Tam, Rosie and I have had a lovely day out at Wonderwool, which is held every April on Builth showground. It was £14 to get in (I winced) and I had told myself NO wool (and I was good). I need to finish the things I started knitting last year and the year before and then perhaps I will allow more wool into the house. All I bought were a steak pasty for lunch, and two dye plants - Woad and Dyer's Chamomile. I will do a 2nd post tomorrow, but wanted to concentrate on this truly amazing Wartime exhibition, to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of VE day (which is 8th May). It was knitted by knitters in France and beyond.
Needless to say it was all too exciting for little ones to sleep! Especially once she had seen the SHEEP and then had a bit of a hissy fit when we took her away from them. Outside, she also decided that she absolutely HAD to hold onto the side of her pram and help push it. When deterred, another mini melt down happened. Gosh, she knows what she wants, that child, so had to be distracted . . . She's still awake now, probably not helped by having some of Tam's Blackberry Crumble ice cream (I had Raspberry Pavlova).
I don't feel I will need much in the way of an evening meal tonight, after the pastie and ice cream, but there is mince with tomatoes and spicy Taco Beans in the fridge.
Gabby's here tomorrow and we will have our Easter roast a week late. Have a lovely weekend.
A lovely day out. The WW2 scenes are amazing, imagine the hours and hours of focused work involved.
ReplyDeleteYarn has become crazy expensive and I can't find my sweater I set aside a year or so ago.I think it's way up on a high shell, need someone here to catch me if I fall.
I'd have loved looking at the yarns tho, despite Rosie meltdown. Soon she'll be fully verbal and will express herself w words instead.
I don't know how many people were involved but I guess it mopped up many many hours of knitting. I don't understand it - fleeces are being burnt because it costs more to sheer a sheep than they can get for the fleece, yet you try buying yarn and it's an arm and a leg! Hope you find the sweater you were knitting.
DeleteRosie understands quite a few words now - lovely to ask her to bring me a book and she does and I sit her down beside me and read to her.
I could sit and look at those creations all day. They are amazing.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot of detail and so brilliantly done.
DeleteWhat a fabulous exhibition. My granddaughter is like yours, knows what she wants and thats it! I've had a batch cooking session, managing to get fish pie mix and some mince, both YS, so have made OH 3 fish pies (I don't eat fish) and six boxes of spag bol sauce. Caught up on all the holiday washing and ironing, just the lawn to mow. Enjoy what's left of the weekend. Xx
ReplyDeleteYes, we can see some Aunty Gabby in Rosie! Well done with your batch cooking - makes life so much simpler. My gardener was here this week and mowed my lawn. Bless him, he knows I love the wild flowers so left the Primroses in the lawn intact and the corner with all the wild Violets.
DeleteAmazingly creative commemoration of VE day. My mother was a land girl so enjoyed that one particularly.
ReplyDeleteOh gosh, the land girl one would have resonated with you. It truly was amazing.
DeleteFriends always rave about Wonderwool!
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise that you could get plants there...but it does make sense....and makes it tempting for the future!!
I am so lucky to have it on my doorstep. Last time we were there, some women we fell into conversation with had travelled up from Barnstaple I think it was. There were only a couple of stalls selling Dye Plants. Some patchwork stalls too - but one had such ridiculously small hexies to make Choirboys and the like, it would send me x-eyed!
DeleteThat is a wonderful exhibition - the people who knitted the items are just so talented!
ReplyDeleteI've knitted meeces before - they were fun - but bigger than these tiny figures. So much character in them too.
DeleteWhat an awesome knitted exhibit. Such talented knitters took part in those displays.
ReplyDeleteGod bless.
Indeed, I don't know how many of them but gosh someone planned this well.
DeleteLast week my husband and I traveled 4 hrs by car to the naval Air Station Museum at Cape May, New Jersey. There we enjoyed going through the knitted exhibit from England that copied key elements of D-day, June 6, 1944. They had the same black trunks with plastic boxes on top of them as you show. And they were just as AMAZING as the ones you have shown!! Thank you for sharing these!!
ReplyDeleteOh wow Ruth! I read about that one and would love to see that, but missed it here last year as we didn't go to Wonderwool. I imagine you may get to see this one in time too, if it goes travelling.
ReplyDeleteJust a warning BB that dye plants can be very invasive, either vegetatively by roots and runners or by seed. Woad spreads the latter way - do be careful, I don’t want your garden overrun by woad. When I did a day dyeing workshop at Ditchling Museum this was a caveat that I obeyed. In any event I much prefer using plants growing naturally when dyeing. If you are able to dig up a piece of dock root for instance (impossible to get the whole thing out) that makes a wonderful mustard yellow dye. If you want blue then indigo is a much better blue and more fun to use than woad and it’s very easy to get greens and pinks from organic matter. I’m booked on a herbal apothecary day workshop with Christina Stapley at Weald and Downland later this summer. Looking forward to that as one of the subjects is herbs for neurological conditions. Unfortunately S was admitted to hospital on Saturday morning and is still there. I’m due to go on holiday tomorrow and everyone (friends, family, nurses and doctors) is saying I must go. T is driving down today to hold the fort and look after S if/when he comes out of hospital. Have been missing him so much but am so tired from being at the hospital 10-6 on Saturday and 11-4 yesterday. The hermetic and hectic atmosphere sucks the life blood from me. On Saturday I went to see my friend who lives a few miles from Chichester for a bit of respite (tea and cake sitting in her beautiful garden under the trees) and yesterday I went into Chichester town and treated myself to a pair of top notch trail/walking shoes (made by German maker Meindl), a tube of Ultra Violette SPF 50 and a metre length of lyocell fabric in chilli red to make a Camber top. I put the fabric in the wash as soon as I got home, hung it on the line and by 7pm I was ironing it and cutting out the pattern pieces while watching a programme about recording the music of South Pacific. That made me a bit sad as my parents saw the London production of that musical during their honeymoon in April 1956 and S and I saw the Chichester Festival Theatre production only a couple of years ago. Now I’ve had two cups of tea and porridge I’m going to sew my top together before leaving for hospital at 9.30. I want to be there if/when a neurologist turns up to see S. It’s been a difficult, exhausting, stressful and unsustainable time lately and I don’t know if there any answers. Sarah x
ReplyDeleteAh, in that case I will plant the Woad in the bottom triangle where it can romp at will, but given our acid soils, have a feeling it won't thrive at all. Will crumble some lime mortar which has fallen from the ancient house wall outside, in a bid to encourage growth. Have plenty of Dock here so will try your suggestion later in the year. Envious of your herbal apothecary day workshop - sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will enjoy your holiday and get benefit from resting, but of course you will be so worried about S being in hospital. You visited longer than me - I would be with Keith 2 or 3 hours and that was draining, with the long drive on top (45 miles each way). Week on week and I was soon exhausted. I hope he can cope with the crap they call hospital food - we had to get Keith out and home before he starved to death. Your new shoes sound a good investment. I've not heard of Lyocell fabric and that is definitely something I wouldn't be able to buy this side of Cardiff, if at all. Well done for working on into the evening - that's something I can't often do. Plus sewing your top before you set off for the hospital. I hope that S isn't in there too long.