Staffordshire

 We were away in the caravan this week, staying on a site located next to the Cannock Chase ANOB forest park.  Neither of us knew the area, so we had a nice week visiting places such as Lichfield and Stafford, and going for walks in the Chase and along some of the canals.  We visited an old moated half-timbered hall complex called Middleton Hall and Gardens, which unexpectedly also had a beautifully curated knitting shop called 'Entangled' in their converted barn of small shops. It stocked some yarn and many expertly knitted garments, with lots of interesting and pretty knicknacks. 

In the Hall gift shop, they had decorated an old fireplace with a large knitted floral decoration that was pretty impressive.

In Stafford I found a haberdashery called 'Miss Millicent' with a very friendly owner, and some pretty things.  I loved these Tilda buttons, too pretty to use and all mounted on beautiful cards.  I'm going to see if I can glue the caravans back-to-back to create a 3D caravan for my dollshouse, and the little soft leather handmade patch was cute.

We did our usual dipping into secondhand book stores, and in one I came across this book called 'Knotted Lace' which is all about a needlelace also known as Armenian lace or Smyrna stitch. I think it's the same sort of needlelace I saw in Istanbul. On the face of it, it is incredibly simple because you are literally just making knotted loops of mercerised cotton thread with a needle. But it relies on real precision in eyeballing the size of loops so I think will actually be quite difficult.  Having looked through it, I suspect some of the vintage doileys in my collection that I assumed were netted, are probably actually this type of knotted lace.

In the evenings, I was working on my own knitted cat, I've got the body all done and just need to knit the base flap. I also did a bit on the harbour scene cross stitch.

Before we went away, I finished the Japanese fabric picture although I still need to tidy up the outside edge somehow.  I will probably glue on ribbon to hide the raw edges.

In a few days I am heading to Iceland for a week, I will be based in Reykjavik and taking some day bus tours to see a bit of southern Iceland.  I hope to see some Icelandic knitting although I doubt I will buy any Lopi yarn as it's too scratchy for me.  Straight after I get back, I am heading for Wales the next day to visit the Welsh quilt centre and to take a two day course to learn welsh quilting.  So I'm not sure how much blogging I will get done the next few weeks.