___I am back !___
Preparing for my trip
In preparation for my trip to visit with family in England, I did a provisional cast-on of 112 stitches for the poncho I had decided to work on while visiting. I was thinking that this is the perfect project to knit while chatting.
The flight over
On the flight over I watched one of the documentaries which were offered for in-flight viewing:
Cyril Cullen- Master Knitter. This was very inspirational! You can read up on him and his designs here: https://cyrilcullen.wordpress.com/about/
Arriving in England
With snow still on the ground in Tivoli when we left, it was nice to see that Spring was in full swing in England:
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| My back garden before leaving |
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| My Mother-In-Law's garden |
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| We even enjoyed some ice cream by the beach. |
While there
As I walked into town every day from my Mother-in-Law's house for some groceries, I checked out the newly opend yarn shop right in the heart of Formby inside Derbyshire's : The Good Wool Shop (click on the link and it takes you right to their website).
Isabel carries wonderful yarns and other odds and ends there. The prices are very reasonable for the quality of yarns.
I ended up visiting with Isabel almost every day and we found that we have other things in common beyond our love for fiber-crafts. She lived in Swizerland and in Germany for a number of years. And not just in Germany but in a city I know well as it is there that I went to university: Mainz (Johannes Gutenberg University). Sometimes we talked in German, but kept falling back into English.
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| "Life is short, knit faster" |
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| Thursday afternoon knit group. From left to right: Isabel, Gill and Doris |
I ended up buying two books, both with instructions on making toy animals; one in crochet and one in knitting. I liked the range of animals in the crochet patterns, 40 in total! Most of the patterns are also available individually on ravelry and I am thinking to offer a class some time in the future. What I liked about the knitted toys book other than that I favor knitting over crochet, is that some of the patterns have movable limbs as the legs and arms are attached by string and button.
I also bought some yarn. One local yarn which will make some very nice fingerless mitts for next winter.
And I also bought several skeins of Artesano yarn which was 25% off during the month of April.
One skein of cream colored sock yarn as the Main color for the shawl "Leftie" by Martina Behm. This will help me to use up a bunch of left-over sock yarn.
And on the last day I also bought two skeins of the Alpaca Silk yarn. I had been drawn to this yarn all along and did not want to leave without some of it. I found a nice pattern for a lacy summer top, Athena. This is a free pattern download on ravelry! Isabel printed out the pattern for me so I am ready to go :)
One of the days I took the train down to Liverpool which is just a few stops South from Formby. First I spent some time in the wonderful library:
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| View from the roof-top |
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| The Oak Room |
While in Liverpool I went to another yarn shop, Abakhan on Stafford Street where I bought
several shawl pins (a steal at £ 4.50 and £ 1.79 respectively).
During our time in England we also celebrated my husband's birthday and I finally could give him his socks.
During the two weeks I was there I almost finished the poncho (as I said: a very quick knit). I just have to do the lace border now and seam it together and of course block it.
My Mother-in-Law showed me a picture of one of the ponchos she had knitted in the 60's for her daughter. You can see my Sister-In-Law's eight year old self wearing a blue- and while poncho in the Lake District. It is interesting how fashion repeats itself with small variations.
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