Sunday 16 September 2007

Bloggus Interruptus

Well, I've been on my jollies down in lovely sunny Cornwall. Apart from a slightly dented car (courtesy of a sneaky rock in the car park jumping up and biting the bumper of the DH's trusty MazdaBeast) and my shoe falling apart at Lanhydrock, a most excellent time was had by all. Particularly the Cornish shopkeepers, as I appear to have returned having bought most of the county. Firstly, YarnP0rn!

This yummy handspun, hand-dyed pure Merino yumminess came from here and is made by this person who (oh dear) has an Etsy shop...It's so yummy it is adorning a favourite dish in the dining room as a piece of art. I don't know what to knit with it yet, I may keep it as a pet for a while...

I also found an unfeasible number of yarny books, three of which were secondhand (yippee!) and my yarny bookshelf is now bursting. Oops. I even managed to get a bit of knitting done, on the Cursed Scarf of Doom (ie my Dad's Xmas present.) This flippin' scarf is causing me stress. I have issues with the yarn (Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk DK) as it's as splitty as anything and the stitch definition isn't great. It's also very slippy, even on bamboo needles. Anyway, I started out doing cables, but I didn't really like the result, so it's turned into a Travelling Scarf with lots of different stitch patterns (which aren't really showing up that well, see above.) It has also been frogged about 27 times because I kept getting sidetracked by other stuff and cocking it up. Grrr. I'm starting to hate the thing, and as it's on 4mm needles I'm going to be stuck with it for a while...

On a happier note, I found this at Tate St. Ives:



Yep, it's a yarn badge! (Sorry for the pants picture.) How cool is that? I even managed to get a knitting book from here too. Knitting at the Tate. Excellent. We didn't actually go round the museum as it was too late in the day, and I felt £5.75 was a bit of a cheek in all honesty. I am a great believer in free museums.

Anyway, we also went up onto Bodmin Moor, to see the Hurlers and the Cheesewring, which I discovered sits on what is known as the St. Michael Ley or Icknield Way, which runs right across the country. Now, I'm into ley lines, ever since I read Watkins' Old Straight Track years ago, so finding this out was a bit of a joy. I also have a major thing for ancient history and archaeology so Bodmin Moor was a bit of a hit all around. I've got a whole new thing to research now, and it's inspired me to get back onto plotting the North Staffordshire leys, and actually to get out and see what's on the ground.

That's The Hurlers. Cool, huh?

We also walked a short stretch of the South-West Coast Path, and here's me looking like I know what I'm doing. The poles are Nordic Walking poles, but that's a whole different blog post to explain that one.

No comments: