Sew, Knit and Natter Friday.

Heading full tilt towards the wedding weekend now. Getting excited!

Mr E has a 3D printer which I haven’t mentioned before. He’s made a few bit and pieces for the greenhouse and fixed the parcel shelf on my car. He has even made a Princess crown and a Minecraft sword! He recently found some minecraft cookie cutters. Could I make some cookie mixture if he printed them off. I asked if the designer of the cutters had made some cookies and could I see the picture/ have their recipe. No all the designer had done was print them. I agreed to give them a go using a gingerbread men mixture. One of them worked and the other , well it proved hard to get the dough out of the cutter.

That is the Minecraft axe cutter.

And these are my biscuits, which taste nicer than they look. All of this has used up a lot of time this week. However, the flamingo fabric arrived.

And sewing began

It is circular as we suspected, and next it is the ZIP. I have watched a lot of You Tube. I now know the difference between a concealed zip and an invisible one. Who knew that there was so much to zips. I have read lots of instructions. They read far more complicated than they are to look at. One book said do not read all the instructions at once, it is too confusing, read the first one, do it, then the second and so on. The book was written ages before the internet was born. So I am almost ready to begin, in August, when I have done everything else and can take my time.

I finished the tank top. Look at the neat neck-band, that is thanks to everyone who gave me their tips over the last one. I do listen! Not certain what I shall knit next. A bright something for Master T or a little something for new baby, what do you think?

I am going to be very busy till August, so may not post much in the next week, but I shall still be reading my favourite blogs.

Till next time, have a great weekend, and Be Happy! X

One a week photo challenge- Waste

Hedge clippings and general pruning debris, going to the re-cycling cnetre near us very soon, where they will not be going to waste.

Please leave a link to your Waste either at Wild Daffodil and/or in the comments below.

Next weeks prompt is Cache.

Happy Snapping!

Sinnington.

Time for another exploration of a Ryedale village. Once upon a time, there was a large Lake which covered the Vale of Pickering. On its shores lived Neolithic man. As the lake dried up, little communities grew and grew into the villages and towns we can visit today. Sinnington certainly dates back to Saxon times. How do we know any of this? In nearby fields ancient burial sites and flint tools have been found, and if you visit the Norman Church in Sinnington, the walls reuse stone work from an earlier Saxon church. The Normans came to England in 1066, The Romans  were here until around 200 AD, then came the Saxons. We are talking a long time ago.

Right let’s go.

A little lane takes you up a slight hill to the outskirts of the village. To the Church.

All Saints Church has an idyllic setting. See the large stone to the left of the footpath.

That’s a rather unusual war memorial to the poor chaps who died in the trenches during the First World War. Behind the stone to the right , and you can see this better in the previous picture, is a blocked in doorway.

Re-using carved stones from a much earlier building.

This fragment has been used to repair a window frame inside the church.

This cross on the South side outside.

Back inside you can see the font and behind that the filled in doorway. There used to be a Minstrels Gallery above the door where musicians would sit to accompany the congregation in worship.

Outside I sat a while on the bench and thought Big Things, well actually I just enjoyed the sunshine and thought about weddings, skirts and zips, which amounts to Big Things at the moment. How lucky am I that these are the Big Things!

It was great to go to Greece last month but it did mean that some of the ideas I had for 30 Days Wild  went by the wayside. One of them was to visit a Churchyard and enjoy a wild area.

Hurrah look at these, positively buzzing with bees. On with the stroll..

Past this bench on the roadside. A father and two sons who were all Church wardens here.

Up the lane,

where my eye was caught by this building. You can’t see it so well from this picture but it struck me as most unusual. Research has since told me this was tithe barn ( now a listed building) , used to store the produce which was rent for fields to the powers that be ( ie the church probably). Before that it might have been an earlier chapel to St Michael. Clearly something quite big was going on here back in the day, but records that exist apparently don’t throw much light, the Doomsday Book and the dissolution of the monasteries records do not show any religions community here. A mystery for someone to solve still.

Onward round the bend… haha! To the front of the Tythe Barn

That’s the house I’d have in this village. Look at their view.

Maybe you would prefer the Hall?

Time to head back to the village.

The Village Hall where the preschool meets. The Maypole with  a fox on top round which the school children dance on May-day, and a bridge over what exactly? No-one knows but it is thought to be a pack bridge over which pack horses would go. Possibly a river once upon a time? There was once a market held weekly in the village on a Monday, long since gone, just over 200 inhabitants now.

The river as you can see is nowhere near this bridge but on the far side of the road.

That’s the current bridge over the river.

The river floods from time to time. The villagers recently cleaned out the beck/river to help prevent this.

I loved these pigs guarding a door and

these two planters, but where are the plants?

Right time for some work. My favourite place to go fruit picking.

Strawberry Fields. Sadly the strawberries were wrecked by rain and none to be had till the end of the month. But lots of lovely

Raspberries.

Hot and bothered now, time for some refreshment? Pub anyone?

I hope you enjoyed today’s walk round another Ryedale village. Look forward to taking you another one soon. Meantime I hope you have chance to enjoy some fresh air in an equally lovely place this weekend.

Just before I go here’s what another blogger Mrs Betimus wrote about her recent visit to Pickering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sew , Knit, and Natter Friday!

Ok so did I keep to my yarn diet? Answer later on!

Meantime some more lovelies from Greece. In this case from the Ethnographical museum in the mosque of Aslan Pasha

Some silver ware with pineapples, which I was on the look out for following the post by Wild Daffodil on pineapple bunting.

Personally I prefer these chickens!

These knitted socks are worn by men.

And these,  just look at the patterns.

This a traditional costume for ladies.

I love this embroidered detail. And finally

A little loom, with pineapples! Or maybe fir cones? So did I keep to the yarn diet and if not how long did it last?

I had some problems this week. Finally I girded my loins and decided to tackle the skirt for Little Miss F, the one with the zip you know.. Unpacked the pattern, looked at it with horror. Not side seams as I had assumed but ones up the front and down the back. How on earth was I going to make the pattern match on my fabric?

After much head scratching and thinking, as I have said before sometimes Nanas do think, only this one, not very well. I decided I could do away with the centre seam with some jiggery pokery and cutting on a fold. I looked and looked at where I had pinned the pattern. The design went beautifully down in a straight line. Now please bear in mind I really don’t know what I am doing and the clever seamstresses will now be laughing I think. I found my school reports amongst Mum’s treasure this week. Needlework it read, term after term for 4 years, that’s 12 reports by the way,  ” Catherine tries hard”!

The problem is that by the time the fabric gets round the back the mountains and skiers are going sideways!

DOH!  I now have fabric and no pattern , and a pattern with no suitable fabric. I do need a pattern with side seams for this fabric. Onto the web. Not one site I looked at stated whether the pattern had side or centre seams.  I would have to go to a shop and unpack the pattern to look.

But I was all fired up, loins girded and all that. Maybe I could find some fabric to go with the pattern. So much fabric to look at on line and so much that would end up going sideways at the back. BUT eventually I found some with flamingoes going in all directions. The story will continue…

The knitting has been going well.

Now on the front section of the tank top for Master T. I began to look forward to knitting the bright coloured jumper he had asked for and for which I bought yarn last week. I got the pattern out. DOH! I had under bought the yarn. Undeterred I went to the LYS to look for more, now this was not the shop I had bought the yarn from last week, that is 25 miles away in York. And no the LYS didn’t have the same colour, but they did have lots of others and one I hadn’t used before which was lovely and bright, and of course if I couldn’t get one more ball I could always knit the yarn for someone else. So did I succumb to temptation?

OF COURSE I DID! How long did the yarn diet last….

22 HOURS!

I have started the yarn diet again and please to say it has now lasted 6 days. Did you guess right? Can I keep it up?  All thoughts on the above two dilemmas are very welcome. I do love a good natter.

Have a great weekend, and Be Happy!

One a week Photo Challenge-Pair

Parga, Greece June 2017

Please leave a link to your Pair either in the comments or over at Wild Daffodil

Next weeks prompt is Waste.

Happy Snapping!

 

Sew, Knit and Natter Friday

So after last week’s bombshell it was find a venue and food and and and , for the wedding later this month. Mission accomplished, village hall hired, wedding put back two hours to set up hall after a children’s party, disco told, table linen hired, trip booked to France for wine ,guests all ok with change of arrangements,  bride happy, groom happy,  draft report on unreliable and unhelpful hotel written for Trip Advisor!  Chill.

Last weekend I went to Wales to see my brother and Mum. Mum has Alzheimer’s sadly. She indicated many years ago that she would prefer to be in a care home should she become too unwell and need 24 hour care. She loves company and apparently is always to be found in the residents lounge, chatting. Sadly although she recognises P and me she doesn’t know who we are, just that she knows us and is pleased to see us. We finished clearing her bungalow , a sad but necessary task ,and I have come home with four great big boxes of her treasures. Mr E was really pleased to see them all! We are rather bursting out of the house already, some serious de-cluttering is called for if I am to accommodate these items.

Still lovely to be a totally new part of Wales. I knew the Black mountains, the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia, but around Llandrindod Wells the countryside is rolling hills, buzzards, red kites and sheep. So many sheep , and I thought we had a lot of sheep in Yorkshire.

Lunch stop on the way, near Welshpool.

Whilst away I found my missing wool needle, attached to the zip of my tablet cover. I got out and put away my tablet three times that weekend and it was only on the third and final occasion that I noticed the needle. Now tell me how did the needle jump from the back of a crochet heart left on a sofa onto a tablet cover left on the coffee table shelf? The house Gremlin at work after all perchance?

Still enough of that. I said I had some more pictures from Greece to show you. I do love a Folk Museum. We went to one based in an old watermill. We travelled on the mini train you may have seen amongst my Turn pictures. I need you to imagine a single track road wending its way through olive gloves, to the sound of crickets and the delicious smell of wild thyme.

The watermill. (Photo by Mr E). First we toured the watermill which had been used to mill flour, before visiting the folk museum. It was only a single room but lots to interest the fabricistas and yarnies amongst us.

Loom with wool winder above?

Little bit of crochet here.

Bag hanging on the wall, I rather liked the star/flower on this.

Vintage sewing machine, not certain what the other objects are.

I liked this bit of tapestry/carpet on a shelf, the geometric pattern could come from almost anywhere , it reminded me of some I had seen in books from South America.

After our tour here, which we were rather rushed through it was up to the waterfall,which I shared in a 30 days wild post. Altogether rather a wonderful trip.

Anyway that is quite enough natter. No sewing to share this week and only a bit of knitting.

Very slow progress, but some nice mindless knitting. Two more inches to go on the back- should be done this weekend. Meantime I was in York this week at the dentist for a check up and all is well. I had run our of black embroidery floss so dropped into Hobbycraft. I really should send Mr E for single items like this. This is what I came out with.

Whoops! The bright colour is for Master T, I think this is what he means by bright, not what is currently on the needles, don’t you?

Seriously I have to stop by yarn. The Yarn diet starts now and ends in 2018! Really it does.

But best of all I got shoes for you know what. So that is me kitted out. Now to persuade Mr E he really needs a new suit!

I hope you all have a great weekend full of favourite people and things you like to do.

Be Happy!

 

 

 

17 for 2017- June

June turned into a wonderful and very busy month, but how did the goals progress?

17 swims- lots on holiday but only counting them as 1 as it is regular swimming I want to concentrate on. Two visits to the pool in town, so that gives a total of 8. Half way through the year, so on target for this one.

16 hour long walks- 6 this month, giving me a total of 21. Goal Achieved

15 books from the heap by the bed read-One more this month- total is 12

14lbs lost- still going in the right direction

13 cards made- 1 more made, total is 9, more double-sided tape needed and then maybe there will be two more soon.

12 posts about local villages- total unchanged at three

11 days out- tempted to double count something here but I won’t, so leaving this unchanged at 6

10 new things tried- 30 days wild challenge-I really enjoyed taking part in this challenge. I had it all planned out and then we went on holiday to Greece unexpectedly, so I had some days wild there. I wrote a diary every day during the month. Sometimes all I managed was the 15 minutes outside I had promised myself I would do as a minimum. Sometimes it was dodging the showers. I can point to the big things I did like walking through a river gorge waist-high in water which was brilliant, but I think it was the 15 minutes outside and the quiet observations that were the best. Seeing Fred our blackbird with white feathers feeding his fledging on the path by the French windows, or the frogs no bigger than my thumb nail by the pond and in the greenhouse. Being part of the face book group, who knew we had so many bugs in this country, or reading how to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy hedgehog poo! My sense of well-being has soared. Next year I will be more prepared and do more to help wild life. And who knew taking photos of wild life was so hard. Whilst in the river I had a go at building a cairn.

As I lifted the stones I could not believe tiny fishes no longer than my little finger nail or wider than a hair pin and so transparent, and then a tadpole

Ha! At least you can see him! But in a river, I thought the water had to be still for frogs, not running strongly. Such a lot to see and learn.

I came back from holiday and two days later had a day out at my first ever Family History Fair.

Here being opened by the East Yorkshire Town Crier, from Bridlington I think he said. So  that is 7 new things tried.

9 crochet/ knitting projects-achieved a while back

8 craft projects-still not one

7 Sewing projects- still at 5.

6 non fiction books read- 5 still

5 family history questions answered– still 2

4 good sort outs-3 still

3 interesting finds-1

2 picnics- 0, I have eaten outside but not purpose made picnics, buying a cheese pie from a bakers is not what I meant!

1 boat ride-0

0 craft supplies purchased unless to replace used products. We all know that this is an epic FAIL, too much yarn bought.

So some things are well on course and some things have yet to be started. July is going to be all about a certain wedding I think, but there are still 6 months to go. Plenty of time! Hope your goals are progressing well. The main thing is to have FUN!