Untitled

[gillie63]

I blame James Runcie

I blame James Runcie

It’s all James Runcie’s fault (he’s the chap that wrote The Grantchester Mysteries and yes, he is the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury).  He is also the reason that on Monday afternoon I was sitting in traffic on the M62 in a complete fizz because (a) I was going to be late (arrival instructions specifically said leave plenty of time for your journey and I clearly had not) and (b) I wasn’t…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

fair isle baubles

Harriet’s cowl is coming along nicely but I really did fancy a change.  Strangely enough I have only one other WIP!  I apologise if I have caused any injuries as readers fell to the floor in shock, hitting their heads on sharp objects on the way down.  Arnica for bruises and comfrey for healing, turmeric, ginger and chilli for inflammation and pain control (recipe here).  Back to the knitting.…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

do cows have cellulite?

do cows have cellulite?

  The answer is, I have no idea, but it was a question that came up during the discussion about leather quality and type at the beginning of a fabulous day with Suzanne Treacy at a belt making workshop at Linnels Farm.  I have taken so many workshops with Karen and her team of talented craftsmen and women that I am sure she has wondered if I am about to move in.

The options were to make a dog…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

cars, trains and pumpkins

cars, trains and pumpkins

Bertie (previously known as Loofah due to the first four digits of his number plate LOO4) finally rolled his wheels for the very last time and left Susie without a car.  A replacement was found, but it (name yet to be discovered) was in Gateshead and Susie was in Leeds.  So she she hopped on the train to Durham for a few hours R&R (and freezer scoping) at home, pumpkin carving, slushy movie…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

scanner, bears and hats - MRI Appeal Shetland

scanner, bears and hats – MRI Appeal Shetland

Gorgeous isn’t it?  This is currently on my needles and I can’t wait to try it on and show it off.    But I am even more excited about telling people where the pattern came from.  Read on.

Meet the two Billys.  You may never have heard of them, but they, along with the eponymous Harriet of the cowl above,  are two of the leading lights behind a huge army of knitters who are edging closer to…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

carpaccio, halibut, creme brûlée and bears

carpaccio, halibut, creme brûlée and bears

Inverness has changed a lot since I was a child and one of the greatest improvements is The Rocpool Restaurant.  I don’t think anyone will disagree with the observation that eating out in the Highlands during the sixties and seventies was more of a miss than a hit affair.  Tinned tomato soup was usually the safest option for dinners in draughty castles where the staff were understandably as…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

oodles of colour

Don’t you just want to dive in?  Delicious Batt from Sealy MacWheely  This was just a tiny fraction of the colour explosion that is Loch Ness Knit Fest .

Not everything comes in skeins or balls.  Sometime you need to buy a socking great cone from Kincraig Fabrics.

We were practically queuing up to photograph this wonderful top and take down the name of the pattern (Sashikobtw).  Discovering…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

puppies, trains and slip, slip knit ...

puppies, trains and slip, slip knit …

It ain’t over yet …. !

Poppy unpacking her toys as fast as I try to pack them.  I have rather tortured memories of packing to go on holiday with three toddlers and this was a momentary throwback upon which I would have been happy to pass.

Eventually I managed to pack everything (well not quite, I forgot our coffee cups and my water bottle …) and once again there appeared to be some fishing in…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

I live in a small village in the north east of England where baking is competitive sport played at Olympic level.  I am on the coffee morning rota and when I’m on duty I have some serious baking anxiety.  It has to be easy to bake in bulk, easy to cut up, not require any obscure ingredients or complex baking techniques, not messy to eat, and finally pretty foolproof – I cannot start again at 9am on Wednesday morning!  For those who find themselves in a similar fix I usually go for Lemon Drizzle Cake, Brownies, Date flapjacks or chocolate fridge cake (a million variations).

There are some one-off events where the ante is upped, soup recipe induced paranoia anyone?  But I digress.  Back to baking.

For anyone who has not visited Shetland let me introduce you to Sunday Tea.  This is not merely tea that happens to be held on a Sunday it is an Event with a capital E.  Usually fundraising events, they are held in community halls and comprise bountiful cakes and savouries, tea (of course!), often music and crafts for sale.  For the small price of a ticket you can spend an afternoon of pure bliss eating, shopping and tapping your toes to the music.

First obtain a copy of The Shetland Times,  consult the small adverts for the listings of this week’s Sunday Teas and plan your day.

I went to my first Sunday tea last week at Brae in the northern mainland.  Stuart’s eyes practically popped out of his head as he surveyed the bakes on offer, this man was in business and he disappeared at high speed towards the rolls and sandwiches, planning his savouries whilst eyeing up the cakes at the other end of the enormous table.

Meanwhile I headed into the knitting display.

Tam

When I finish my tam I have a vintage cardigan pattern waiting (and the wool already from Jamieson and Smith)  it is this to which I aspire.

These lacework pieces are things of true beauty and if you could only touch the whisper that is the wool you too would weep with joy.

A simple short row becomes a shawl that is almost alive.

Weaving the landscape into pieces of art.

Back in the hall the teas are going down well.

Even the World’s Fastest Knitter, the wonderful Hazel Tindall  puts down her needles and mucks in.

The band is getting toes tapping across the hall.

