A hat hack

With a change in the season and hopeful of seeing sunshine, we've dug out M's new summer hats. Being a year older, means the hats from last year are too small but the replacement hats are still too big and prone to blowing off in a slight breeze.

This is not a trait that endears sun hats to M, so we had to fix it.

After much discussion and research on the internet to show M what I had in mind, we settled on the idea of adding a chin cord with a button to slide up and down.

I got out some sample lucet cord, showing M how threading it through a button would allow it to slide but grip. I found suitable ribbon and buttons (much to M's disappointment as she was hoping to visit the local yarn shop), but couldn't find my normal lucet to make the cord. I ended up having to use a fall back lucet from my collection, which is not as comfortable in my hand as the one I prefer. It took a while to get a reasonable tension...

Lucet cord starting to take shape.

Lucets are very portable, so I was able to work the cord up quickly, even taking it to Ikea much to the consternation of another customer who thought I had a catapault!

A day or so later I cut ribbon and sewed it in place on each side of the hat brim's underside to form loops. I threaded a suitable button onto the cord and tied it in place.

One cord, button and some ribbon later...

And there you go, a new adjustable chin strap on a fisherman's style hat. M gave it a test today and try as it might, the wind couldn't blow it off. M approves.

We have a chin cord.

I just need to add similar cords to her other sun hats now!

Going on an ice hunt

Today we awoke to a cold, cold morning and the street cloaked in a thick blanket of freezing fog. It seemed like an ideal day to have a brisk walk around the local nature reserve at Brandon Marsh. M was a little reluctant, preferring the idea of staying indoors but I tempted her with the idea that she could wear her pyjamas under her clothes and how fun that would be!

To clarify, the pyjamas in question were thermals which M often wears as PJs during the coldest nights. Looking out through the haze at the frozen world this morning, thermals seemed like a good idea to me. Indeed all three of us wore thermal layers under our clothes for today's walk.

I had one other ace up my sleeve today - fairy ballerina wellie socks. How could M resist?

We pulled on our many layers and I defrosted the car so we could get into it. M watched carefully as I took luke warm water and poured it onto the bumper to release the tailgate which was welded under an inch of ice. It took two jugs of warm water to free it, then a little trickled down the door gap before the seal would break. M cheered as the door released and the tailgate swung reluctantly into the air.

Into the car we bundled, piling blankets on top of M as she never wears heavy coats in the car and it takes a while for the heating to get going. After extensive window clearing, we were on our way, albeit slowly to account for the ice on the side roads and lack of visibility. Once we were out of Coventry and heading for Brandon, the road cuts through countryside and it was beautiful. Fog hung low over fields behind the hedgerows while the white trees glistened in the weak sunlight that occasionally managed to break through the cloud cover.

The driveway to the reserve was a little scary, no salt or grit presumably because the run off into the marsh would be detrimental to the wildlife. Sheet ice was plainly visible on the road surface and around the speed bumps as I cautiously made my way down the hill towards the reserve carpark, where we parked without incident.

M donned her snowsuit, boots, scarf, hat and gloves. We grown-ups did up our coats and pulled on our boots.

We were no sooner making our way through the visitor centre courtyard when we spotted our first icy things, Frozen spiders webs.

Frozen spider's web in the courtyard of the Visitor's Centre at Brandon Marsh.

The pond in the education team's garden was frozen over and Dave had to step in with stern words as M tried to step out onto the ice. So started our walk around the reserve spotting ice and showing M how very thin it was, how fragile, slippery and so very pretty.

A willow tree in the middle of a frozen lake.

The view across a frozen lake.

A stick rests on the surface of a frozen lake.

M and Dave look out over a frozen lake.

The wildlife seemed to have hidden away warm in their lairs, burrows or nests, but that was OK as we were enjoying the spectacle of ice, ice everywhere. In total M was inspected by four robins, who examined her carefully trying to judge if she should be challenged or not. I think they decided in the end that if she was a robin, she was a big, noisy robin so should be avoided. Otherwise we saw two thrushes, a blackbird, a moorhen, one tiny black beetle, one great tit, one blue tit, one sparrow, a squirrel and two rabbits. Some ducks flew overhead and three tufted ducks were making their way carefully through a tributary in a gully that fed into one of the lakes.

