Tag: northumberland

Posted in Uncategorized

Singing about sheep and celebrating the landscape.

Posted on by Jackie B

It’s been a busy couple of days with some knitting connections, though rather tenuous!

Yesterday I went to a choir rehearsal – my former workplace , Newcastle City Council, has had a staff choir for several years. I am a founder member of the choir and still involved since I retired. We have been practicing for a lovely civic event. Every year the mayor of Bergen, Norway, one of the City’s twin towns, presents the City with a beautiful big Christmas tree and this year we are one of the choirs who will be singing at the presentation ceremony. Here’s more about Newcastle’s relationship with Bergen and its other twin towns .

This year’s Lord Mayor is originally from Sheffield and has asked us to sing the Yorkshire version of While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night (sung to the tune of On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘at) , so we were working on that. There are lots of verses to get through, but the arrangement is lovely (in four parts) and I’m enjoying singing soprano on this one. It’s not too high and we get some nice harmonies and echo the ‘flocks by night line’ I haven’t got a recording of us but I found this which gives you an idea of what it sounds like

After singing about sheep (or shepherds) yesterday, Today I saw lots of sheep while I was driving to The Sill – the amazing Landscape Visitor Centre, close to Hadrian’s Wall at Once Brewed. The Centre includes a youth hostel, cafe and gift shop and an interesting exhibition about the landscape and its connections to farming, leisure, industry and conservation. It also has the most stunning views across some of Northumberland’s hill country towards the Wall, especially from the roof, which is easily accessible up a fairly gently sloping path. On my last visit I spent ages using the augmented reality technology which enables you to “fly” over the local landscape and beyond .The Centre is well worth a visit.

I was meeting up with family and our friend M, who is herself a skilled knitter and has even knitted Fair Isle with the locals while visiting Fair Isle itself! We had a delicious lunch and then I sneaked into the exhibition, while the others were chatting in the lobby area – they noticed a lovely moving projection onto the floor of animal and bird footprints and birds flying by. The sheep in the exhibition weren’t very fleecy though!

Here in Northumberland the hills are steep and covered in poor soil. It’s hard to grow crops like cabbages and corn, but super for sheep, so…..without this landscape (and the sheep and their wool) we’d be cold!

To view discussion, click on the title of this post and scroll down

Posted in Uncategorized

Knit and Natter 2.

Posted on by Jackie B

My local GP surgery has started running a variety of activities beneficial to health, through their social prescribing initiative. The knit and natter group are thriving – it’s a lively group with a purpose – dozens of items have been made for good causes by the group over the last few months – they meet on Friday afternoons.

One of the GPs has done voluntary work in a clinic in Zambia, where baby clothes are scarce, to the point that newborns had to be wrapped in newspaper for warmth. We started by knitting “fish and chip baby “tops, blankets, bootees, hats to go to the clinic and others nearby.

We continues with this and have also been making items for premature babies at RVI, Newcastle, hats for the homeless and twiddle muffs for dementia patients. Here is what group members have made in the last week alone

There’s more waiting to be posted off to where it’s needed.

My tiny contribution this week was a pair of bootees made with yarn left over from a pair of socks I knitted recently.

To view discussion, click on the title of this post

Posted in Uncategorized

Angels

Posted on by Jackie B

The last time I saw my knitting friend, Anne, she invited me to join a Coffee Craft and Chat session at her house as part of an “Angel Extravaganza” . We would be knitting and trimming angels with Christmas messages, to be hidden in and around Ellington, Cresswell and Lynemouth.

I arrived at Anne’s today not really knowing what to expect, but found a house full of very busy women, enjoying a well-earned lunch break with tasty homemade soup, scones, cakes and biscuits (timed my arrival perfectly!) I managed to knit an angel, added a pair of spare wings (thanks to Anne’s neighbour, Jude) and had a thorough lovely afternoon. Everyone was great.

The local church had initiated the project locally and distributed patterns earlier in the year .You can find the pattern here http://www.christmasangel.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Christmas-Angel.pdf The knitters had been making angels ever since and over 500 have now been completed. I wonder where mine will end up?

Click on the title of this post to see comments