Category: adventures

  • twickenham adventures

    Thursday morning we left Edinburgh early and took a taxi to the train. Unfortunately the photos of that train are on my other camera and I can’t really be arsed to get them off! The ride was a bit long, but pretty easy, I suppose. I took a nap for a long while to get used to the motion then did some crocheting and watching Dr. Horrible!

    It took a Tube ride and a National Rail ride to get to where we’re staying outside London for a few nights, in Twickenham.

    IMG_3936.JPG

    It’s a really cute town, very quiet, and pretty easy to get into the city (once we figured out which train we were supposed to take!), it takes about 25 minutes to get to Waterloo station. After a few hours’ resting in the flat (we were so tired, sitting on the train really is exhausting, not to mention lugging all our stuff on the tube and second train!) we headed out to have a little walk around town and get something to eat.

    IMG_3942.JPG

    It was sort of a weird time (like 4:30 pm? too early for dinner, especially in this commuter town!) so lots of places were closed.

    IMG_3944.JPG

    We managed to find a huge pub that was open, and empty! We ordered a couple pints and some random pub snacky food that ended up being dinner.

    IMG_3946.JPG

    But gasp, we’d both neglected to bring knitting! So what did we do?

    IMG_3956.JPG

    Our adventures continued – Ysolda’s blogged the next bit!

  • happy fun time

    I got me my new toy!

    my new true love

    I decided to go with the Nikon d40 – it’s nice and small, perfect for my teeny hands. I got the kit lens, an 18-55mm, and also bought this lens off my friend Andrea – it’s the 50mm f/1.8. I love it! Such pretty pictures!

    dream in color baby

    I’m still practicing, since the 50mm isn’t an AF-S lens, it’s only manual focus on this camera (one of the downsides of this model). But I still got some great shots at knit night the other night! Mostly of the kids, really, since they’re such adorable models.

    zoe!

    knit night

    chew toy

    Check out Keri’s super cool bling sweater! See the beads?

    keri's bling sweater

    Finally, a shot of Liam, hamming it up for the camera:

    liam is awesome

    All these photos are unretouched (sorry Michelle!).

    I love this camera!

  • score o’ the day

    Whew, I’m pooped. I spent a couple hours this afternoon working on my veggie garden, which this year is mostly going to be containers. I have to wait until my mum comes back from her vacation so I don’t dig anything up that she’s going to be mad about in the garden proper! I need to clear space for (some of) my zucchini and tomato plants, and while there’s lot of real estate, there’s also lots of very large weedy plants. I did manage to transplant some herbs and things outside, as well as direct seeding some beans and spinach.

    And now my arms are all wobbly from lugging bags of soil around. Perfect time to fill you all in on the Textile Museum sale!

    It pretty much looked like this:

    inside a fabrics tent

    two tents

    inside the yarn tent

    Crowded! I got there right about 11am, and there were a LOT of people there already. It was madness. There were two tents plus a rather large area right in front of the entrance to the Textile Museum (which I didn’t get any photos of).

    This year the yarn got its own tent (the last photo above). The tubs on the tables inside were being refilled as things were bought, but I didn’t really feel like hanging around too long to try and score something good. There was a lot of not great (but very cheap) yarns in there to wade through.

    bins of wool

    more yarn

    But I managed to score a wee bit of yarn anyway, since Julia gifted me with a skein of red Jaggerspun that she’d bought. And then there was my one big score –

    score of the day

    An adjustable dressform! I was standing right at the table when the women behind it were hoisting her up, took a look at the bust dial (to make sure that it was big enough for me) and then pounced right away. Seriously, where else will you get one in this great condition for $25?

    I haven’t actually set the measurements properly yet, but close enough for now. And she’s already being pressed into service.

    sweater on the dressform

    Maybe now I can actually sew some dresses and the like that’ll fit properly!

    One more thing, today – a sneak preview of the woven scarves I’ve been working on.

    sneak peek

    My name on Etsy is cosmicpluto, but there’s nothing up there at the moment – don’t worry, I’ll be announcing here when I put stuff up for sale!