M holds up a stick complete with an attached piece of sheet ice.

Ice crystals formed in wood chip and leaf litter ground cover in the Mouse Maze.

Odd ice formations across a bootprint in the mud.

Wrapped up warm as she was, M had a blast. She stomped on frozen puddles. Crunched through mud. Poked at frozen drips. Removed her gloves to touch wafer thin, glass like sheets of ice. Squelched through any liquid mud she could find and sank half way up her calf in one patch of surprisingly still soft mud. All the while, M kept returning to the refrain of We're going on an ice hunt as based on Michael Rosen's We're Going On a Bear Hunt.

Frozen leaves.

Ice crystals growing out from the stems of plants.

Very dramatic looking frozen teasels.

After our walk we shared bowl of chips and a hot chocolate in the cafe. I found some colouring sheets for M which sealed the day as a good one in M's estimation. We drove home as M sang Christmas songs to herself in the car before falling into exhausted sleep within ten minutes of arriving home.

If you can't beat em

Gosh, it's been a while since I posted here!

Life has been trundling on and while I have had the odd thing to post since May last year, I've lacked the fundamental time aspect to do so. I never knew that being a working mum would leave me with so little time to... well, do anything really. Typing or crafting are real problem areas for me these days as M still loves the laptop and believes that she should have a go at anything I'm doing. With computer time at a real premium I'm also very slow to upload photographs since M always tries to take over and is a dab hand at reconfiguring the laptop.  At nearly twenty months, this is impressive to behold and it can take quite a while to figure out what she did with a few swipes of the touchpad and the click of a couple of buttons!

Ahem. Onwards and upwards though.

A week late but, last weekend we had snow overnight on Saturday. This meant we headed outside for the obligatory snow sculpture.

Dave showed us how it was done, rolling huge snow balls around the lawn hoovering up all the sticks, rubble and leaves he could find, to construct his snowman who is largely hardcore.  He topped him off with his ushanka.

M says "HAT! SNOWMAN!"

A week later, while most of the snow is gone this snowman is still standing and a testament to Dave's snowman construction skills.

M and I chose a slightly more sophisticated approach, carefully collecting clean snow and packing it together to form our snowman.  She grew more slowly than Dave's and ended up a lot smaller, but both M and I liked her.

Mummy lends a hand building a snowman.

M chose to decorate the snowman with one of her old beanies.

M adds the finishing touches.

She also inserted the arms and added the eyes herself.

A week on and our snowman has taken on the delicate proportions of an Edwardian Lady.

We did of course have snow on the ground throughout December in 2010, but M was only six months old when it melted and so probably doesn't remember it.  She wasn't really mobile back then, so this was her first year of playing out in the snow and I think she enjoyed it.  M had seen snow in books before this and knew what a snowman was.  Indeed her reaction on seeing snow this year was "SNOW! WHITE" and after building the snowmen she was very excited when we came inside to warm up.  She spent a good while running up and down chattering about her "NO MAN".

The snow may have only been around for one day but it certainly impressed one small person.

Struggling to reach the computer

With temperatures in Coventry struggling (and for the most part failing) to get above freezing for a while now, I think we can safely say that Winter has arrived. We've got off fairly lightly compared with most of the country, only seeing a light snowfall; certainly no more than a couple of inches. That said, I think this the first time I've seen snow in November, despite living in Coventry for 12 years now.

Christmas is almost upon us and I'm trying not to dwell too much on my impending return to work in January. Maternity leave seems to have just flown by and I can hardly believe that my daughter is six months old.

Christmas itself is likely to be a low key event this year; we've foregone the typical tour of the country which normally marks this time of year for us. The current weather aside, it just isn't practical to do flying visits on that kind of scale anymore. Instead we're looking forward to our first Christmas as a family at home together.

