A week in Cumbria with much craft acquisition

This week we headed north to the Eden Valley, returning to the same nice cottage we hired last year.   We intended to travel via Sewing Machines Direct in Wrexham so that I could look at a potential new sewing machine, but we almost didn't make it: the M6 motorway was closed because of an accident, and every detour we tried to make was similarly blocked by roadworks, traffic queues, convoys of lorries, tractors and on and on.  DH was getting quite grumpy and there was a lot of muttering about how much quicker it would have been if we weren't going so far out of our way.

But we made it to Wrexham eventually after about five stressful hours including a break for lunch.  It was well worth it (to me anyway): loads of machines and a very knowledgeable staff person who listened to my requirements and talked me through the two Janome machines he thought might suit.  I chose this supplier after reading many positive reviews on the UK Quilters United Facebook group and I wasn't disappointed (at least, not so far :)  ).  There was absolutely no pressure, I could try out the machine as much as I liked and ask questions, and was offered a good price with free delivery.

So this coming Monday, my new machine should arrive.  I went for the Janome MC8200QCP Special Edition, as it seemed to echo the desirable features of my current machine (Janome 6500P) with the added bonus of Accufeed and an 11" throat. Hopefully it will be a reliable workhorse for many years to come.  DH is surprised I'm not more excited but having been through the new-sewing-machine learning curve several times in the past 25 years, I am bracing myself for frustration and potential troubleshooting.  Maybe I'm wrong and it will all be brilliant - let's hope. I am looking forward to having a reliable machine that doesn't stuff the fabric down the needle plate at the start of a seam.

We had a lovely week, with fairly variable weather. The landscapes are so beautiful up there.  We went for three easy walks, one of which was in the Teesdale valley to visit three waterfalls: High Force, Low Force and Summerhill Force.

Low Force - we walked up alongside it after taking this picture

DH standing in Gibson's Cave behind Summerhill Force

After the Teesdale walk, we stopped in Middleton-in-Teesdale to visit a craft gallery I had picked up a leaflet for, and saw some very elaborate yarn bombing along the main street.  I'm not generally a fan of yarn bombing but some of these  creations had a huge amount of work in them.

Another walk was alongside Ullswater in the Lake District.  At the start of the walk near Patterdale, I was intrigued to see a handwritten sign at the corner of a lane of cottages, saying 'Wool Farm Shop' with an arrow.  We walked a little way down the lane but couldn't see anything.  After the walk we asked at the tearoom, and they said there was a little shop at the end of the lane and the lady who owned it had just poured out the tea for Prince William and Kate when they visited the area few weeks previously!  So after lunch we took the car and drove down the lane for some way, wondering if we were on a wild goose chase.  Then we spotted  this sign:

 
And we drove some more until we came to a farm.  The road appeared to end there, but there was another sign urging us to keep driving.

So we drove through the farm and on down more lane, feeling like we were on a treasure hunt. Eventually we ran out of road altogether and we were there!

The wool shop is a small room in an outbuilding, featuring hand knit lacy shawls in mohair, sturdy woolen socks, woolen hats, and a small selection of upmarket independent brand yarns in wool, mohair and one lovely wool-silk blend.  The owner was away but her amiable husband let me look around.  I treated myself to a Doulton Border Leicester pack of mini skeins with an accompanying pattern for fingerless mitts, as a souvenir of our adventure.

We visited two excellent second hand bookshops in the week: one in Penrith and one in Sedbergh. Both had decent craft sections where I enjoyed much browsing, that's where I got the charted initials book in the middle below.  We also stopped at Fairfield Mill in Sedbergh which has a specialist textile secondhand bookshop where I got the other two books. They had a fabulous range of books but were very pricey. Lots of American books and books I recognised from the 90s patchwork boom, but most of them were priced much higher than I was willing to pay.

We came across a decent fabric shop in Penrith, Just Sew, where I picked up two cute patterns in a linen-canvas weight tapestry fabric for bagmaking, and a cute sewing-themed cotton fabric. I'd like to make more bags and containers, it's just finding the time.

We stopped into a plant sale that we passed, being held at Dalemain House which we visited last year, very grand.

I bought a clematis there for our garden and also this unusual bit of garden art from Westmorland Folk Art, who specialise in making items incorporating reclaimed materials. That's a bit of a brick that the hand-forged flower is wrapped around.

Also for the garden, an ex-chimney pot that we discovered in a stableyard barn at Winderwath Gardens amidst a museum collection of what purported to be 'secondhand tools for sale' - but I think a lot of them dated back to the Victorian era. DH had a great time finding various rusty instruments of torture designed for lawn edging or spiking amidst the cobwebs. The chimney pot is enormously heavy - we wedged it into the side of the car with a plastic box of paraphernalia that DH keeps in the car so it wouldn't roll around, and by the end of the holiday the chimney pot had successfully pulverised the plastic box into multiple pieces.  Luckily we have a sack dolly at home so DH was able to manhandle the chimney pot into the garden where I planted it with some bedding plants today.  I used some lobelia which hopefully will trail down the sides.

Another day we visited Brougham Hall which has a courtyard of small artist studios including Gwen Bainbridge Ceramics who had several lovely pieces of white bisqueware decorated with 'lace'.  I bought a single lovely plant marker, which has such a tactile feel to it. Far too nice to put in the garden.

I took lots of projects with me so in the evenings at the cottage I was knitting the Misty Meadows Shawl, crocheting the Giant Granny Square Afghan, doing a bit of bobbin lace on the Torchon beaded bracelet, and I took along a little cross stitch needlebook kit that came on a magazine recently. I was also studying Japanese as we have our end of term exam coming up this week.

The night before we started the holiday, I managed to finish the final block of the 30s Sampler Quilt (not sure why it looks so crumpled in this picture) so now I can finish putting the centre of the top together.

And last but certainly not least in this litany of extravagance, the wonderful sideboard that we bought the previous weekend was delivered while we were away.  We love this style of furniture which luckily for us is so far from the modern taste that examples of it are ridiculously cheap. This cost less than a disposable foam and chipboard IKEA sofa, it's unbelievable. The marquetry is lovely and the mirrors have deep bevelled edges, each gallery is flanked by posts with turned finials.  After I cleaned and waxed the piece, I had a good rustle through my collection of vintage linens looking for mats the right size to fit the various areas. Our dining room looks very elegant now.