Eventually we had to tear ourselves away and head down to the harbour to take the ferry home.  But my first Sunday Tea will stay with me …. until my next one in June!

Love Gillie x

shetland sunday tea I live in a small village in the north east of England where baking is competitive sport played at Olympic level.  

[gillie63]

Contrary to the evidence shown in this blog over the past few days there is actually a lot more to Shetland than wool and knitting.  I saw only a fraction of it (which is why we are planning to return in June … as well as Wool Week 2020) but here is a taste of the non-woolly beautiful world that is Shetland.

The view from Da Peerie Hoose as I stood outside in my pjs with my cup of tea and appreciated the magical morning light.

Channerwick south of Sandwick.

  Birthday dinner at The String.  Cannot recommend it highly enough though you will have to book (even if you aren’t there during Wool Week!)  Live music upstairs to round off the evening.  I started with scallops and belly pork.

Followed by Shetland halibut

And rounded off with one of the best cheese plates I have seen in a long while.  Proper homemade oatcakes and a chutney good enough to eat on its own.

Memorial in Scalloway to the men who died on the Shetland Bus bringing agents and supplies in and out of occupied Norway during WWII.

Boat carving in the Delting Galley Shed.  The Delting Up Helly Aa began  in 1970 as a Senior School Festival and is now a huge festival including the communities of Voe, Mossbank, Muckle Roe and Vidlin.

The bill heads are attached to the ceiling but the sunlight streaming through the skylights  made it impossible to photograph them.  Here are some of the stunning shields.

Blue on blue.  Small boat in Hay’s Dock outside the Shetland Museum and archives.

Waiting for a plane to land at Sumburgh airport in the south of the Mainland.

And here it comes

This is the view just to my left …  note the beginning of the runway!

Looking down at the rocks below The Sumburgh Head Lighthouse.

While pretty northerly, the title of the most northern lighthouse in the UK belongs to Muckle Flugga lighthouse.  The fishing up there is quite good too.  This is Stuart’s 40lb cod.

View of TM Adie & Sons in Voe,  for over a century one of the largest employers in the north east mainland of Shetland.  Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay wore jumpers woven by Addie when they scaled Everest in 1953.

And finally, thank you to NorthLink Ferries for making the journey there and back so pleasant (even if everyone else did look a little green the following morning!)

See you in June Shetland.

Love Gillie x

                Contrary to the evidence shown in this blog over the past few days there is actually a lot more to Shetland than wool and knitting.  

[gillie63]

flock book and puffin hats

flock book and puffin hats

There is so much more to Wool Week than knitting.  It may seem that everybody spends dawn to dusk with various needles (straights, circulars, sock dpns, long dpns with a makkin belt … ) tucked about their person, but you only have to scratch the surface a little to find a wealth of other activities and tours.  Granted, they may have a knitting bent, and there may be plenty of knitters clicking…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

the craic was 90

the craic was 90

It’s not all about the classes.  As any knitter will know, whether you are just learning to cast on your first row and filled with disbelief that this row of irregular knots on your needle can become a beautiful scarf or you can knock out an Italian twisted cast on and twenty rows of dual coloured brioche whilst holding an in depth conversation about the state of the economy, knitting is about…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

UFO or WIP

We all have them, those UFOs (unfinished objects) that we like to refer to as WIP (work in progress).  Except that they are not, in progress that is.  They are sitting in a box (what did I say about storage boxes) or a “craft bag” (aka black hole of UFOs).  And they are not making any progress at all.

Be honest.  Even though you were really into cross stitch when your eldest was born 25 years ago…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

hap boards and squared paper

hap boards and squared paper

Morning has broken in Sandwick and a jolly fine one it is too.  Today I will be mostly knitting in the Hub and doing some natural dyeing.  But yesterday was all about the technical stuff.  Sometimes it is when you are forced down a route you had not planned upon that the journey becomes most fun.  Yesterday was a case in point.

I had not been able to get one of the classes I had hoped for, it…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

ferries and fair isle

ferries and fair isle

There are several signs that you are grown up:

Snow has the ability to be a pain in the arse as well as quite pretty;

You no longer get excited by an envelope with your name on,  in fact frequently quite the reverse’

Christmas comes around jolly quickly these days.

Fortunately, whilst Christmas may rock up with greater speed each year, so does Shetland Wool Week.   It is almost a year ago that I…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

gowns, gardeners and gongs

gowns, gardeners and gongs

Advice I was given yesterday.

Don’t eat the black pudding (ignored that already at breakfast today)

Be nice (excellent tenet)

Don’t work for anyone you don’t like (I will add a codicil of “unless you have no choice”, rent and food are not luxuries)

Say yes (presumably unless you don’t like the person asking)

Notwithstanding the fact that these are huge generalisations and there will be plenty of…

View On WordPress

[gillie63]

siege, vows, pipes and drums

siege, vows, pipes and drums

Only three hundred people,  mostly women and children leave the fortress of Hondarribia after a siege lasting two months.  Over 16,000 canon rounds have been fired and the city is almost destroyed.  But those three hundred people walk out, the city does not surrender and the French, all 27,000 men plus two warships are forced to scuttle away.  After two months the Spanish army relieves a city…

View On WordPress