Hot stuff

 We're just back from a week away in the caravan to Cumbria where it was quite rainy earlier in the week. But suddenly Cumbria jumped onto the UK heatwave bandwagon and Friday was so hot that we spent most of the afternoon sitting in the shade of the awning.  Nice airconditioned car ride back to the roasting caravan storage yard yesterday (30 degrees C) and the high is going to be the same again today.  I hate hot weather, I just feel like I can't do anything and I don't sleep well either.  But we did have a lovely relaxing holiday, still really enjoying caravan life. It was our fourth visit to the Eden Valley and we enjoyed re-visiting our favourite secondhand bookstores, doing some lovely short walks, delicious fish and chips from the Shap Chippy and visits to two country houses: Blackwell Arts & Crafts House overlooking Windermere, and Hutton-in-the-Forest near Penrith with a gorgeous walled garden. We tried out our new caravan awning, which had a steep learning curve and required a do-over the next day, but it doubles our space and was so useful to have.

The little campsite, which we had mostly to ourselves all week.

A view in Morland Gardens

Lake Windermere seen through the window of the White Drawing Room

in Blackwell Arts and Crafts House

High Force waterfall in County Durham

A view in the lovely gardens at Hutton-in-the-Forest

Trying out the panorama function on my phone camera, in the 

hills above the village of Dent (with DH)

I picked up a fairly random selection of cheap craft books in the secondhand book stores, including two books of embroidery stitches which I am hoping will help me with the Australian BOM embellished blocks.

We visited the village of Dent, as in the "terrible knitters of Dent" fame and toured the little heritage centre which was interesting but didn't really include much information about the local handknitting industry.  Apparently Blue-faced Leicester sheep were common in the area and I picked up two luscious balls of BFL DK-weight yarn in the shop, actually from Yorkshire but I couldn't resist as they are so soft and have that lovely woolly smell. Two 50g balls should be enough for some socks or a hat or mitts.

We re-visited Farfield Mill in Sedbergh for lunch and to tour the artists galleries and workspaces, many of which are textile related: knitting, weaving, proddy rugs, tapestries etc..  There was also a display of lace by the South Lakeland Lace Makers, and quite an assortment of spinning wheels and weaving looms used by workshop participants, as well as a huge industrial historic warping loom and two commercial weaving looms in the basement. I picked up two sample pieces of hand-woven tweed about 7 inches square, in lovely soft colours, one for me and one for m-i-l, which I thought would make a nice small item such as a needlebook cover.

I didn't get to any craft shops this trip, but I took along some projects of my own:

I'm almost finished the felt teapot mat - the pattern suggests a laisy daisy flower embellishment on each pot but I'm not sure I could do them all the same size and it will bug me if they are untidy. There is a matching blue backing to sew on to hide the messy reverse side of the stitching.

Also almost finished the cross stitch birthday card, just need to finish the word 'Happy'.

I turned the heel of the Lenten Rose socks and picked up for the patterned gusset.  I immediately had to pull back one row because I was automatically making the decrease at the top of the heel flap like every other pair of socks I've ever knitted.  But unusually, this pattern seems to keep the decreases at the bottom of the heel flap. I decided that would be better tackled at home in front of the telly rather than in a moving car so did not progress any further yesterday.

Now that we're back, I'm hoping to clear the decks in my sewing room and make a start on the Australian BOM blocks.  Tomorrow is the ridiculously named Freedom Day in the UK, which is sharing the news with all the alarming rises in infection rates.  We continued to be as careful as we could while we were on holiday, avoiding other people, sanitising after touching most things, wearing masks etc, and we aren't planning on reducing our precautions any time soon.  It doesn't look like I will make it to France for the pre-retirement visit to the Quiltmania show in Nantes, as the government is changing the requirements for overseas travel almost daily.  Hopefully next year.