards on Etsy)

Thank you also to Jo for adding in yarn tassels for me especially for my photograph (I have the nicest friends you know)

Since I finished making my blanket in early August I've had plenty of time to get acquainted with it and I'm happy to report that it lives up to its cosy, homely name. 

It's ever so warm, and at 4ft square it's the perfect size for a generous lap blanket, or to fold in half and wrap around your shoulders like an oversized shawl. I've been doing  both on a daily basis because we've had an unexpectedly cold snap as we've come to the end of the Summer season.

I named the blanket "Fireside" as I wanted it to feel cosy and comforting, the kind of feeling you get when you are snuggled up warm at home on a chilly day. The colours really do give off that cosy warm vibe I think, so even if you don't have a real fire to enjoy, I'm sure you can still take comfort from this lovely blanket.

As always, I've worked hard to create a very full, in depth  tutorial to help you make the Fireside blanket. It contains LOTS of photos which explain the join-as-you-go technique and guides you through the whole process from start to finish. My hope is that it will enable beginners to have the confidence to give this project a go, it's my mission to help absolutely everyone find the joy in making blankets! 

Here is the link >>

FIRESIDE BLANKET TUTORIAL

If stripes are more your thing, then make sure to check back here at the weekend and I'll have some samples to show you and some guidance about yarn quantities, patterns and sizing etc.

Well I think that's about all the Fireside chat for now, I hope you've enjoyed a peek behind the scenes into my creative process and have enjoyed seeing my blanket journey take shape.

Thank you as ever for your enthusiasm and support of my work, it really does mean the world. THANK YOU!!!

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Here are a few useful links >>

♥ FIRESIDE YARN PACK (includes a 16 page full colour printed pattern)

♥ FIRESIDE TUTORIAL

♥ FIRESIDE WORKSHEET DOWNLOAD

 

Summer Snaps :: late August 2022

Hello, hello, hellooooooo!!!!! How're you all doing out there in the Big Wide World?

I've been meaning to check in here for the past week or so, well ever since Little B returned to school actually, and it's been tricky to find the right time of day/evening when I can be fully present without other things clamouring for my attention. Finally I've managed it - it's 7.30pm and I've come to sit cosy in bed with my laptop as it's been a surprisingly chilly day and I needed the comfort.

I had a long debate with myself earlier on today about how exactly to jump back in here, and in the end decided to give you something of an end-of-summer round up before everything starts to get forgotten in the seasonal shift. Although I'm embracing the return to the school and working routines and the fact that Autumn is sitting very close on the horizon, it's always lovely to look back and celebrate every last bit of Summer.

J had some time off work at the end of August which allowed me to take some time down south (more of that in a bit), but also for us to enjoy a bit of a staycation week here with the Little People.

We took a day trip up to Cumbria to visit a National Trust property called Sizergh. It's quite a grand old house with a huge estate, so we did a four mile circular walk with a picnic lunch, then spent some time enjoying the house and gardens which were at their peak in late August.

The kitchen garden was absolutely beautiful and I couldn't get enough of the abundant colours....

....oh, it was glorious!

I also loved this long walled border which was bursting with later summer colour....

....and attracting a good many bees and butterflies too.

It was a lovely day out and I'm hoping we can do more exploring of new places in the months to come.

Closer to home, we've been getting out and about to walk in the local countryside right on our doorstep. The weather at the end of August and into early September was seriously lovely, remaining bright and sunny and warm enough to walk in t-shirts. I can't adequately describe my constant levels of happiness in relation to the warm sunny summer we've had, but it has been pretty sky high. Finally a summer that behaved itself and truly felt like a Proper Summer!!

I walked and walked, often two or three times a day I would find myself keen to get out there and walk. J and I continue to enjoy our 7am fast-paced, slightly breathless power walks through the woodland (so good, love love love it), then a solo stroll around town sometime in the morning for me - walking along the canal, a trip to the café for coffee, errands to run, groceries to buy. And then sometimes an evening walk too, usually with Little B, to take in the summery evening skies and breathe it all in.

