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…
I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine’s Day and that love was in the air. I was racking my brains for something different to do this year. It is lovely to give and receive flowers, chocolates etc but it is nice to ring the changes now and again.
This year I bought some goodies and packed up a gourmet picnic. It included smoked salmon parcels, olives, Scotch eggs, posh sausage rolls, some French cheeses, strawberries , chocolate truffles and Prosecco.
We headed for the beach and parked overlooking Coquet Island. We left Buddy the Labrador at home – true to his breed, he is a greedy dog and the food was frankly too good to share! We unpacked the picnic and poured a small glass of fizz, then tucked in. Food with a view. Perfect!
As autumn has arrived and the holidaymakers have gone home, our lovely Northumbrian beaches are quieter again. We were at Alnmouth yesterday for the first time in ages and it was so good to be back with my favourite knitting view of Coquet Island.
For a while it’s been too busy to find a parking space. Also, when the weather is good and the picnickers are about, Buddy the Labrador thinks the beach is one massive buffet for his personal enjoyment! Not that I really resent the tourists. They have given the local businesses, including cafes, restaurants, pubs and hotels, such a boost since the COVID lockdown, hopefully enough to continue trading, so we can support them during the coming months. Not that that is happening much. We are in a local lockdown here in North East England, following a surge in Coronavirus cases, so we can only visit such places with the people we live with.
One change I did notice was that there is now a gate on the car park at Alnmouth Beach. Locals reported that a number of camper vans were “wild”camping there and leaving large amounts of rubbish behind. The same was happening at nearby Buston Links. The landowner has installed bollards to block the lane there to vehicles , which has not gone down well with people who go there to walk their dogs.
While K, son and Buddy went for a walk I got on with the brioche hand warmers I began to knit earlier in the week.
The sea was quite rough, so it was distracting watching the breaking waves. I am always mesmerised by the sea.
There were still lots of people about, but it wasn’t picnic weather so Buddy got a good run off his lead. When the boys returned at the end of the walk we treated ourselves to an ice cream from Gwen’s van. I do love knitting with a view, especially a sea view.
I’ve had the house to myself for most of the day, so I finished a project that has been hanging around since last Christmas. It’s a rather sweet needle felted unicorn, made from a kit I received as a gift. It was my first attempt at needle felting.
To a point, these kits are a bit of a cheat. If you were making this from scratch you’d make a skeleton or armature and needle felt over that, but this kit came with a polystyrene base, so it was just a case of making the legs and ears, covering the body/head shape and felting it all together. The instructions were not great: a sheet of tiny photographs and no explanatory text. Once I’d worked out what to do, I found there’s something very satisfying about wielding that felting needle, especially if you are in a bad mood. I did learn that getting carried away has its drawbacks however. If you miss it really hurts. Also, those needles break really easily.
The most fiddly part was the unicorn’s horn. This involved twisting some of the purple fibres and a white thread around a short piece of pipe cleaner and securing it with hot glue. I went for a more free-flowing mane and tail than the one on the box illustration, so they don’t look that similar. You finish it off with embroidered eyelashes. I love putting the eye on a toy or animal. I always take a lot of care getting the placement right – it seems to be the most important thing that brings it to life. I rather like it!
When I’d finished I looked out the window and there were seven collared doves in one of the trees in our garden. They usually seem to gather when it’s stormy to shelter from the weather. These three looked particularly cosy with their feathers all fluffed up.
I didn’t stay in the house all day: I nipped out to pick son up from Alnmouth Golf Club at Foxton and parked up with my knitting while I waited for him. I had a great view over the golf course towards Coquet Island. Being Mum’s Taxi does sometimes have its compensations!
Back home, Unicorn is now sitting in pride of place. I need to think of a suitable name for him/her. Any suggestions?
How the weather has changed since I posted this time last week in the same place. The rain has stopped and the temperature has dropped. While K walked the dog I put my knitting on a picnic table while I took photos – It was freezing, so I was soon back in the car to get on with my knitting before my fingers got numb.
The body of the poncho cape has grown and I’m really enjoying putting the different blue tones together. I’ve just joined in the turquoise colour you can see on the left – it is an oddment left over from the Valdres Sweater. The number of stitches is increasing rapidly, so I’m about to change to circular needles. You can see how this needle is absolutely crammed.
Last week’s breakers have washed up loads of kelp, The sea is a lot calmer now and it’s so good to have sunshine and blue sky. Coquet Island was clearly visible this week now the rain and fog have gone. The island is an important nesting site for the Roseate Tern – one of our rarest breeding seabirds. Other species breed there too, notably the Puffin.
Even though it was only about 2pm, the sun was very low in the sky, but then it is December. It made the Aln Estuary look beautiful.
It finally stopped raining so I joined K and the dog at Alnmouth today. I’m not good at walking on sand so decided to take a few pics for the blog. I love to sit and watch the sea (sometimes knitting at the same time). The view changes so rapidly. The carpark at Alnmouth overlooks the beach so it’s a perfect vantage point. We love it in the winter as there are fewer picnickers (Buddy the labrador is very greedy).
The sea was rough today and the tide was in. Usually there is a good view of Coquet Island from here but the weather was too murky to see it.
Tank traps from WWII
The waves have washed a lot of sand away and the old tank traps are easy to see here. These concrete cubes are found at lots of places along this coast – they were defences against enemy landing craft, left over from World War Two. Today some children were having fun climbing on them. In summer they are a great place to dry wet swimming towels, but nobody was venturing into the water today!
I’m on the next stage of the stash busting blues project, having done lots of maths last night to work out the transition from the collar to the body and the shaping increases for the next part of the pattern. It’s pretty straightforward for the rest of it if all goes to plan, so it was bliss to just be mesmerised by the waves and get on with my knitting!
Stitches by the Sea 