Whitlam cowl

Hello

Earlier this year I bought myself a buff (this isn't a sponsored post by the way!). 

A buff is basically a tubular piece of material, with no seams, that you slip over your head and wear round your neck. There are lots of fancy things you can do with a buff, for example, make it into a head covering but I only wear it round my neck. I bought it 

initially to wear when I am cycling (not that I have done much of that just lately, 

but thereby hangs another tale!). 

Often I don't want to wear a thick scarf when I am cycling because I would get way to 

hot after I'd been cycling a while, but I want something just to keep that cool 

"wind chill factor" from going down the front of my jacket.  

Anyway I discovered that I loved my buff! 

It was so good for keeping warm, and not just when I was on my bike. And as the 

first buff I bought was mainly yellow to match my fluorescent yellow cycling jacket 

I rather naughtily forked out for 2 more buffs - one mainly red and the 

other mainly blue to match different outfits. 

Oh but my love for having a warm snuggly neck did not stop there. 

I saw this Whitlam cowl from Baa Ram Ewe and realised how much use 

I would get out of one of these. 

This cowl is thicker than a buff so would 

be useful in the cooler months but not so thick as to be cumbersome.  

I bought Baa Ram Ewe's Titus yarn (again, no sponsored link). 

Balling the yarn - this takes me back many years, helping my mum to ball yarn. 

Sadly I had no helpers so had to use the back of an old chair that had been discarded under the car port as the seat was broken (maybe I'll have to keep it now for balling yarn?)

The colour way I chose is Yorkstone - a muted, unusual choice for me as I tend to go for 

bright colours but I thought I might wear this quite often and thus I played it safe 

and chose a neutral colour.  

I carried this project around with me in one of my favourite project bags. For me 

the whole experience of knitting/cross stitching is heightened by a pleasing project bag. 

This project even came to Exeter with me for a 2 day conference - I can always manage 

to find a few minutes knitting time, even if it is on the train. 

This was quite a straight forward pattern but I am a bit frustrated because I made

 several silly mistakes which I couldn't rectify easily as it was a lacy pattern. 

I think I just wasn't in the mood for concentrating properly sometimes but 

generally the mistakes are minor and probably, as is often the case, only I can see them.  

This cowl grew quickly.  

I knitted for 44 inches. Blocking it highlighted the lace 

pattern and also softened the wool.

And here is the finished cowl, prior to joining the ends. 

You could use this as a scarf too - it has pretty scalloped ends. 

And here is the finished article in situ - note how I artfully stretch my neck 

to iron out wrinkles!!

 

 And just to prove the neutral colour was a good choice this time, 
here it is with my blue coat.....

my red coat....

and even my turquoisey coat!!

Yes, I'm very happy with it - I know I shall get a lot of wear out of this. 

And I can see me knitting this again. Now which colour yarn to choose next...

Goathland? Endeavour?

They even have one called Filey, one of my favourite seaside resorts. 

Fantastic names aren't they?

xXx

When it rains

Hello

Living in the Midlands has some drawbacks - a major one is that we are a minimum 

of a 2 hour drive from the coast. And every so often I have a yearning to 

see the sea, eat fish and chips and waste a few pounds (and a couple of hours) 

in the amusements. 

So Last Friday I booked a night for us all at Whitby Youth Hostel. 

We set off at 9.30 on Friday morning, a bit later than planned but it is 

the summer holidays and have you tried getting 3 teenagers/young 20 somethings 

up early when there is no pressing need?

 The weather forecast wasn't good but I live by the motto that 

"the weather is never as bad as they forecast". 

I think on Friday my motto let me down. 

As we headed north the skies brightened, 

my natural optimism grew but as we turned off the A1 and skirted the 

North Yorkshire Moors, visibility dropped to about 20 metres.

  The clouds were low and the rain was heavy. 

We headed for Staithes and sat in the car to ear our lunch. 

Once the rain eased, we headed down into Staithes, dodging the heavy rain showers 

in tea shops. 

It was flipping chilly too, I ended up wearing son's jumper to keep warm!

Fish and chips were eaten in Whitby. 

Entertainment for me in the Youth Hostel was browsing through some old copies of a

 magazine we used to read as children "Essex Countryside" - yes, at heart I am an

 Essex girl! The date on this one is 1969!

I loved the adverts - look at that Capri, 3 litre was pretty impressive!

And look at these adverts for TVs. In the advert above it promotes colour transmission

 as starting in November 1969! And the telephone numbers are so short.

Saturday dawned a much brighter prospect....ahhh! 

This is the Whitby that I had in mind when I booked our one night away!

Even at 10am the harbour was busy - 

everyone eager to escape outside after the wet and cool day before. 

The sun shone brightly - it can't fail to lift the spirits.  

After a walk round Whitby we headed south to Filey, one of my favourite seaside resorts, 

and a place we often stayed in for a week when the children were little. 

It has happy memories for us - how can we forget the time when our younger son

 aged just 3 months managed to roll out of bed and fall in the open suitcase 

by the bed - that was a bit of luck wasn't it!

Or the week when I very nearly came home early from holiday because same son, 

a couple of years older, would not sleep except from 10pm to 6am - 

not the most considerate times for parents, ready for a holiday and hoping for a relaxing week!

Said son is now 19 and sleeps 11pm to 11am (if we let him!)

Ahh... Filey Bay...

fluorescent ice creams...

and an incoming tide!

Then far too soon, it was time to say goodbye once more to the sea!

Until next time Filey!

xXx

Hope you all had a good weekend!