Holiday in Yorkshire

We finally got to go away. I never told anyone because ....well you just tend not to advertise on your blog that you will not be at home - just in case. We have not had a holiday since October 2013 so his was very welcome although a bit cold at night in a touring caravan. Our caravan is circa 1985 so pretty old and no mod cons at all. The dogs both wore coats to sleep at night so you can guess the temperature. I have been too busy to get away before though I have decided I want to try and get away in summer next year. That would make a lovely change. It was fun though. We stayed on a small caravan site near to Scarborough in Yorkshire. I have to say what they say about Northerners is true because everywhere we went everyone and I really do mean everyone was so very friendly. As a Midlander you tend to just accept the grumpy nature of your co-inhabitants but there is no way to deny the lovely friendly nature of the yorkshire people.

I want to move to Yorkshire. I probably will not be able to until I retire and that is assuming we have any pension at all by the time I hit retirement and they do not make me work till I just drop dead. I would not be at all surprised if that was the case. The retirement age for me as already risen I think to 68 and is even older for younger people. As it stood before the most recent changes I already had enough NI contributions for a full pension despite spending years in education. I suspect now I no longer have that without a further 20+ years of contributions.

Anyway a bit less gloom and doom needed I think. On the journey back I heard that old song " Don't worry, Be happy" and I just keep thinking of it since. Must google who sang it in fact! It has to be the way to go forward in my life. So from now onwards that is my new motto in life!

Since my partner took his driving test years after I did, I have what is sometimes called "Grandfather rights" to drive all sorts of vehicles. We do not yet know if he is legal to tow a caravan so I have to do it all. We did ask DVLA and the local police but it seems a bit of a grey area so until we find out I am stuck with all the towing which I can honestly say I do not enjoy. Anyway, he gets to drive my car with dogs in the back and I get the caravan on the back of a van cos that is loads better than blowing up my small car's engine.

Well the journey was long but OK and it only rained for one day when we were there so that was good. My two old dogs really enjoyed themselves but we had to pay for parking lots. Usually we park for free and walk but the lads are just too old and they both have bad legs that tend to give way so we paid - lots. It was great fun though. We visited Whitby ( with me all gothed but not OTT just black like I enjoy in winter. In summer I am a hippy, in winter I am a goth!) and Scarborough and Bridlington. I found Scarborough to be the best. Whitby was very crowded but I do love the whale jaw bone arch. I wanted to see it since I last visited at age 13 so that is one ambition fulfilled at least. Took me nearly 40 years to do it but at least that is one crossed off my "to-do-before-I-die" list.

Whilst walking along the North beach we found this statue of a man called Fred sitting on a very large bench. He was involved in freeing the prisoners from Belson at the end of WW2 so quite a local hero I think.

The statue is very larger than life as you can see here. My partner is over six foot and he also looks like a kid!

When I googled it he comes up as :

Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers, Scarborough

‘Freddie Gilroy and the Belsen Stragglers’ is an outsized steel sculpture by Ray Lonsdale.  It is situated on North bay in Scarborough and was gifted to the people of the town by Maureen Robinson after it had been on temporary display in late 2011. 

The sculpture is of an elderly Freddie Gilroy, a retired miner friend of the sculptor, who, at the age of 24 was one of the first soldiers to relieve the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

The inscription on the sculpture's plaque reads:

‘They said for king and country
we should do as we were bid,
They said old soldiers never die
but plenty young ones did.’

Quite moving I thought. The horrible things this man must have seen. Though what a hero to help to free those poor people in the concentration camps!


As for crafting: I did very little over the last week. I did do a bit of knitting to try and finish my long ongoing jumper which I now need which I started back in february: 18: Wonderful people and easy knitting bat wing sleeved jumper or sweater

and promised to finish as part of my Me Made May pledge - and failed!

ME MADE MAY 2016. 
I still have yet to finish it. Well I did say I am not a fast knitter!

We did establish that my bought waterproof jacket is not as good waterproof wise a my partners that I made here: 66: Finishing the UFOs - waterproof jacket so although it is far from perfect it works. I need to make another one for me! I got soaked on the one wet day we had and he was nice and dry and toasty warm!

I have done no sewing this week though. Since I got back which was on Saturday evening, I started to make some new curtains for the conservatory which will hopefully make it feel warmer this winter. We do have heating in there but when it gets really cold we tend to evacuate. That leaves me with no-where to make anything since the house is pretty small.

