Yarndale and Yorkshire Dales

Good morning to you all!

I haven't written a post for such a long time but the last week was so busy, busy, busy that I just couldn't work round to write a line. My mother came to visit (she is living more than 400 km away from us) because my husband and I wanted to take a break from everyday life. It's been our 16th wedding day and we decided to go to Yorkshire for a couple of days. So my mother agreed to take care of the children, the dog and the house and off we went! We have never been to Yorkshire before but I have always wanted to go there and I was keen to visit Yarndale as well, of course!

On Sunday then we went to Skipton, parked our car near the train station and had a lovely morning walk through the Aireville Park to Yarndale. What a feast for the eyes! There's been so much gorgeous yarnbombing in the park.

 

And then, tickets and brochure bought, it was into the entrance hall where there was so much more colourful crochet bunting than I have ever seen before.

 

 And then there were all the gorgeous mandalas that have been sent to Lucy from attic24.

 

I neglected to take more photos of the vendors - too busy looking round. My husband soon left me for some other distraction...

 That's me visiting Yarndale, maybe not the best foto in the world but it reveals a lucky me! 

There were, of course, absolutely loads of fantastic vendors and lots of amazing yarns. I just couldn't stop touching all this soft and precious yarn. And I did some shopping, of course. Not too much because I have so many, many projects in my basket that want to be finished first. But there is no point in visiting a yarn market without buying any yarn, isn't there? 

 This is Drops Alpaca yarn in a beautiful green that will match with my winter coat just perfectly. It is a very light and soft yarn, I could have bought all the different colours!

 This is also a Drops yarn, a baby merino in a wonderful raspberry shade together with one ball of soft pink. I don't know what I will make out of it, but I just had to buy it.

And the last one... A silk and alpaca mix for a wonderful lace shawl. Something luxurios, I will take my time to find the perfect pattern for such beautiful yarn. 

This is quite a long post now and I haven't written a word about our wonderful trip to the Yorkshire dales. I will soon come back and write about it. These four days were absolutely lovely and I'll tell you more about it next time.
Sorry that I haven't had the time to read your blog posts and write some comments. As soon as there is a little time slot again, I will catch up with all that has happened the last two weeks. 
Have a beautiful day! Viola

Autumn comes

I am ready for autumn, really. I don't think summer will come back. And it is okay by now, I think so. It has to be okay, I have to tell myself again and again and again. I'll learn to accept that summer is over. Okay, autumn is allowed to come. But I would like to have a what we call in German 'Altweibersommer', it's the equivalent to the English 'Indian summer' I guess. Once I read that the term 'Altweibersommer' derives from the silk of spiders. The silvery-grey gossamer reminded the people of old women's hair, therefore they called the time 'Altweibersommer', the time when there're a lot of spiders weaving their nets. But back to autumn, I tell myself that it'll be so nice to be able to do all the things I like in autumn.

AUTUMN

What do I like in autumn...

I like to light candles when it is getting dark early, I like drinking hot Yogi tea and sitting in front of the wood stove, I like to listen to the storm sweeping across the house. I love to take the kids to the dyke to fly our kites. I love the smell of warm bread and cakes drifting through the house. I love freshly-made apple puree, onion tart with 'Federweisser' (a German new half-fermented wine), pumpkin soup, my needle-felted pumpkins I made some years ago...

 

 ... and my newest crocheted pumpkins! I do like them very much. They are easily made and such fun! I used my everyday cotton yarn 'Lang Quattro' and a pattern I found on a lovely German blog by WaltraudD called Vielerlei Selbstgemachtes. If you want to try this pattern as well and have any language problems, just write me and I will try to help.

Here are my cuties all together lying in the grass. They would like to have quite a few more brothers and sisters I guess. Let's see if I will find the time...

And I started another small crochet project just some days ago, also relating to autumn, something about warmth and coziness. I will write my next post about it but you will get a picture before.

And while I'm writing this post about autumn I listen to the song "autumn comes"  by Eva Cassidy, one of my most favourite singer-songwriter. Do you know her? She's got such a great voice, really astonishing. And this song is soooo beautiful, if you want to listen to her, you can try this youtube link. 

Thank you, for all your comments you take the time to write here in my little blog. I hugely appreciate that you read what I write (with quite a few mistakes I guess). I know life is hectic and full of things to do, to organize, to remember and to care for. I am glad that your are spending some time on my blog, I am really grateful to have you all here. 

Have a nice week coming.
Hugs, Viola

Glorious September

September is such a beautiful month. Everybody seems to be greedy for the last rays of sunshine, staying outside, getting together, not willing to let autumn begin. This weekend has been full of outside activities, a children's birthday party with pony riding my daughter was invited to and a football camp my son took part in. On saturday my husband and I were invited to a garden party and we stayed there until late in the night, savouring a grand campfire, good food and interesting chats with friends. I even went there barefooted, without a jacket just with my lovely green shawl protecting me against the clammy chill past midnight. 

The weather here is very changeable these days. When I took our dog for a walk, the sky looked spectacular. When you turned your head eastward there's been blue sky with fluffy white clouds, but when you turned your head westward bulky dark clouds made you want running home immediately. 

And the acorns are really, really heavy this year and there are a lot, really a lot. A German country lore says: 'If there are many acorns in September, there will be plenty of snow in December.' Let's wait and see...
 
Much has happened last week but nevertheless I took a little time to continue with some lovely crochet.
I do love small granny squares. They are easily and quickly made and I could occupy myself with laying different combinations of squares hours and hours (if I had the time to). In the first half of this year (I can't remember anymore when exactly) I made a little scarf for myself, just because I wanted to try a small granny square pattern. 

I took a look into my yarn stock and chose some cotton yarn to start with. It's been Lang Quattro, a yarn I absolutely love because it's good to work with and you can get it in more than 30 different colours. I chose the colours pastel green, fuchsia and chianti. I love to wear the scarf. It is light and soft and adds a little extra to a conventional outfit.

And I did it, I finally dared to start a blanket! It took me ages to admit that I really wanted to do nothing else. And when the decision was made I couldn't decide what kind of blanket I wanted to crochet. I really loved this one and this one and I would have been be more than happy if I'd been able to finish a blanket like this.  But I told myself to start with something easy, something without joining and without thousands of ends to weave in. So I decided to use the pattern of gorgeous Lucy of attic24 'The ripple'. I ordered Stylecraft special DK yarn and started just before our summer holidays began. Now you'll be able to catch a glimpse of my first and much-loved blanket:

Excuse me! I just couldn't stop loading pictures - I've even taken much more! But now you know what my blanket is about. It is  a gorgeous pattern, absolutely soothing and comforting. Counting four, increasing two, counting four, decreasing two... Every time I work on my blanket it feels like a meditation. No matter what is spinning in my head - as soon as I start crocheting I calm down and start emptying my brains. Somehow it works like Dumbledore's Pensieve - have you all read Harry Potter? The Pensieve is an object that simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind and pours them into the basin. I wonder if my blanket will be full of my thoughts and memories as well when it's finished. Funny idea, isn't it?

 It's already late, nighty night everyone! Thank you for reading this never-ending post. 
Viola