LTA President's visit

If we weren't busy enough on Wednesday, we also had the LTA President visiting our little lawn tennis club in the village here to present us with a Clubmark award, which my husband has been working on for the last year. There was a jnuior tournament organised with about 14 turning up to play, as well as lotd of older members. As you can see we put on a good spread!

About 200 sandwiches got eaten!
This is my husband presenting a thank you pressie to Jo Cunliffe of the LTA who helped him with all the Clubmark paperwork.

& this is the LTA President, Jo & my husband

Cumbria Life Photographer

In deep discussion as to which is the best shot!
shawls & scarves laid out artily across the coffee table!

Oh dear, builders bottom!

& because I'm "Beside the Beck", it had to be didn't it, me knitting surrounded by cones of wool with feet in the beck, I can't tell you how cold that water was...........

Garden Trail & Scarecrows!

We've had a Garden Trail around the village today oraganised by the wonderful Maud Viskers, who's in her 80's & has more energy than I've ever had! She also got the village making scarecrows for people to spot as they were walking around. This was a kind way of telling us people who's gardens weren't good enough to be included in the garden trail that we could still be involved!
As we live in an Old Police House, it only seemed appropriate that we had "Burglar Bill" escaping, you'll notice below our highly trained police dog trying to apprehend the said burglar!!!

Ouch!!

One of my favs, a School Master at The Old School House, who looks uncannyily like the owner!! Mr Chips 2011....

A Mer-made....

The Smithy at Smithy Fold, naturally.....

Cumbria Life

Phew! I've just been interviewed by Cumbria Life!!! For the Spetember issue. By a wonderful lady Mary Ingham, who was so easy to talk to, knowing me most probably too easy to talk to, as I do tend to babble when I get nervous! Anyway, fingers crossed she can make sense of my rubbish & hopefully an interesting article will come out of it.

The photographer is coming next Wednesday, so luckily I'm in the shop on Tuesday so can pick up lots of nice shawls & things to bring back to the house.

Jan Hicks, who's a member of The Wool Clip has a nice feature in this month's issue, so we're on Wool Clip overload!

Curtains

I'm making some curtains for the spare bedroom I use as my craft room. I absolutely love this room, it has 2 windows & the views are spectacular, as they are from all our rooms; we are very lucky to live a beautiful part of the country.

Anyway, I've wanted to make some curtains from the Laura Ashley toile de jouey fabric for ages, finally got around to ordering it from the internet & it's been discontinued - aaaghhh!

Luckily, I spoke to a really lovely girl in the Workington shop, which is our closest, who rang around & found me some in the Kendal shop, so am busy making them in case I need anymore fabric.

So, today I've cut fabric, interlining & lining & have attached the interlining & fabric together, won't have time to do more tomorrow as I'm in The Woolclip, & then Sunday we've friends for lunch, so will work on them some more on Monday. If I have enough fabric left over I'd like to make a bedspread, so will have to see how they work out.

Hand-Crocheted Jug Covers

These take longer than you think, by the time you've threaded the beads on & then gone round & round, ending up with roughly 120 stitches before you start doing the lacey bits. I can't seem to do 2 the same!

new shawl

This is a shawl that was order from someone at Woolfest. It's in 100% merino in bright red & even if I say so myself I thinks it looks fantastic, am really pleased with the way it turned out.

close-up of the edging blocking

this is the middle scetion, on the left is Estonian star stitch, then on the right is blossom stitch, another Estonian stitch

the whole shawl blocking.

Hayfever & Post-Woolfest!

It's been a gorgeous day here, but the farmers have been cutting & baling the grass & I had to give up sitting out in the sun & come in as eyes were streaming, nose blocked up & itchy throat. I never used to suffer from hayfever until about 7 years ago & now it's horrible & once you start scratching you can't stop, horrible!

I thought I had just about recovered from Woolfest but then some friends asked us to look after their dogs whilst they went to Wimbledon. Fine, no problem, let them out on Thursday night, let them back in & fed them, put them to bed. Then apparently our friends rang up to say they were coming home that evening, however, I was fast asleep on the sofa, husband says we had a whole conversation about it & then I fell back asleep. Unfortunately, I woke up at 6am the next morning & thought I must let the dogs out, so walked round to their house at 7am, noticed their car was there, but thought maybe they took the train, so checked the dogs anyway, all tucked up in their kennel. Got back home, told husband what I'd done.....

Oh dear, this is what Woolfest does to you!! Or me anyway.