Saturday, September 29, 2007

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!

12 comments:

Terri said...

Berriew looks gorgoeus! I always wanted to live somewhere like that, but sadly dh is a towny:-( Looks like the course at colinette was great, I think I would have been star struck meeting colinette herself LOL!!!!!
Congrats on going part time too, whatever will you do with yourself;-)

Anonymous said...

Joy....thank yo so much in advance for whatever treat you send me. I am so excited that my name was drawn.

I usually spend my day just browsing from one blog to another and seldom take the time to post. I am so happy I did this time on yours! What luck for me.

Congrats to Linda and winning the auction and shawl.

franney said...

Your new FCS is gorgeous and the course looks like a great day out with some learning thrown in for good measure! Wonderful :o)

kathryn said...

I love your River Rhiw photo and I am SO jealous of your Colinette experience.

Linda said...

Joy, Berriew looks like a lovely place. I can't wait to receive the shawl - thank you again! :0) And congrats on going part-time - does this mean you'll get more knitting time now? ;0)

Linz Knits Now said...

Colinette sounds wonderful as always...and what a lovely addition to your stash.

YOUR Forest canopy looks absolutely stunning and the colour is amazing.

dreamcatcher said...

Sounds like a great course at Colinette, and what a great goodie bag of yarn.

Thanks for the rec for the pub, might try that one day on the next mill shop visit.

The FCS is gorgeous in the Stroud wool!

Piglottie said...

What beautiful pictures! And Colinette looks wonderful. I would so love to visit, but tis a bit far from Yorkshire :)

And your latest FCS is beautiful. It reminds me of peacocks and their stunning colours :)

Auntie Noo said...

The FC is lovely - those colours are beautiful.

I give you two weeks before you are wondering how you ever managed to fit in any more work that 20 hours! - Time just slides by, and still the housework doesn't get done!!!

Joy said...

Thank you all for the lovely comments about the FCS :-)

Noo - I think I am well on the way down the slippery slope of nothingness already...........

One thing I do know though is that I am going to have to cast on the Iona very very soon!

Seahorse said...

What a lovely post :) The course sounds wonderful and with the addition of an overnight stay in such a lovely place - paradise!

Jo028 said...

Looks like you had a great day out. Your FC shawl is fabulous as always :) I hope 20hrs a week means loads of extra knitty time for you.