I love this picture. It is a view of Duart castle, as seen through an archway at Torosay castle. I think this will be my last entry about Mull for a wee while as I have knitting goodies to show you. Someone has been spoiling me! 

Eas Fors waterfall 2005. boo hoo, I want my long hair back. Why did I have to get those stupid highlights? 

Eas Fors waterfall 2006. Same waterfall, different midge bonnet. The actual falls are really big, but you would have to perform a death defying stunt to get them from this angle. 

Picnic at Torosay Castle. What to munch? What to munch? We offered the birds some cherries, but they preferred crisps! 

Beautiful lilies outside our holiday cottage at Aros Mains. We had a look at them every day, there was always something new to notice. 

Trip to Isle of Staffa

If you look closely you will see this pup is posing with a tiny little perfect wild field orchid! And a dandelion thing.

There used to be a great blog out there called Woolywarbler, where Tracy used to show us all her beautiful colourwork and keep us up to date with the adventures of her doggie Disney. Alas, that blog is no more, and sorely missed, but at least I can show the adventures of our own Disney lookalike, who is called -Disney of course!

Anyway, Disney came with us on our boat trip to the Isle of Staffa, which is an uninhabited island famous for its "Giant's Causeway" type geology. It's quite spectacular really. I have tons of pictures but I've chosen just a few. You get the boat from Ulva Ferry on Mull, enjoy the wildlife en route and then spend a while on the island itself, which is great. While I was away singing in the cave, J was getting dive bombed by territorial birds, which he assures me is not so great. Must ask him what kind they were. Scoors or something. :-)
Added later, the birds are called Skuas. He is English, I was assuming he was swallowing an r somewhere. http://www.rspb.org.uk/birds/guide/a/arcticskua/index.asp

The beautiful water sets off this amazing "causeway". It really is something else when you see the hexagons in the rock for yourself. 

Basalt colonnades formed by the cooling of volcanic lava around 60 million years ago. 

On this visit to Staffa I made a point of making time to go into Fingal's cave. I sang a few bars because they say it's a natural cathedral. I don't think I was deep enough into it to get the full effect plus I didn't want to overly scare the other holiday makers. 

Scene from our picnic spot at Martyrs Bay, Iona. The colour of the water there is just beautiful, as Heather says. Bright shades of blue and turquoise above that lovely pale sand. After the picnic we went in for a swim. Real swim, goggles and all. J swam out to the boats. The real reason I came back in after a while was because I could feel my skin getting too much sun. It wasn't the *bracing* water. No really, I was starting to get used to that. A bit. 

Martyrs Bay, Iona. Lovely weather that day. 

Silly cows drinking the sea water at Fionnport, which is where you get the ferry for the 5 min crossing to Iona. 

Got to start somewhere...

... so why not with the Mull Highland Games on Thursday July 20th?
I had never been to any Highland Games before, and although we arrived well on into the afternoon, we got a good taste of the event.

Here's the iconic view of the Caber Tossing event. What I loved most about this event was the judge, who, while being an expert in his field, was about 190 if he was a day. He is obviously THE authority on caber tossing in the Mull area. You can see him there in his bring orange raincoat and kilt.

Here are a few more shots taken that day before we wimped out because of the rain. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a total washout that day, or any day during the two weeks, but it was getting a bit wet for lightweights like ourselves. 

And they're off! A bit of serious running as well as fun runs such as the ladies overseas race for a bottle of wine. I don't mean these guys were in it for the prizes, which were token gestures, but some Uni clubs and the like had travelled the distance for events such as the mile. Being a champ at the Highland Games must have a certain cachet. 

Dancing competition. Chose this pic because you can see a bit of dancing, natch, plus the setup with the judges' tent. It wasn't a traditional ladylike dance, there was a lot of stamping and fist clenching - I think it represented a battle or a trade or something. 

The Tobermory Pipe Band. Give 'em a break, Tobermory's a small town! Not a freshly-dug grave in the front centre, but a long jump pit or whatever the terminology is. 

The wanderer returns

Back home safe and sound after a wonderful, refreshing holiday on the Isle of Mull and environs.
Will fill you in over the next few days once the pictures have been imported.

In the meantime, here is a pic of me not drowning but waving in the cool with a capital F waters of the Sound of Iona last week! Yes, not only does my hand-knitted heid bunnet keep off midges, but it also helps prevent sunstroke. Off to catch up with the blogs now. :-)

Off on holiday

Leaving tomorrow for a two-week holiday on the Isle of Mull.
Will the weather be like picture A















or picture B?














