Welcome to my blog. I live, knit, crochet, spin and craft near the Northumbrian Coast (but not too near – the waves won't be splashing my yarn!).There's a story in every stitch, every grain of sand, every blade of grass. I thought I'd blog about it…
When the news is full of doom and gloom we need to share good news and we got some last week. A dear friend’s dad, Ted, is home from hospital having recovered from the coronavirus.
Ted is 87 and has a number of underlying medical conditions. When he developed symptoms of the virus he was taken to hospital and tested positive for COVID-19. His daughter couldn’t go with him or visit him while he was there. She feared they’d not see him again.
As the rest of the family waited for news, they too fell ill. After a few days, when they were starting to recover they got the news that Ted was on the mend too. They were even able to speak to him by phone. He was moved to a COVID recovery ward and last week was well enough to return home. Despite being a high risk patient, Ted had beaten the virus. As you can see from this photo, Teddy the dog is delighted to have him back too and won’t let Ted out of his sight.
As I said, good news is worth sharing: Ted got into the newspapers and even made the local news.
I’m so happy for Ted and his family. It’s a story that’s captured everyone’s hearts and spread a little bit of hope.
I’ve been struggling with the blog recently. Regular blog subjects, like visiting the beach, eating scones at local cafes and taking part in knit and natter groups have all stopped. I threw myself into some knitting and craft projects, but it didn’t seem the same. I’m not a walker – I use a disability scooter to get about, and have other health issues so I hadn’t been leaving the house. This week I reached the point when it was time to pull myself together and, as the weather was so good, I got the scooter out and joined K on a couple of walks with Buddy, the Labrador. I’m so glad I did.
The little Amelanchier tree in the front garden has finally come in to flower and is looking stunning
As we walked through the village I saw a few rainbows, painted by children and stuck in windows.
There’s also this sign, which has been placed at the entrance to the little garden of remembrance, which is known as Green Hut Corner.
It’s a lovely gesture – the village has applauded loudly for NHS staff and other key workers every Thursday night – there were even fireworks last week!
I enjoyed seeing all the spring flowers. This garden wall was festooned with aubretia.
Here in Shilbottle, the grass verges are full of daffodils in Spring. Until now I hadn’t noticed that some hyacinths had been planted with them in one spot. I wondered if they had originally been indoor ones that someone had planted out after they finished flowering. They had a beautiful fragrance that we could smell as we went past.
There’s a really quiet lane that winds through farmland – we can let Buddy off his lead there. He’s not bad at avoiding other dogs and people if you tell him to “leave” . We met several people out for their daily exercise or walking dogs but all were cheerfully observing distance guidelines. We are lucky to live here where there is the space to get out safely.
One of my favourite spots on this route is a by a gate at the top of a bank- there’s a wonderful view towards the sea from here. It was very hazy on one of my walks this week but yesterday was beautifully clear.
It was good to see the wildflowers in bloom as well as the garden plants. These primroses are one of my favourite signs of spring.
The blackthorn is also in full bloom. We hope that the sloe berries this autumn are as profuse as the flowers – we always make a batch of sloe gin if we can pick sloes. Some years, if there are late frosts that stop the fruit forming, there are none to be found.
Of course the newborn lambs are one of the signs of spring we love to see and there were plenty in the fields.
We doubled back and came back up the hill, stopping for a little while to take in that view again. Buddy seemed to be glad of the break. I had forgotten just how important it is to get our in the fresh air and I felt so much better for it.
I’ve been keeping busy this week, though I’m missing trips to the beach and visiting local cafes for coffee and scones. I’m still involved with online choir and ukulele sessions, virtual coffee mornings and quizzes.
This week I’ve upcycled an old duvet to make liners for Buddy’s basket – I chopped it into six rectangles and machine-stitched the edges.
Buddy seems to like his new bedding! – at one point he dragged in into another room and cuddled it!
I’ve also finished my first brioche project – a pair of wrist warmers. I have quite short arms – well it certainly seems that way because sleeves on clothes I buy are way too long. I tend to buy three quarter length sleeves, but sometimes these leave a cold gap so I wanted some extra-long wrist/arm warmers. I sort of made these up as I went along.
I can also roll the cuffs back to show the reverse.
They are lovely, warm and squishy. I’ve really enjoyed learning how to do 2-colour brioche. This was one of my New Year Resolutions.
Another resolution was to make a Christmas Jumper. Every year I think about how lovely it would be to have a hand knitted festive sweater, and then I forget about it until the following December when it’s far too late to start. I now have the yarn and the pattern and am looking forward to starting it soon.
In these difficult times, we grasp the little things that make us smile. Children everywhere are painting pictures of rainbows and putting them in a window. It’s become a lovely symbol of hope and positivity.