I haven't had much of an opportunity to update here lately because M is a lot more aware of her surroundings. Little hands seem to need to explore everything and the laptop is particularly exciting. All those buttons and a bright screen are enticing but the fact that Mummy is playing with it make the computer great fun.



I on the other hand am proving to be a bit of a meany. I just don't think drool and keyboards mix very well and no amount of excited shrieking has so far persuaded me otherwise.

Our difference in opinion regarding computer use is seriously impacting my time online. I can of course use the phone, but it's not the same thing at all.

I may be absent from the internet but I have managed to do a tiny amount of crochet. M has a keen eye for yarn and likes to handle (and nom) anything I'm working on - if this continues I foresee my daughter developing an interest in textiles! My usual approach to her assistance is to show M what I am working on and talk to her about it which seems to go down well.

While I hunted down suitable baby yarn I decided to have a go at crocheting a hat... for ME!!!

The last time I attempted to crochet a hat for myself it didn't end well but I was willing to give it another go. My life as a non hat person does seem like a bit of a wasted opportunity for endless crafting fun.

With limited stash diving and acquisition I opted for the top down or last in first out approach in my yarn choice. I picked up some Sirdar Hug from Mrs T's last spring with a chunky waistcoat in mind. As the nearest thing to hand it became hats.

Dave bought me a copy of Melody Griffiths' Crochet in No Time for my birthday which had a pattern for a simple hat called Cloche with Flower (Ravelry Link). All of the designs in this book are intended to be either quick or easily picked up and put down again so seem ideal for working around a small baby.

I had a go and the pattern actually worked. For me this was unusual because I always end up having to tweak a pattern before it works. Not in this case though. I worked this hat up exactly as written and got what I was expecting. No fuss. No need to puzzle over the instructions. No experimenting to test the pattern. It just worked. Wow! All i can say is a heartfelt well done to the designer.

And here is the result...



I tried the hat on and was shocked to discover I liked the result!!!





Sirdar Hug is a chunky yarn, 50 percent wool mix spun as a single ply so works like a roving. It has a very soft hand and I suspect would felt fairly easily. This hat was worked on a 7mm hook to achieve the specified gauge.

These photographs were taken in milder weather but having worn the hat in snow I can say it kept my head and ears toasty warm. Excellent stuff.

The woes of an inadequate stash

Today looks to be shaping up to be wet and woolly (which in our house means stormy) and I'm sat nursing my daughter on the sofa with a damp cat curled up beside me.

It's 7:30 in the morning and I'm in a musing frame of mind and the phone is handy so I can write this.

With change in seasons my thoughts have been turning towards hats, particularly hats that I could crochet. Hats are after all small, quickly made and shouldn't be too difficult as projects worked around a small baby. In fact they sound ideal.

Why then am I having problems getting started?

I think the answer can be summed up as - my stash is not fit for purpose.

I've reluctantly come to this conclusion as I've tried to match patterns for baby hats to the yarns I actually own. Baby hats sound like a good idea after all because I have a baby, she's still young enough not to protest about my fashion choices on her behalf and lacking much in the way of hair she needs hats. The problem is that her little head is very sensitive and trying to get a warm, snugly but soft yarn in a colour I'm happy to put on a baby is proving a challenge.

Fingers crossed I find a suitable yarn soon or I may need to buy something. But if so, what sort of yarn should I be looking for?

This post was brought to you by a frustrated crocheting mummy with an inadequate stash.

Spring and new acquisitions

This weekend, spring appears to have arrived and I hope it's here to stay! Brighter mornings, the sound of birds chirping away, the squirrels are risking their lives playing chicken with the cats and the rhubarb is sprouting.



I just had to post a couple of photo's of my favourite felines enjoying the morning sunshine... First up, Missy who is taking in the delicate fragrance of a stick.



And Charlie who as usual has taken a more casual position on the whole spring thing, lazing at the bottom of the steps.



