European Day of Languages

At last, something pleasant happening in our new school!

We had fun with Gypsy Kings music in the cafes, flags everywhere, multi-lingual menus, French breakfasts, tapas, Innocent Sangria, poster competitions, ice cream tastings, donations from local supermarkets, internet links with our European neighbours and music music music everywhere.

Great day for a certain person to be starting her German lessons.


And then my mobile got stolen.
Surely we're going to turn a corner in that place sometime soon?

I'm in!

Received my invite for Ravelry last night.

https://www.ravelry.com/account/login

My username is KEDkrafty just to simplify matters.

Hope to "see you in there".

Off to explore my dears, I may be gone some time....

Mighty Oaks ...

...from little acorns grow.

Thanks to India I can now get my head round the main part of the pattern for the Oak Leaf shawl. She patiently sat and tutored me as I had a go at a practice swatch at Sunday's knitting meetup.

I knew she was the very woman to help, having admired her version for some time.

I did my practice swatch in some Rowan Scottish Tweed, shade 29 which I've been using as a contrast on Miller from A Yorkshire Fable under India's firm but caring gaze. The Scottish Tweed looks nothing like the colour in the Rowan pop-

up and would actually have been ideal for the shawl, except I needed to keep it for the rest of the detail on my Miller.

So, I've plumped for this lovely blend of greens and rusts in the "Rustic" colourway of Rowan Tapestry and I think they really suit this pattern, resembling as it does an autumnal oak tree on the turn. And yes, the similarity between the colours of this, and the Green Man in the last post, are not lost on me.

I am now motoring with this, but I must say I could've sat poring over the pattern until doomsday without the penny dropping.

Thank goodness for knitting friends who can show you the ropes. @-;---

Birthday Greetings!

We just celebrated my friend Roddy's 40th birthday down at Balcary Bay.
The photo shows my DH, moi, the birthday boy and our friend Deborah, from left to right.
We had some cake and wine to celebrate the actual day, then went out to dinner with some more of R's friends and relations to honour the occasion a couple of days later.
The cake was quite cool, shaped like a bottle of vintage bubbly, and we did take some photos, just not on my camera.
Many Happy Returns, auld yin!
As most of you love crafts, D has allowed me to show you the gift she laboriously made for R, and believe it or not, she is not sworn off cross stitch for life, she has started a kit for herself, which is a very rare occurence!

Green Man Cross Stitch

Deborah's gift to Roddy was this Green Man Cross Stitch which has taken many a month as you can imagine, and has travelled many a mile! One "challenge" with it was how to keep the work-rate up on it while not giving the game away as to what the picture was, so D had to resort to working on it at all sorts of hours and in all sorts of locations to make sure it got done. R has a great interest in the Green Man plus he knows how much work goes into cross stitch so he absolutely loved his present. Expletives were flying about when he saw the finished article!

Green Man Cross Stitch

If memory serves there were 200 stitches across and over 200 down. To put it another way; there are over forty thousand cross stitches in this piece! Each stitch is two strokes so that's eighty thousand stitches. Unbelievable! I didn't see the finished piece before it went to the framer's as D was on a tight deadline, but I did see the back while it was in progress. You want to have seen the workmanship.

Green Man Chart

This is the guide photo on the front of the pattern.
There were about a dozen pages worth of chart, and over 40 shades of cotton used. How Debbie could tell the difference between the very subtly different shades defies belief.

Yummy

Berries galore!
This time it's strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries and redcurrants.
Shame they're not called redberries.
Summer pudding, I approve.
Yum yum yum.