Trip to Bath - Wool shops and wonderings.

So last month I had the absolute pleasure of meeting Rastus Hsu and his lovely husband Wayne at the delightful wool shop A Yarn Story.

Rastus and Wayne were visiting the UK from Taiwan.  It was such a privilege to meet Rastus in person, having only chatted over the internet previously, and to sit and chat with Wayne, who is so lovely, with many stories to tell.

Rastus's design aesthetic of Origami Knitting and such textured creatures is a style that I just love, along with his amazing photography, which shows off the knitwear so well.

They had made the trip to Bath primarily to visit A Yarn Story shop, a lovely shop stocking a great range of yarns, from Townhouse Yarns, Spincycle, and their Own Yarn Range to name but a few.

 

To get to the shop it is just a short walk from the main town, and is a lovely walk seeing the beautiful architecture of Bath city. 

 

I have never been in any city where they just have artwork on the walls. 

I loved this tiny stairway up to the next street and the tiny building that joined the two blocks together. 

A trip to Bath would not be complete without visiting the famous Pulteney Bridge, which was flowing well as we had had a lot of rain.

Another great find is the Guildhall Market.  It has such a great variety of stalls, from a Deli, Cheese shop, Leather shop, to name just some, here are all the outlets.  

My favourite is the Skoobs Secondhand book stall.  They have been trading here for over 40 years, and I always come away with a book for my collection.

Obviously, I had to have a little knitting time working on my Stripes are us socks that I designed, using West Yorkshire Spinners yarn with the lovely colourway name of "Hope".

I have been to Bath city many times over the years, but there are always so many little hidden gems to find.  Like this beautiful shop window with such lovely treasures within. 

I am a sucker for a great architectural building, and this most definately did not disappoint.

Whilst having a wander, I spotted this fascinating building down a little side street, next to the Bath Thermae Spa.  If you get the chance it is the most brilliant way to treat yourself to a sauna and swim in the rooftop pool with the best views over the city.

I could not help to take a picture of the cake shop window, I do not think I have seen Bakewell Tarts this big before! 

My other stop off was Wool Bath, just a stone's throw from the train station and again another brilliantly well-stock yarn shop. 

 Then it was time for my train journey back home.

Monthly catch up - November 25

So I thought it would be nice to post monthly of the fun things that happen in my world, starting with November.

To start the month I joined my first ever group walk and asked a friend to come along for moral support. She has suffered in the past from depression and anxiety but love to be outdoors.  She said she would like to learn to knit and create a mood blanket that they said would mainly be all black

Whilst on the walk as always I took a variety of pictures, but the group stopped for everyone to catch up.  While we waited we stood on a bridge, I took a picture one way

Then the otherway. To them initially they found this image much more interesting with the buildings.

Until I shared the autumnal image with them and they were amazed at just how much colour there was.

I would love to which of the two images you prefer?

 

I also decided to do something completly different with my bathroom which a few years ago I painted a light blue.  But to me the room just felt cold.  So I decided not to "conform" to the painting every wall the same colour and started with the window and then decided to do blocks of colour.

 

The colour was specifically mixed by a local paint company and it is incredible when you see the same paint with different light around the room how the colour changes. 

I really like the finished effect. 

Then to for some much needed fresh air I headed to visit my favourite people for a lovely family walk. 

In the evening I was honoured to see Hamza wearing the cowl I had gifted in his winter edition of his incredible television called Hidden Wild Isles, based in the UK.

 

The second weekend of the month I had my first train journey in a long time, heading down to Weston Super Mare to meet a good friend.

 

 

 

Weston is a place I know well, as over four decades ago I went to college here.  Growing up I came here on days out.  To be honest the town has not really changed and the coastline will not, along with people always saying they never see the tide in!

 

We had such a good catch up, my friend is a very talented knitting making mainly complicated garments.  It was so lovely to just sit and knit and chat for ages in the full sunshine, we were so blessed with the weather.

 

I pointed out that as a solo knitter it is not always easy to get good pictures so she so kindly took a whole range of different pictures for me, suggesting different places to be with different viewpoints.

 

 

Another absolute great thing about the day, was she also unlike many people I know just loves spending ages on a beach looking at the amazing variety of pebbles for fossils and sea glass.  It was just such  a joy.

Whilst I love all sorts of weather, it is hard to beat the light generated from the sun and the colours that just radiate when it shines.

 I could happily have sat here for ages, but sadly I had a train to catch back home.

Weekend three saw the tail end of basically a weeks worth of rain, which did not effect me massively working indoors in the week.  

The beauty to me of rain is seeing it on the flowers in the garden.  I absolutely love macro close up shots where you can see so much detail. 

It is so lovely to take time to just go and explore the garden in the winter, often something, not something I do enough of.  To discover the seeds that are on the back a bracken that had grown out of a pot was such a joy. 

I do love the Hellabore plant and really should get some more, the flowers come in so many colours and are so delicate and pretty.      

 

 

 

It is incredible what you can do with an iPhone phone camer can do now, as all the snail pictures where taken on one.  It was also fun seeing this tiny snail just slowly working it's way down the stem of the plant. 

 

 

I am the proud owner of a gorgeous cat called Luna and I have great pleasure in taking her out in a backpack.  She just happily sits or lies in the carrier and just takes in the world around her.

 

 

Being mid November the autumn colours are now turning many lovely shades of brown.

 

 

On my walk I always checked out the converted phone box, now a book swap, such a great idea.

 

 

This picture book thatched cottage is next to the local church, it has been for sale for many many months, it would be so interesting to have a sneak inside.

 

 

I often head down a lovely country lane to get my countryside fix and think how nice it would be to live in this lovely little cul-de-sac.

For my fourth weekend of this month, I have no photographs to share as I have currently started to study a City & Guilds Level 4 course in Hand Knitting with School of Stitch Textiles.

It is a two-year distance learning course equivalent to a Higher National Certificate, although within the introduction it states the course can be harder than a textile degree, which as a person who also has one of these I can easily see this.  

I shall be sharing my progress through the course here and really look forward to challenging myself far more in the creative world that is hand knitting.