Who can tell?

Won't have any internet access while we're away.
Enjoy your knitting and see you in two weeks. K x

Alexandra Park Roses...

...and Clematis.

Thank-you for the lovely comments about the Shetland Triangle shawl. I may well follow Frida's advice and try to block it a bit more energetically, but I think it's more or less its ultimate size now.

These flower pictures were taken on the trip to the park when we photographed the shawl. And trust me, the scent was gorgeous too.

This weekend I wasn't doing too much knitting as we went back to Balcary Bay, but I did manage to finish a baby cardigan for a friend of mine at the Glasgow Knitting Meetup who had a little boy not so long ago.


It was made in Jaeger Baby Merino 4ply in shade #105 Buttermilk, which is not as strong a colour as it appears in this photo.
Funny how there's so much seaming and ends for something so tiny!









Here's Padraig modelling the back of it. The colour is more true here.

Now, I MUST go and work on my Rowan International Exchange item.

Completed Shetland Triangle

What a beautiful day for a photo shoot!
My friend and I headed out to Alexandra Park to take some photos of my completed Shetland Triangle.

This is a design by Evelyn A. Clark, as seen in Wrap Style.

As I had suspected/ feared when I was making it up, it is pretty small, but it's actually fractionally bigger than the dimensions in the book. I just kept going until I ran out of yarn basically. I was so cautious throughout that last ball, making loads of slip knots and calculations about how many reps I could fit in and the like. I only had two arm lengths of wastage at the end so all my sums were worthwhile. I did 30 more pattern rows than the book, but tension differences between my yarn and theirs mean it wasn't that much bigger than their schematic.


It is lovely though, and the stitch pattern was even easier than my Lace Leaf one, with every right-side row using the same stitch repeat in varying combinations. I don't feel the pattern was just as well written this time, but that is more a reflection on the Interweave Press house-style than the designer.

I will definitely be making another one of these when the yarn diet is over. Next time it will be in a Shetland laceweight with nice loose tension to show off the stitch pattern. The Lang Yarns Venezia is rather nice, but again I would go with a self-colour to showcase the stitch.

I just took it with me to photograph today, but I ended up putting it on to avoid sunburn while we had a wee walk in the park. A Shetland shawl in July? My sister H would be proud of me! Although her speciality is an aran cardigan in high summer.

Added later: Lang Yarns Venezia COLOR Shade 0150, bought from Citywolle, Vienna.

Brilliant weekend

WEEKEND FUN
While some folks were having a whale of a time over in Cockermouth at Woolfest, we were over the other side of the Solway Firth, getting away from it all at Balcary Bay. On a clear day you can see Maryport, but there was a lot of mist over the cliffs this weekend although it was lovely and warm. We had a brilliant weekend down there at a cottage we go to - we went paddling, walking at the cliffs, shore walking, picnicking, visiting, knitting, dining out and on a trip to Threave Gardens as well. Although we don't stay at the Balcary House Hotel, the link gives you an idea about where I'm talking about, and the cottage is just next to it. There are more photos after this main text.

DIGITAL CAMERA
So, as you can see, I have access to the digital camera again! Hurray! It involves charging the battery of another digital camera and swapping the batteries. It's a bit of a faff, but at least I can use the thing. It's actually a really good camera, apart from it's broken, which is a slight snag!

KNITTING AND YARN
I've done a *wee* bit of knitting this weekend, not too much, but I've got days and weeks ahead of me to catch up with that. The main knitting news is that I managed to resist temptation and not break the yarn diet at either the Gem Shop in Castle Douglas, where m-i-l lives, or more importantly at the JOHN LEWIS sale! Didn't even have to particularly discipline myself - there was a fair amount of Rowan Chunky Print, Big Wool, Biggy Print etc but I'm in summer mode so I didn't even have to tear myself away from it. I know my lace knitting so far, has been lace *lite* to some, but I've joined a Lace Knitting Ring to help me get my teeth right into it. Hope to have some shawl pix to show you soon, I'm on the edging now, and each row is taking 35 mins and growing - just as well I'm on the last lap. K x

Self-timer up on cliffs. Lovely light picnic but no porpoises today. (P.S. I know NADA about animals. I wouldn't know a porpoise if it came up and shook my hand-I'm not what you'd call an animal person. I'm reliably informed there were no porpoises.)

Have knitting, will travel.  

J on the shore at Balcary Bay. Hestan Island in background.