Yesterday we headed over to the Re-enactors Market in Ryton-on-Dunsmore for round two of the fabric hunt. As before, we were on the hunt for a suitable fabric for a bright yellow frock coat and a naval jacket, both to fit Dave. This time, while there was nothing for the frock coat, we did score some nice red wool for the jacket so that's a win.

I also found a wheel on the Mulberry Dyers stand.

Sadly, they'd forgotten to pack the flyer but after thinking about it for a bit, I arranged to go back today and try it out.

The wheel in question is a much travelled (and a bit battered) Ashford Traveller, with a single treadle rather than the two which seem to be standard these days. While she wasn't as smooth to use as the Traditional I'm currently borrowing, I put a lot of that down to being under pressure (I had an audience) and tension issues on the wheel herself. She did spin OK, I just wasn't very good...

To cut a long story short, I bought her and spent a good part of today oiling and then tweaking her tension, before...



By three this afternoon she was spinning fine and with good old familiar Blue Faced Leicester, I was home free. The original tension was way too tight for me and once I'd swapped to a different ratio, she wasn't snatching the fibre faster than I could draft it and we got on soooo much better. I'm a very happy bunny.

I've also been working on the borrowed wheel and have nearly a full bobbin of BFL to show for my efforts...



I'll give it a few weeks to transition across to my wheel and free up the bobbin, then I guess I'll return her with many thanks. She is a good wheel and had I seen a Traditional rather than a Traveller yesterday, I'd have snapped it up there and then.

A day out up north

Yesterday we were intending to go the Foreign Fields, LARP Fayre in Bristol but unfortunately it was canceled at the last minute by the venue's Health and Safety people. With all the snow and ice, they decided it was too dangerous for the event to go ahead and pulled the plug. This caused quite a bit of disappointment in our household, especially since it's Dave's birthday today and the trip was part of his birthday plans.

After a bit of head scratching, Richard suggested we go to the Royal Armouries in Leeds, which Dave has been angling to visit for a while. I briefly weighed it up against a Butterfly Farm and a Sealife Centre, but lots of swords, guns and armour won out. So yesterday, we headed off to Leeds along with Richard and Nat - after carefully scrutinising the weather forecast, which promised the day would be cold but fine (it was) with no expected snow (they were right this time, thank goodness).

The building didn't look like much from the outside but once we reached the stair case and looked up... All I can say is wow, I have never seen so many guns, swords, bayonets, knives, maces, armour and miscellaneous weaponry in one place, let alone hung from the wall as it was.

So started a day of looking at more and more weapons and absorbing information about the history of warfare. It was a long, bloody history and the european section made me feel rather sad as it does seem we've spent a long, long, long time working out the best way to kill one another. Thought provoking, sobering and very interesting stuff.

After lunch we headed into the Oriental section (the birthday boy's choice and a good one) which was more of a feast for the old eyes. Impressive diorama's had been set up like these...







And can you imagine this War Elephant charging towards you?



I was particularly intrigued by the craftsmanship that had gone into making the items on display. Faded and worn they might be, but each piece of armour was as much for ceremonial purposes as anything and were works of art in their own right. Each piece was carefully decorated while the armour was covered in heavily embroidered and beaded fabric, so that what you had was clothing which happened to contain armour.





I'd have liked to have seen more costume on display, but that could just be my costumer's eye needing to be satisfied. I did take lots of pictures, but the lighting and position of the cases meant that if you took one photo, you also got reflections of everything else nearby.

It was good nonetheless, although by the end of the afternoon I was exhausted, not just from all the walking around but from information overload.

To sum up, the museum is definitely worth a visit and don't expect to see everything in one day. Pick which exhibits you'd like to see and plan accordingly. If you like history and have an interest in events which shaped the world we live into today, I think there'd be something here for you.

When we were done, we headed back to Richards before going out for a bite to eat. I think we may have bored poor Richard when we unexpectedly started frothing about our time in the Cam. While the bureaucracy may have sucked the life out of it for me in the end, there were definitely good parts about the game before it all went sour and last night, the good memories flowed. It hasn't been mentioned in our house for years, so I've no idea where all the enthusiasm came from but gosh did we froth. Sorry Richard!