I have a theory you see that the reason the room feels cold is not really the temperature of the air, since we have heaters, but rather the fact everything is white so if I can add some extra layers to keep in the warmth and also to bring some colour into the room then maybe we will not have to totally move out of it this winter. So I am making the lightest weight curtains I can from cotton sateen which I happen to have lots of in a bright sunny yellow. There are two types of yellow I will need to use because I do not have enough of either one. Mind you it will clear out about 30m of fabric which will give me lots of space. I acnnot actually see me wanting to wear either of these fabrics either so a good way to use them up. I really must stop this random fabric buying! This is what the fabric looks like. One is a print sateen and the other a kind of brocadey cotton but not heavy.

 I have only just started the endless overlocking!

I decided to simply overlock all the edges and then hem along the top so we can thread onto curtain rods and hold these up with ikea kitchen hooks.

It works well for adding christmas lights etc as well which I did last year and means we do not need to drill holes in the UPVC. There is a rail aroung the top windows which you can hook things onto. By not having proper linings and hems hopefully the curtains will weigh much less and so will not damage the UPVC walls etc. Or thats the theory anyway. I will see how well this works later.

Thanks for reading,

Bracken

knitting update - Time to finish the UFOs

 

  I updated this post with a jumper picture and with me wearing this since I decided you cannot actually see much from the original photos.

I started this bat wing jumper back in february I think.18: Wonderful people and easy knitting bat wing sleeved jumper or sweater

I had half knitted it when I made the MeMade May challenge

ME MADE MAY 2016

I need to make a confession here that I never achieved my challenge and this still remains unfinished. I did wear something MeMade every day in May and often several items at once but I said I would finish it as part of Me Made May by the end of May which at the time seemed an easy task. Then I just never seemed to finish it. The yarn is kind of fluffy mohair type and it got too hot this summer to knit it ( excuses excuses!).  I made loads of sewed clothing but never managed to get back into this. Then a couple of evenings ago I picked it up and dropped half the stitches. I have picked them all back up again now and am finally on the second half.

 This is one side with front and sleeves as one piece so it should really be an easy make.

I think realistically I need to finish this now because its got to the stage it is stopping me from finishing other projects and also I could do with this for autumn so my challenge for the next week or so - I am not a fast knitter even when I get dedicated - is to finish this jumper so I can actually wear it and maybe to begin a different one. 

This is what I have knitted so far of side two. I am just increasing along the sleeve to make the bat wings. It gets very big so to be honest if it was in a heavier weight yarn I would find it hard to knit it but because its light fluffy stuff its actually ok.

This is the 1980s pattern the jumper is knitted from. To be quite honest though, and despite my good intentions to stick to the pattern, I started to ab-lib about one third of the way accross the first half so its not the same as what I have knitted. The increases and decreases and stitch numbers are of course the same but maybe it is my colour choice but I found I did not want to continue with the pattern colours as they are meant to be  so I started mixing them up a bit. Made for a more interesting knit and also original. I suspect it is very unlikely I will ever meet anyone wearing a jumper made from this pattern because it is early 1980s, and cut from some magazine I do not even remember the name of,  but by changing the stripes and blocks a bit I make dead certain this will be completely original. Also because on the original pattern the front and back are different to each other ( and look good) it does not matter if they are different here so really there is absolutely no more excuses I can find to prevent me from knitting this and until I do I am only going to sew UFOs. I have a few of them still sitting waiting as well. So for September at least, and possibly also October I am going to clear out my UFOs and not take on any proper challenges. Of course it could just be if I am lucky that one of my UFOs will fit into a challenge.

Thanks for visiting

Bracken

54: Self -drafted floral yellow top

I made this top about two years ago from the same fabric as the Bowie pants/MC Hammer trousers 51: pattern hacked yellow african block printed baggy Bowie trousers and the circular cullottes http://www.burdastyle.com/projects/circular-shorts-or-cullottes.

It was raining lots today so I took the photos inside hence they are a bit dull. The top is made from the left over bit of fabric from the other projects. Because of the shape of fabric I had left I made grown-on sleeves which are a bit bat wingish.

 Also the neckline is on the fabric fold so there are no shoulder seams just two side seams and a hem. The neck-hole is simply cut out of the top and has a facing. 

I curved the hemline similar to a shirt hem.

This has turned out to be a surprisingly wearable top so I really should make more in this style. It was also one of the easier and simplest designs I have even sewn.

Thanks for visiting my blog

Bracken