My cousin, who is a Crochet Queen (we were both taught to crochet by our grandmother), has just returned home to Australia after a trip to New Zealand with her partner. They had stayed longer than originally planned as it became harder to get a flight after travel restrictions to combat the spread on COVID-19 were imposed. Now safely back in Canberra and in self-isolation, she shared a post from the Just Pootling blog with a free pattern to make a crocheted rainbow – we are so glad they are back home.
A while back I saw these packs of cotton yarn in Flying Tiger and thought they’d come in useful for something, though at the time I had no idea what. It turns out that they were just perfect for this little project.
It was easy to do, with concentric circles of the rainbow colours, folded in half. You can get the pattern here, I added a loop I can use to hang it in a front window and hope it makes somebody smile when they walk past.
Earlier this evening, I enjoyed a “Pop and Prosecco” informal singing session online with The Singing Elf – over 20 of us joined the informal session, which started with a warm up and a mashup of Price Tag, Living on a Prayer, Call me Maybe, Firework, Paparazzi, and Someone Like You! We also had a music quiz and ended with a rousing rendition of Earth, Wind and Fire’s September. These are now a regular part of my Friday nights.
Isn’t technology wonderful? We may have to stay at home but I’ve been trying to maintain contact with all my lovely friends – thanks to Zoom I’ve been doing this all week. Tonight my ukelele group (alias the Ukeladies) had a bit of a practice, so we belted out Eight Days a Week, Country Roads, Wagon Wheel and Sunny Afternoon. It was good to catch up.
On Sunday we had our first virtual coffee morning on Zoom, joined by other friends, including one that recently emigrated to Australia. It was 7pm rather than coffee time for her, so she had a glass of wine instead! It was interesting to see how things are going in Australia compared with here.
We also held a virtual quiz this week. Five couples took part over Zoom. Each couple set ten questions on a subject of their choice and took their turn reading them out. That way nobody got lumbered with having to think up 50 questions. Obviously you can’t score on your own round so with five teams and 50 questions, your maximum score would be 40. of course it relies on honesty, no cheating, no using Google or Alexa. It was a great laugh so we are going to do it all again next week.
So, I’ve been able to maintain my social life, despite the restrictions…..it just means I switch the computer on instead of going out! Virtual Knit and Natter anyone?
A few weeks ago I went on a mosaic course at The Amble Pin Cushion (you can read all about it here).
I realised I had a load of material that I could use for mosaic work. K, who takes the dog for long beach walks (he’s a big dog and needs a lot of exercise) is constantly beach combing and comes home with loads of sea glass, worn fragments of china, shells and pebbles. The best pieces of sea glass are those beautifully rounded translucent pebbles, but it takes years of abrasion from sand and shingle for them to get like that. Most of the pieces are newer and less sea-worn than that, with maybe just the sharp edges worn off and a slight abrasion to the surface.
The main issue here was that the glass pieces were all of different thicknesses – I tried to select flat ones of similar thickness. I drew around the old coasters I was covering and arranged the pieces on the template, leaving slight gaps in between. I used my newly purchased glass and tile cutters to make a few of the pieces fit. Most of what I had was colourless, – I wanted a green and white colour palette but had very little green glass. I raided my nail polish collection (I have a ridiculous amount of nail polish and am a bit obsessed with my nails). I painted the back of some of the glass pieces with different shades of green polish. I was really pleased with this – you could not tell the difference between the green glass, which comes in different shades of green, and the painted ones.
I painted the old coasters with white acrylic paint so the original design didn’t show through. When it was dry, I applied a thick coat of PVA glue, let it go tacky, then added another coat. When this started to dry I transferred the glass pieced and such them on the coaster – the thick glue was to allow for any differences in thickness: Thicker pieces were pressed fully into the glue, thinner ones, presser more lightly to get as uniform surface level as possible.
When the glue dried, I mixed up some grout and filled the gaps and edges with it, running a finger along each edge to neaten it. You really need to use your fingers to make sure all the crevices are filled, which is delightfully messy. Using a damp sponge, I gently removed as much grout as I could grout from the surface of the glass pieces before it dried and repeated to remove any residue after it had fully hardened.
I love my finished coaster! They are not perfectly flat, but are ideal for chunky coffee mugs (maybe less so for delicate champagne flutes!)
I’m going to try a few more and use some of the china fragments.
It’s been great to find something absorbing to do to take my mind off these troubled times. Have you been trying any new crafts and hobbies while we have to stay at home?
Trying to keep our spirits up during these difficult times is so important and the social isolation is going to be hard, especially for those who live alone. Even when you live with your family, being with them and only them 24/7 could be a little claustrophobic.
I’ve just found out about video conferencing with Zoom. Several choirs are using this programme to interact online – you can enjoy the uplifting activity of singing and have social contact even when you are self-isolating or in quarantine from Coronavirus.. I’m planning on joining in with one of these choirs on Friday night, but then I thought we could try something with my ukulele group.