The journey home was very quiet and I do mean very quiet. The M1 at 11pm on a Saturday evening is not usually busy, but last night there were sections of the journey when we were the only car on the road. When other traffic did pass us (I'm a slow driver who observes the speed limit) it was one or two cars and that was it. Wierd. Perhaps the snow had scared all the other drivers into staying at home!

Snow!

As I near the end of a week which has been dominated by the weather, I thought I'd post the obligatory picture of our garden buried under a respectable amount of snow.



The last time I posted a picture like this was nearly two years ago and if you compare the two photographs, taken from the same spot, they do look remarkably similar!

Snow has been the focus of pretty much everything this week as the white stuff has been falling on and off since Sunday. Things have kept going, until today that is when the local Councils started to run out of Grit, which means they've taken to rationing it.

This is bad.

Coventry's council and the highways agency still have grit, but they're prioritising which roads to treat.

This morning, none of the side roads had been treated, or at least none of the ones I drove over had been. Fortunately, most people seemed to have stayed at home - as evidenced at work by the number of empty desks, closed cafes, nursery and cancelled lectures on campus today - so the traffic was light, but if it hadn't been, I dread to think how bad the roads would have been.

Still, I made it in to work. Albeit very slowly and tentatively, all the while warily watching out for children dicing with death as they sledged on plastic sheeting down the slippery, ice/snow covered roads I was trying to drive over.

Hopefully, things will be a bit clearer come the time for the journey home tonight. I shall be watching the forecast closely.

Something to beat the chill

I'm still shivering away in Coventry where temperatures outside are struggling to get above freezing today. We've had snow showers on and off since Sunday and while none of it has really built up to significant levels, the light dusting of the stuff has frozen in place, giving Coventry a pretty wintery look to it. Any standing water or puddles have frozen solid and reported temperatures are down to -8C at night now.

The only reasonable way to respond to all this coldness was to cast on a sock.



This is my first 'patterned' sock, following Grumperina's Jaywalker pattern (Ravelry Link) and knit up in the Regia Design Line I picked up from Web of Wool back in October.

So far, the colourway is all I'd hoped for. It's colourful, bright and cheery, showing up the Jaywalker pattern beautifully.

My only problem is that I found the pattern increases and decreases difficult to do on my normal Clover bamboo needles which have quite blunt tips. To overcome this, I switched to some more pointy metal DPNs, but I'm finding them very hard on the hands. They don't flex as much, are 'harder' when I hold them and I'm finding that repeatedly pushing the tips back (to move the stiches into place so they can be knit) is making my fingers sore. There must be a technique to using pointy metal needles, but at the moment I don't have it.

The upside of this is of course, that I'm currently unlikely to sit for hours and hours watching the colours unfolding in front of me... Meaning the lace is still getting the odd look in (234 rows and counting) and I'm still hankering after the hook - so much so I may need to do a crochet project or two soon.

More tunisian swatching

I guess I should start by wishing any who read this a Happy New Year - I hope that so far, 2009 is working out for you.

For us, the new year started with Coventry plunging into the deep freeze. As anyone who knows me could tell you, I do not cope well with cold at all, so when temperatures drop to an alleged -7C I shut down. I can have the heating on at full pelt, wrap in many layers, wear copious amounts of wool on my hands and feet, but I'm still going to be freezing. Take those mitts or socks off and you'll find my hands or feet are like ice! I dread to think how I'd cope if I lived in a truly cold country...

When not paralyzed by the cold, I've been pottering around the house doing the housework and becoming reacquainted with my spindle. But when the cold hits I've resorted to sitting bundled up on the sofa, hugging a hotwater bottle and crocheting or knitting.

