Another beautiful day dawns

7.30am in Gloucestershire, the start of another fun packed day!

Knitting Olympics Day One

OK, so I'm the Eddie the Eagle of Team GB - or so Mark says. I deliberately set my bar pretty low, because I knew I had a busy couple of weeks coming up, and I really wanted to knit the wristlets for a friend's birthday on the 23rd. But I chose black. Black Kidsilk haze. Ugh!

I began as the opening ceremony started. Progress so far? I have threaded beads twice. First time onto the wrong yarn, and in transferring them to the correct yarn, I dropped them. Finally threaded onto the correct yarn (the Kidsilk Haze) and all was well. Until I cast on. First time round, I'd twisted the stitches - the yarn is horrid to knit with at the best of times, but in black...dreadful! Second time I miscounted. Third time, I couldn't bear to miscount, so I have stitch counters every 12 stitches. Pathetic, eh?

Three rows complete.

(I imagine others will have knit half a shawl by now, for after all, the opening ceremony is very nearly over)

A(nother) Grand Day Out

We decided to act upon my suggestion to rediscover Bristol today, as the weather was fine and sunny and perfect for a day out. Had an interesting time walking around and being a home-based "tourist". Lunch in Wagamama was good too!

After lunch we explored the cathedral and I was particularly taken by how the light struck this small painted motif at the base of an otherwise plain column.

We stood for a while reading the memorials to the great and the good which covered the walls. Many were over sentimental and gushing about the person in question; I wonder what Edward Riley would have thought of this:

Edward Riley Esq

died March 3rd 1828 aged 83

Warm and affectionate in his disposition

Gentle and conciliating in his manners

Religious without bigotry

and

Charitable without ostentation

his every action

during a long life

presented but a continued and uninterrupted series of pure and active benevolence

He was loved and honored in life and in death he is lamented

Filial piety

erects this simple memorial

as a just but humble tribute to the high moral worth of one of the mildest and kindest

of human beings

Silk painting and bin bags

Tonight I'm going to speak to a WI and do a silk painting demo which I call "Paint a scarf tonight, wear it tomorrow". (I recently came across a similarly themed dem entitled "Paint a scarf whilst your buns are in the oven" but didn't think that gave quite the right impression for these ladies!) The idea is that, it's mindless enough for me to witter away as I paint, there is guaranteed success because there is no skill involved, and they get a raffle prize in the form of the finished scarf. It usually tempts a few to go and buy a few silk paints and have a go themselves.

But a surprisingly large number of people no longer get bin bags because they have Wheely-Bins. Who'd have thought that a council decision such as that could sound the death knell for my demo? (Well, of course, they could go and buy a bin bag...but somehow, it's not quite the same.)

Justification

We've been having a conversation on a mail list about "nesting" and the need to have everything to hand "just in case". Well, today, that need was justified.

I had been scheduled to observe two classes and set off this morning through dreadful traffic to arrive fifteen minutes early for the first one. Almost there and I get a call to say the tutor is ill and the class is cancelled. It really wasn't worth heading home again, since I had the second class to observe this afternoon in the same area, so quick decision re what to do/where to go.

Answer: Symonds Yat.

It was a glorious day, clear and sunny, and the views were magnificent. OK, I wasn't quite dressed for the great outdoors, but so what - I enjoyed some fresh air and spent a happy hour or so there. Of course, the nesting instinct meant that I had knitting, book, ipod, flask of coffee, sandwiches etc. to hand and was perfectly self-sufficient!

Trouble was, the car park was away from the view, a little empty and I felt I was being watched with suspicion by the other couple there. They were surely questioning why this smartly-dressed woman was hanging around the car park?!

So, I headed off through the Forest of Dean to Speech House, and Beechenhurst Forest picnic site, where I ate my lunch, knit a few inches of my alpaca-silk wrap, and listened to a podcast. (Can't bear You and Yours!)

Really quite a blow then, to have to do some work this afternoon when I heard that this particular tutor was working as normal!!

Two more photographs from NYC today, this time taken at a "costume jewellers" on 6th Avenue. Yes, of course I bought some!!