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Drachenfels Shawl No. 2

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Drachenfels is a beautiful pattern designed by Melanie Berg. It is always tricky when you’ve knit the same shawl several times to know how to write about your thought processes without it becoming uninteresting for the person reading it! The second Drachenfels Shawl was completed this time using the luxurious Regia Premium Merino Yak sock yarn in autumnal colours.

For Drachenfels Shawl No. 2 I chose to use a yarn that was new to me at the time. After knitting the shawl, I brought the collection into the Yarn Shop as I loved knitting with it so much.[Read More]

Spinning Yarns – A Festival of Colour, Creativity & Craft

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After reading about Spinning Yarns – A Festival of Colour, Creativity & Craft being held in early September, I decided to buy tickets for Neil, Tara and myself. On Sunday, 5th September, we attended our first yarn festival since the lockdowns began. It was exciting and slightly scary all at the same time. We haven’t been to social gatherings in a very long time.

The Spinning Yarns Festival was held at the Theatre at the Mill and the Mossley Mill Complex in Newtownabbey. It was the first time this yarn festival had been held since 2018, and we enjoyed ourselves.[Read More]

Huxter Click Mills, Shetland

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This is the fifth of the “Travels Down Memory Lane Series”. Over the last couple of years, there hasn’t been an opportunity for holidays away. So I decided to look at some of the posts I’d planned to write, and for various reasons, I hadn’t.

Nothing is as much fun as walking down memory lane and revisiting and sharing the photographs and journals from our travels.[Read More]

Seaham, Durham

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This is the fourth of the “Travels Down Memory Lane Series”. Over the last couple of years, there hasn’t been an opportunity for holidays away. So I decided to look at some of the posts I’d planned to write, and for various reasons, I hadn’t. Nothing is as much fun as walking down memory lane and revisiting and sharing the photographs and journals from our travels.

I had high hopes for our visit to Seaham in Co Durham. I know that Seaham is one of the foremost seaglass beaches in northern England, and I looked forward to our visit there.[Read More]

Puffins, Farne Islands

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This is the third of the “Travels Down Memory Lane Series”. Over the last couple of years, there hasn’t been an opportunity for holidays away. So I decided to look at some of the posts I’d planned to write, and for various reasons, I hadn’t. Nothing is as much fun as walking down memory lane and revisiting and sharing the photographs and journals from our travels.

I will introduce this post as most of it is written by Neil. While I relaxed on a rocky beach at Seahouses, knitting my sock project, Neil travelled to Staples Island in the Farne Islands to search for nesting puffins. He returned with the most amazing photographs I have to share.[Read More]

So Faded Sweater

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I cast on the So Faded sweater pretty much as soon as I bought the pattern in May 2017. I fell in love with the So Faded sweater designed by Andrea Mowry as soon as I laid eyes on it.

Fading is the now commonly used term for gradient, blended, ombré, phased or coming from an art background as I did, colour wash as a way of blending different coloured yarns together in a pleasing way. As someone, who has a large collection of single hanks of sock yarn, this technique really appeals to me.[Read More]

Barter Books, Alnwick

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This is the second of the “Travels Down Memory Lane Series”. Over the last couple of years, there hasn’t been an opportunity for holidays away. So I decided to look at some of the posts I’d planned to write, and for various reasons, I hadn’t. Nothing is as much fun as walking down memory lane and revisiting and sharing the photographs and journals from our travels.

In 2019, we went to Northumberland for a week before travelling to Lancashire for a family wedding. Northumberland was extraordinary. I’d read about Barter Books in a magazine months before and wanted to visit. On our first day, we visited Alnwick and parked. The first thing we did was visit the wool shop, and I spent a little while browsing the shelves before choosing a few balls of sock yarn. [Read More]

Carnoet Yarn Bombing

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This is the first of the “Travels Down Memory Lane Series”. Over the last couple of years, there hasn’t been an opportunity for holidays away. So I decided to look at some of the posts I’d planned to write, and for various reasons, I hadn’t. There is nothing as much fun as taking a walk down memory lane and revisiting and sharing the photographs and journals from our travels.

Carnoet Yarn Bombing Brittany[Read More]