On the spindle at the moment, I've got the pastel merino I bought last year from Violet Green. Progress so far is slow, as my hands seem to have forgotten how to spin and the merino handles very differently to either Blue Faced Leicester or Grey Swaledale. It's draw length is notably shorter for a start, which meant that the first time I started working it, the spindle kept crashing to the floor.

Now, after a bit of practice and relearning how to use the spindle, things are slowly coming together. I did consider taking a photograph, but to be honest the pastel colours are very muted once tightly spun into a single and I'm not sure I could do it justice. In the end, I decided to work it a little more before I try to take a picture and see if I can play with the contrast levels a bit.

When unable to get quite so active, I've been making more Tunisian Crochet swatches as I continue trying out the various standard foundation stitches.



Here we have the Tunisian Simple Stitch (Tss) which is also known as Afghan Stitch, Tricot Crochet or Knit Stitch. This is usually the stitch meant whenever a book or pattern refers to Tunisian Crochet, or gives a simple overview of the technique. It really is quite simple to do and works up speedily, giving a grid like effect (which apparently Victorian ladies used as a base for their cross stitch).



Next up, the Tunisian Full Stitch (Tfs) which produces a dense, lofty fabric which is very, very prone to curl. On all of these swatches I've used a 5.5mm hook with a basic DK yarn, so that's three hook sizes up from the recommended hook and as you probably see from the photo, this swatch wants to curl up really badly.



Finally, the Tunisian Purl Stitch (Tps) which is the flatest of the basic foundations - note it's just sitting on the table without me needing to spread it out so I can see the stitch pattern. The fabric itself is dense, but not as lofty as the other stitches. It does have actual drape and while I find the hook gymnastics needed to form the stitch really awkward, I like the effect.

Back to work tomorrow and therefore back to real life, computers 9 til 6 and no where near so much time for playing with yarn.

Dark, cold, wet and windy - where did the weekend go?

It's been a grey, cold, wet and windy weekend with barely a glimpse of the sun to lessen the gloom. We stepped outside the door on Saturday to nip to the local shops and it was bitter out there. The cats however loved it, dashing about with the wind up their tails and attacking any tree debris which landed in the garden.

It was a bitty weekend as far as crafts go. I wound the plied singles off my spindle and used two chairs to skein it up. I still need to wash the resulting first ever yarn before I take photos to record it for posterity. I want to see if the yarn 'blooms' (as Claire told me it should) and if that improves the whole thing. Otherwise, it's a yarn I describe as... er... full of character.

Not that I'd have got very far with the camera this weekend, it's been so dark that getting decent pictures would have been very hard.

I've also cracked on with the cotton bag, making up the lining and sewing the bag itself together. I'm still working my way around the edge of the lining, which I'm hand sewing in so I can keep the stitches small. Once I'm done, it's going to need another good pressing with steam to finish it off, but otherwise it's looking good.

Yesterday (Sunday) we headed off to the Living History Fayre with Richard, where I indulged in a spot of Christmas shopping and found some wool.

'Five Shades of Sheep' (no photo's as of yet) from Sally Pointer, was a packet of five 50g balls of undyed handspun wool in varying natural shades. It should knit up as DK and according to the label, has approx 120m a skein. I bought two packets and so I guess I'm going to need to think of a suitable project for it to add to the end of my never ending queue.

Mostly though I was good and just bought Christmas presents. I did pass on the snail slime creme though... While tempting, it was just too expensive as something that when I gift it, is likely to be thought of as a joke.

We came back via a pub for lunch, which turned into an afternoon of nattering so that by the time we made it home it was going on 4:30pm. Where did the day and the weekend go?

Winter is apparently here

Today I cycled in to work because it was dry and clear, except for the odd sleet shower which I dodged with some excellent timing.

It is now snowing!

Spookily and unheard of, the BBC's weather site were absolutely spot on with their forecast. I checked this morning as alarmed to see the Beeb's 24 hour forecast predicting snow at 3pm...

The snow started at 3:05pm.

That kind of accuracy will never be repeated.

