Thank You, Congratulations, Learning New Skills and Thank You to Dreamcatcher!

First of all, I just want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who made a bid for the Forest Canopy Shawl , I was overwhelmed by your generosity. Congratulations to Linda who made the winning bid of £28:00 - Linda, thank you, it will be in the post at lunchtime.

Congratulations too to Holly Burnham - Holly you have won my bloggy prize draw for September, so if you would email me your address I shall send your prize to you.

I have had a lovely few days. On Friday I visited mum again, then went a few miles down the road to Berriew to stay overnight at one of my favourite places, The Talbot where the welcome is always warm and the food is always excellent, and staying as a single female poses no problem at all.





Berriew is a delightful village, full of black and white character and winner of several "Best Kept Village in Wales" awards. The river Rhiw runs through the village, and it is just a lovely tranquil place to be.






Now I'm sure this place needs no introduction! Berriew is 8 miles across the country lanes to Llanfair, so after a wonderful breakfast I arrived at around 9:30, just as the Llanfair Ginny was firing up - I LOVE going to Colinette!

The reason for the visit was a workshop - Knitting in All Directions - run by Colinette herself. What a lovely lady she is, fascinating to talk to, and I learned such a lot, not just new skills, but colour and texture, and not to be afraid to try new things.

We were given these three lovely pattern books, full of ideas and inspiration, as well as several worksheets.

As well as three HUGE baskets of yarn on the worktables to choose yarns to work with from, we were also given a pack of yarn - isn't that just a wonderful pack? Sorry about the photo quality, I don't think it has actually got light since Saturday to take a decent photo!

Anyway, here is a little of what we learned. There are two mitred squares here in the centre, with a mitred rectangle on the right, and the rectangle on the left was picked up and knitted in such a clever way.

Then we moved on to triangles. The possibilities with these are endless, and great fun. We also made shell shapes, but I haven't managed a decent photo of that.

* Ahem* - purchases - in spite of my best intentions - 7 skeins of Velvet Plum Iona with which to make Ula and a bargainous 150g of Cadenza from the Saleroom.

Thank you Linda for your excellent company, and the advice on what size Ula to knit.

And finally ........... no blog post of mine these days would be complete without a Forest Canopy Shawl it seems!

Forest Canopy Shoulder Shawl

Needles: Size 7 Millwards

Yarn: Stroud Wool Supersock # Heather

Thank you Dreamcatcher for this beautiful yarn, it was too nice for my feet and will keep my shoulders warm when I am on Night Duty! Speaking of which, today is the start of New Beginnings for me - I am now officially only working twenty hours a week. I won't know what to do with myself!