My daily coffee, taken outside most days through the warmth of late summer. I simply can't imagine life without this pleasurable mid morning pause, I love it so much.

I enjoyed being at home as the summer shone on through late August, our sash windows pushed up high to let the warm breeze blow through the house. 

At the every end of August I set off to travel south on the train down to Dorset. This seems to have become the norm for me now - frequent solo visits every 3 or 4 months to touch base with my Dad, making the most of these times when his health is still pretty stable. It's also lovely for me to be back in my childhood place too, and I find myself soaking in that deep-rooted familiarity and feeling very grateful for it. 

I hardly ever eat ice cream, but on this day I joined in with my Dad and Lady B and had an old fashioned Mr. Whippy with a flake. My goodness, what a hit of nostalgia that was, I felt like I was ten years old! 

We strolled slowly, slowly along the promenade - I think my Dad is honestly the slowest walker I have ever met in my life and I have to dig deep to find the patience to slow my own pace down to a dawdling shuffle. But promenades are good places for slow shuffles, so once I adjusted to it, all was well.

The sea was incredibly calm on this day with barely any waves at all, and even though I prefer it when it's noisy and crashing and salty, it was still lovely.

My trip to Dorset was only short this time, and after two nights I was off on my travels again. I took the train and journeyed east into Hampshire - destination Portsmouth Harbour. I was then heading across the water to the Isle of Wight, traveling at high speed on the fast catamaran that operates between Portsmouth and Ryde. It was all very exciting, and a first time for me to travel on a catamaran (you can see here what it looks like, it was much bigger than I expected). I sat next to the window and tried not to fidget too much with over excitement, wishing that the trip was way longer than twenty two minutes long.

It's been eighteen years since I visited the Isle of Wight - one of my best friends from my art/textile uni days lives here and I used to regularly come and stay with her in the years before I had children. We've been friends for thirty four years, isn't that something? It was absolutely wonderful to see her and her family and how much they have grown since I  last saw them (three ginormous, handsome boys, and I mean they are huuuuuuge, well over six feet tall all of them). We had such a fun time, some delicious meals out, bottles of prosecco, chatting in the garden, picking blackberries out in the countryside, walking the dog and generally just enjoying a massive, long over due catch up.

On my last day there we took a long walk all around the eastern coast and it was really interesting to see how different the beaches are. The coastline is very woody with trees coming right down to the beach in many places.

We stopped off for lunch at a really beautiful café nestled into the trees overlooking the beach. It was warm enough for us to sit out on the decking and enjoy a chilled glass of refreshment and some delicious food with stunning sea views. I felt as though I was abroad....I mean, just look at this beach.......

.............just WOW!!!! Isn't it beautiful? You can see the café tucked into the trees above, and imagine how bloomin' delighted I was with it all.

After three super happy days it was time to say goodbye and begin my long journey home. Back across the water to the mainland (that ship is HMS Warrior, an old Navy vessel docked in Portsmouth Harbour), then a train up to London.....

....where everything was it's usual hectic, noisy, crowded, busy city self. Then it was the final three hours on the train back up to Yorkshire, and I tumbled in the front door at around 9.30pm. It was a lot of hours on the move (eight in total) but I happen to like travelling by myself and really enjoyed every bit of it.

I was away for six days in total, and the day before I left decided to cast on a pair of socks. I've not done any knitting since last year and had this yarn waiting patiently to be transformed into stripes. Socks make great travel projects and I really enjoyed knitting the hours away as I journeyed up and down the country.

The sock yarn matches perfectly with my latest blanket too, a delightful happy accident which is making me very pleased with the visual harmony. I'll be able to share my new blanket with you very, very soon - yarn packs will go on sale on Wednesday 21st September. I'll be here to tell you all about the blanket which I've named "Fireside" (cosy, warm and comforting vibes) , and as always there will be a free pattern and tutorial for you too. I'm really looking forward to showing it to you.

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