A week in Cumbria and yes, more yarn

For our second week of holiday, we drove up to Cumbria (about four hours) to stay in a cottage on the edge of the Lake District.  I'm not sure whether doing the cottage the second week was better or worse after having had a week off at home.  We were already quite relaxed so once we got to the cottage we instantly settled into a sedentary life and were very unambitious about going out.  Perhaps if we had done the cottage first then we would have had more motivation to go out and see things, lol.

On the way up we stopped at the Black Sheep Wool Craft Barn near Warrington, which I've wanted to visit for a while.  Black Sheep is a big online discount yarn and craft supplier, and this is their bricks and mortar HQ.  It was stuffed full of excellently priced yarn of all qualities (but admittedly a lot of acrylic), and also stocks cross stitch and felting supplies and has a room of quilt fabric.  In the bargain room I picked up some Debbie Bliss Baby cashmerino in pale blue for a couple of pounds a ball for some future baby knitting, and some pretty cross stitch charts that were .50p each.  I got a ball of solid blue sock yarn to knit an edging around my ten stitch triangle shawl (which was my go-to project during the holiday for in the car and when we were waiting for food at restaurants), and five balls of Jeannie cotton blend to knit a pattern for a cable yoke top.  I also fell victim to a kit to make a simple crochet afghan, I liked the vintage colours and the kit was so cheap as it is acrylic yarn, so even though i don't really crochet I couldn't resist.  Afterwards we had tea and cake in the pleasant cafe.  A really nice place to visit with friendly staff and I hope I can go again sometime.

View from the tea room, there is a lot more store out of sight

The next day, we drove over to Appleby-in-Westmorland which was hosting the annual  Horse Fair, a gathering of some 10,000 gypsies and travellers which has been taking place for over a hundred years. It attracts a lot of tourists now as well, so the town was pretty packed.  We got there early and got a good parking place and then wandered around admiring the horses and exploring the fields of market stalls.  As well as being driven randomly up and down the street to be shown off, a lot of horses are taken into the shallow river to be washed and even swum.  The event spills over into the surrounding area so we continued to pass encampments of travellers over the next few days in a lot of the areas we visited but by mid-week it was all over and most had moved on.  It was all pretty unusual and interesting, and there were some absolutely gorgeous horses.

Another day we drove up to visit the World in Miniature museum at the Houghton Hall Garden Centre near Carlisle, a collection of 1/12th scale room boxes and miniature objects. I had seen some of the exhibits before when the collection was in its former home in Oban, many years ago.  The current museum is well worth a visit if you are interested in dollshouse miniatures.  At the moment there is also an exhibit by the Miniature Needlework Society which was quite interesting. The garden centre itself is huge and has a craft shop as well as all the usual farm shop, deli, cafe, gift stuff.

A miniature lacemaking pillow with the view sadly obstructed by

a permanent magnifying glass inside the room.  The bobbins are perfectly in scale

but the lace and pins are not.

A 1/12th dream tiled bathroom

Cumbria is a beautiful area to holiday in. We enjoyed visiting some of the historic houses and gardens in the area, and had some lovely drives over the fells and moors, and spent one afternoon driving along some of the smaller lakes. I particularly liked the many becks and waterfalls, and seeing the occasional red squirrel (the now endangered native UK squirrel).

I stumbled across a yarn shop while we walked around the historic town of Penrith, and bought some Hayfield yarn that cleverly self stripes with a rose effect when you knit it, as well as the pattern and some matching rosebud buttons.

Also in Penrith, we found a great secondhand book shop with some very reasonably priced craft books (most were £3 or less) so some of those came home with me as well. The rag doll book has some really cute patterns in it which are quite tempting, and there is an edging in the Lace Edging book that I might try on my triangle shawl.

The rest of the week involved far too much sugar, a  bit of plant shopping, a lot of reading and crafts (I took two knitting projects, my cross stitch and my travelling lace pillow), some nice lunches out, some antiquing, many tea rooms, a few easy country walks and a wide variety of weather.  All very relaxing but it had to come to an end and today (Friday) we came home.

Tomorrow I am off to another bobbin lace day but I will probably take my big hexagonal mat project as I haven't worked on it for quite a while.  Hopefully when I get home in the afternoon, if the weather is dry, I can get out and hack back some of the garden which has become a bit untidy in our absence.  I also need to plant the new rose 'Chianti' which we bought at one of the houses we visited after smelling its gorgeous fragrance on the large example growing in their rose garden. I've just looked it up and apparently it can grow to 6 feet by 5 feet so I will have to ponder where to put it and will probably have to move some other things to make room.

Monday is back to work for us both and having to deal with a two week backlog of emails etc.  Oh well, we have to pay for the holidays somehow!