In other news, the eBay trader I ordered a water pistol has just refunded my money after two emails to ask where the required toy is. It seems to be lost in the post. This means I shall have to trawl eBay again looking for another one I guess. Ho hum.

Purple heatwave

It seems that summer has finally arrived (for a few days at least) with the past few days being very hot and humid. The weather forecast remains scary though, with the beebs animated one for today flashing lots of lightening in a dramatic fashion for tonight.

Due to the sudden heatwave, this weekend has been a fight to acquire oomph to do anything. Nonetheless, I headed into town on Saturday to start collecting supplies for next weekend when I'm hoping to join Helen, Heather and a few others for a spot of dyeing.

Reading Heather's extensive list of what we'll need to bring, I started off by buying cheap brushes and a bucket. Rubber gloves and a plastic dust sheet are still on my list, while I rescued newspapers from the recycling box. I ordered undyed yarn from Fyberspates at the beginning of last week so I'm keeping my fingers crossed my order shows up or there will be no dyeing for me!

Being on jury service this week means that I can't get the delivery sent to work, so I'm going to have to pick the parcel up from wherever Royal Mail takes it when they can't get you to answer the door. This used to be a sorting office in town, but I think it's been closed recently which means I have no idea where I'm going to have to go to fetch an undelivered parcel.

In other news, the eyelets are all set in the tent. I waited until early Saturday evening, when things cooled just a little to show Dave how to set an eyelet. He got started on the remaining eyelets early (ish) on Sunday morning (before the main heat of the day) and tells me they're all in. I haven't seen the finished eyelets myself yet, as he took the opportunity to douse the lawn in water and lawnfeed so everything became very damp for a short while.

By the time things had dried out again, it was too hot to think about hefting canvas about so I sat in the shade, playing with beads and mohair. I'm still at the experimental stage, but I'm pleased with what I've done so far. No photographs as my brain was melting by the time I was done (even sat in the shade) and I couldn't muster enough energy to fetch the camera.

Finally, I found this in the market on Saturday.

I've never seen a purple cauliflower before and was very taken with the vivid shade of the florets, so had to buy one to try it out. The purpleness was not very colourfast though, turning the water it was blanched in a nice violet sort of colour. This meant I was forewarned and not alarmed when the same purpleness leached into the cheese sauce the cauliflower was cooked in...

In fact I was rather amused by this turn of events, with both Dave and I agreeing that it was kind of cool to each purple cauliflower cheese. It was also very tasty, in a purpley, pink goodness sort of way.

Eyelets (gromits) between showers

I spent this weekend mostly dodging showers.

British summertime was at its best in Coventry this weekend, with fantastic sunshine one minute followed by heavy downpour the next, clearing to sunny again within another 10 minutes.

Normally, I'm quite stoic about this - it is normal after all.

However, when you have a tent to fix this is very inconvenient, especially when there is a deadline approaching (i.e. I want to use the tent this summer) and you work fulltime, limiting the days you have available to work on said tent.

Saturday morning, I woke to sunshine so happily started preparing to work on my bell tent's door flap which I'm repairing by replacing the zip with eyelets. I waited for a few hours to make sure the ground was dry before hauling the tent out of the shed and laying it out on the lawn. Dave wasn't here (it being a Maelstrom weekend) so I was working on my own and with a currently dodgy arm/shoulder, that bag of canvas was painfully heavy, but I was determined.

Next up I gathered my tools, finding a suitable holepunch, a small piece of wood, a nylon hammer, a tiny anvil, my pointiest awl and of course a pencil, plus the required eyelets. I set a test eyelet in scrap of canvas, just to make sure I hadn't forgotten how, then marked out where the eyelets had to go on the top door flap. I also periodically instructed the cat (Charlie) to get off the canvas, which he wanted to help wrestle into submission.

Finally, happy that I had everything under control I nipped indoors for two minutes and was heading back outside when Missy came in to tell me it was raining.

Missy is a smart cat who holds a very high opinion of me. If the weather isn't to her liking she will come and find me, complaining about the situation bitterly and looking at me like I should now fix it. No matter how often I explain that I can't stop rain, she never stops acting like its a serious afront when I fail to do something about inclement weather.