Some of us tried it tonight. It was great fun, though not perfect. When we all played together it was a bit of a cacophony! The volume on my laptop was a long way from being in the room with the others (might be worth trying headphones) and there was a slight time delay. It worked a lot better when one person led and everyone else muted themselves. That way we were each singing along to that one lead player. Tomorrow we are going to try taking turns leading songs.
There is also a 40 minute limit on meetings of more than 3 people, unless you subscribe to the premium version of Zoom.
In between tunes we unmuted and had a good catch up. Various husbands, children and dogs joined us at some points too which was nice. One of our members got a FaceTime call from her son in London in the middle of it all so she pointed her phone at the laptop camera and we all said hello.
It was so lovely to spend some time online with my friends this way. It really cheered me up. We might even use it for our book club or have a virtual coffee morning.
Have you come up with any creative ways of dealing with social isolation?
Spring has sprung! The frogs in the garden ponds have been busy and we have several clumps of spawn. K reckons they have been a couple of weeks later than usual this year, so I’d be interested to hear if anyone else has noticed the same.
I went for a wander round the garden today while the boys had gone out to take the dog for a walk. The primulas are flowering as are the daffodils and crocuses. The buds are swelling on my beautiful little amelanchier tree, so it will soon be covered in the prettiest star-shaped white blossom, followed by reddish foliage. I promise to post a photo when the flowers are out.
That’s one thing at least to look forward to. Everything is being cancelled as the Coronavirus measures ramp up. Our plans for a theatre visit to Edinburgh to see The Lion King is off, as is a late birthday present for my mother, to see a show at the Sage, Gateshead. I also had tickets for two shows at the recently refurbished Alnwick Playhouse. As a community venue that receives only a small proportion of its income from public funding, this much-loved local theatre has asked if those who had tickets would either waive refunds or accept a credit to be used against future purchases instead. Other theatres are doing the same. No doubt the Elbow concert we were to see next month will be off too. I hope the vibrant UK Arts Scene recovers and that the businesses threatened by this crisis survive.
Regular activities are curtailed too as unnecessary social contact is advised against. For me that means that choir, ukulele group, book club and knit and natter are stopped for the foreseeable future. Most of us make use of WhatsApp and other social media to keep in touch and I hope we can be creative about maintaining some sort of virtual activity online.
All this is against a background of no reported cases in Northumberland, though as people are being advised to self isolate if they have symptoms there may well be some affected by now. It makes the whole situation seem rather unreal.
We live in interesting times!
Are you involved in any groups that are grasping the challenge of online-only activity? I’d love to hear about what you are doing.
It was a glorious day today: sunny and almost warm! We headed up the coast to Bamburgh, with Son at the wheel. He’s learning to drive, so it’s a good way for him to practice.
Bamburgh is a pretty village, with plenty of pubs and cafes to visit. There is a historic church and The Grace Darling Museum. Grace was a local heroine, daughter of the lighthouse keeper on Longstone, one of the Farne Islands, just offshore here. In 1838 father and daughter famously rowed out in high seas to rescue the passengers and crew of a stricken vessel, the Forfarshire. The village is dominated by the magnificent Bamburgh Castle.
We drove along The Wynding (the lane leading to Bamburgh Golf Club), where there is car parking, and stopped at the end of the bay, by Stag Rock.
No one knows why there is a white deer painted on the rocks here – there are lots of stories. It gets a regular coat of paint to keep it looking pristine. In the distance you can see Holy Island and Lindisfarne Castle.
There are usually eider ducks swimming by the rocks here, and oystercatchers feeding. In summer the terns that nest on the Farne hunt small fish here. Occasionally you can see dolphins further out. Today’s sign of spring was the sound of skylarks soaring above the fields behind here.
Son and K took Buddy for a walk from here.They had plenty of space – Bamburgh Beach is huge and stunning.
The Farnes looked really close today.
While they walked, I knitted. I’m working on brioche wrist warmers. I couldn’t have asked for a better view.
I just had a call from Tony, the Practice Manager at Alnwick Medical Group to let me know that this afternoon’s group is cancelled. He asked me to put something on the blog.
As they haven’t received full guidelines on how the surgery should respond to latest Coronavirus guidelines it was decided to err on the side of caution and try to let everyone know not to turn up.
I did wonder if this would happen. It seems sensible to play safe. In the meantime it is up to all of us to follow the guidelines to protect ourselves and others.
It’s also important to keep a sense of perspective. There’s a lot of misinformation on social media so let’s stick to reliable sources like the NHS…and keep calm!
Hopefully normality will return before long. I’ll be staying at home practising my brioche knitting instead this afternoon.
Has the Coronavirus outbreak made you change your plans today?
Stitches by the Sea 