But I digress. I rushed outside to find a heavy shower in progress and my previously dry canvas tent was getting wetter by the second. There followed a frantic two minutes as I bundled the tent up, carried it awkwardly into the shed before returning for the tools.

Some twenty minutes later, the rain stopped. I waited as the sun came out, waited some more for the ground to dry and then retrieved the tent from the shed, laying it out on the grass as I repeated the above... Until the heavens opened once more.

And so it went for the entire weekend.

After lugging that tent in and out of the shed more times than I care to admit, I finally set all of the eyelets for the top flap Sunday afternoon, finishing at 4:50pm. Each eyelet needs about ten to fifteen minutes of whacking with a hammer before they're in to my satisfaction. By that time, my knees were complaining, my hands were hurting and my arm was throbbing. And that's only half of them done!
So here we have seven eyelets, set 20cm (or 8 inches) apart, which seemed like a sensible distance to me. If you look carefully, you can see I've closed the original zip here and used the top flap to mark the position of the eyelets on the back flap. Which I will undoubtedly hope to do next weekend...

The cats were also spending the weekend dodging the showers, with the view from my back door alternating between this...

And this...
Around that point, Missy realised I was watching so started to mew happy girly squeaks while rolling over to beam at me, while Charlie watched in a bemused fashion.

I did try to get a picture of her the right way up, but when I stepped over her Missy got wind of the camera and her paperazzi issues kicked in and she ran off. Charlie posed for a moment or two though...
(Note the single orange hair lying on his forehead - now I wonder who put that there?)

And then got all excited by the attention, bouncing around the garden for a while before trying to wriggle under the patio.

(As always, click on the pictures to see bigger versions.)

A day out in Lichfield

Due to the miserable weather which is often typical of British summertime, this is as far as I've got with setting eyelets on the tent this weekend.

And this is despite having Friday off work while I waited in for workmen. We're having summer showers of the sheet rain kind, meaning it can go from brilliant sunshine one minute to torrential downpour the next... Which is not good weather for dragging a tent out of the shed, laying it out on the lawn or banging eyelets into it.

The sun is out at the moment, but it was raining less than ten minutes ago... So I'm doubtful I'll get a clear window of a couple of hours which is what I'll need to get started on this.

Setting that one eyelet took over half an hour as I tried out different size holes - the hole getting progressively smaller with each attempt. Due to the size of the eyelet (1/2 inch) there's nothing for it but to whack the eyelets in with a hammer so I reckon I need to allow about fifteen minutes for each one. All of which means there is several hours work in those eyelets.

Saturday, after waking up to sheet rain that gave the cats pause for thought, we decided to drive to Lichfield for the Medieval Fayre. This is a tourist affair, rather than being a medieval market for re-enactors or those interested in history, which was what we were expecting so no problems there. Entertainment had been laid on in front of the cathedral but to be honest we didn't hang around there very long, being drawn to browsing the stalls and then taking refuge inside the Cathedral from the weather.

I haven't been inside a proper cathedral in a while, so it was a treat. We watched a puppet show telling the tale of Jonah and the Whale for a while and then wondered around soaking up the atmosphere. They sure did know how to build cathedrals back then!

Panning upwards with the camera at the sky, you can hopefully see the British weather in action. Whilst the sun was out when I took the photograph, it was spitting rain at the same time.

Some ten minutes after that, the heavens opened again and we fled the fayre heading back into Lichfield proper and hiding in bookshops. We also (or rather I with Dave in tow) made a point of visiting Spellbound Beads, where I succumbed to pretty packs of beads being sold like sweeties. I really do need to do some beadwork soon I think. I keep putting it off as I lack inspiration and a local supply of beads!

Finally, some pictures of owls who were sitting under umbrella's whenever I walked past. They didn't look too impressed, either with the crowds or the weather.


(As always, click on the photograph's to see bigger versions...)