Tennarisukka

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A little while ago I signed up to the Small Skein Society, where every month you receive a lovely 50g skein of yarn, suitable for mittens, or colour work or any other small project. I also signed up for the version where you get sent chocolate each month! Ooooh yes. Is there anything better than both yarn and chocolate arriving at once?

Anyway I digress. I wanted to make something with the third installment of the club and I saw that a couple of members had turned the below yarn into a pair of little trainer/ankle socks:

The pattern was called Tennarisukka and being a shameless sheep, I decided to copy them.

I was unsure whether I would be able to make a pair of socks with 50g of yarn, as I do have large feet! I had decided to add the following modifications:

• Lengthen the heel flap so that the cuff of the sock would sit higher on my ankle – I read lots of reports from people who reported the sock slipping as the flap was too short
• Used 2.25mm needles instead
• Cast on 72 sts to fit the width of my feet

I'm pleased to report that I actually finished with a couple of yards to spare! I do wish I had added an extra couple of rows to the heel flaps but I would probably then have run out of yarn. But overall, I think they look pretty good!

They do look a little odd on a pair of sock blockers, don't they?

I would definitely consider knitting another pair of ankle socks if I found a suitable yarn/pattern combination. For trotting around the house, they are perfect as we (allegedly) head into warmer weather.

Anyone else finished anything on Making Monday?

Carlottina

I seem to have some projects that just languish in WIP-land for a long time for no real reason. These Carlottina socks are one of those. I cast on almost a year ago and got the first sock finished quite speedily. I cast on sock two, knitted two rows and did nothing more. Why? I don't know.

This pattern was part of Magpielly's Solid Sock Club, designed to feature lovely, more intricate socks that can really shine when made with a solid colour. As much as I love hand-painted, variegated yarns, sometimes a plain yarn is just the ticket when knitting socks.

Below is as much as I'd shown of the sock before, despite having finished a whole one:

Finally, ta-dah! I do love me some good twisted stitches!

Despite how the socks look on my feet, they are exactly the same length – although I know one looks longer than the other…

You can see a bit of the afterthought heel here. Rather than using my preferred heel flap and gusset this uses a different approach where you put knit half the stitches with waste yarn and then come back to them when you've finished the rest of the sock. What you're then able to do is pick up the stitches around this gap and knit the heel in an ever-decreasing spiral.

I love this shot of the socks on the blockers as I love how it shows off the twisted stitches that run down the leg and also my perfect purling! As much of a pain as it was to do Norwegian Purl the whole way, it does make the ribbing etc look perfect.

I'll need to give them a bit more wear before I decide what I think of the fit and the whole afterthought heel thing. You can see in some of the pictures how the sock stretches across my instep. While it's not tight, it may start to bug me.

But overall I think these are a success! Onto the next socks (which won't take that long to unveil)…

Harewood House

After a busy Bank Holiday weekend last weekend (blog post on some of what we got up to is coming!) we took it fairly easy this weekend. I started commuting to work on my bike this week, well to the train station at both ends. Lots of work to do before I'm able to manage all four of the bikeable bits I have each day, but I'll get there!

That's not to say we did nothing! We took it fairly easy yesterday but decided to go for a ride today that we've wanted to try since we got the bikes. We decided we'd attempt a journey up to Harewood House – which is about 7-8 miles away, if you follow the main road. The plan was to have a wander around the gardens with the bikes and enjoy what was meant to be a nice day, weather-wise.

Well for starters, the weather lied. Almost as soon as we left the house it started drizzling and didn't really stop! It was pretty cold and miserable, but that's probably preferable to it being too warm with some of the hills we were about to tackle.

We've recently discovered an app called Strava, great for if you bike or run – as it allows you to map your activities via your GPS unit or smartphone and you can then compare specific segments online against others or use it to monitor your own performance. I find it really interesting to map my own route and then look back at the climbs we've done, or identify areas where I've struggled and what to try and do better next time.

Soooo, below you can see the route that we mostly took to Harewood! We had planned our route beforehand, so we only stopped a couple of times when we needed to check direction and at the end of one mean hill, fairly early on. You'll notice that we stopped tracking before we got to the house, as we got a teeny bit lost and we got off and walked for a bit up another brutal hill, which I don't doubt some crazy people have attempted on Strava

http://app.strava.com/activities/53759671?ref=1MT1yaWRlX3NoYXJlOzI9dHdpdHRlcjs0PTIxMTIwNzc%253D

Eventually though, and without much in the way of getting lost, we made it to this:

Instantly, you'll be able to notice how gloriously overcast today was! We carried on to the Information Centre where we hoped to be able to find somewhere to stash the bikes. We were met at the door by a lovely lady who had seen us fold up the bikes outside, who used to own a folding bike of her own and kindly let us stash them in a safe little back room.

She also asked us if we had got our discounted admission price for coming into the park, which we hadn't. Apparently, if you cycle to the park or use public transport to get there, you get money off the entry! She promptly upgraded our tickets, meaning we paid less for full access to the house and gardens than we had done for the ticket which excluded the main house.

Win! It is funny how the bikes are a real talking point for people and in this case managed to save us money! The money saved instantly went on this:

Amazing fish and chips! Just what you want post-ride when it's cold and miserable outside.

We'd timed our arrival at the park well and were told that at 2pm there would be feeding of the penguins. Penguins? I didn't know Harewood had any! We'd already seen lot of red kites which have settled wonderfully in the local area, but no penguins!

Finding the penguins took us on a nice little walk through the courtyard…

Love that bunting! Just pass through one of those doors and then BOOM! Penguins!

The penguins were great for comedy value and as soon as the people came out to feed them, promptly went nuts. You had a couple that only liked to be fed by picking up their fish while swimming, whereas others were happy to eat directly from the hand.

Feeding time was soon over and then it was off to explore the house. No pictures unfortunately, as rules don't permit that, but I can highly recommend a visit to the house. The Long Gallery in particular, which was used as a ward for injured soldiers during WWII in absolutely stunning. The ceiling alone took 18 months to complete.

After touring the main house, we got to visit below stairs – which is always good fun. The 1930s range in the kitchen which was installed when Princess Mary came to live at the house is particularly impressive! After wandering round there and seeing several other exhibitions which are taking place in what used to be the servants quarters, we came across a cafe. Perfect timing!

While Trev opted for Darjeeling and Victoria Sponge, for me it was all about the hot chocolate and the scone with clotted cream and jam. Mmmmmm.

This cafe then opens out onto the terrace – the view from which you should recognise if you've watched Lost in Austen – where Harewood House plays Pemberley. It certainly has some impressive views out over the grounds and I defy any woman not to have an Elizabeth Bennet moment when you look out of one of the windows, down towards the lake

The gardens were designed by Capability Brown and unfortunately we didn't get to see all of them as Trev was feeling a bit poorly, plus it was super cold so we decided to head home. But not before I'd taken the money shot of the back of the house!

A real shame that it was such an overcast, miserable day! We will definitely come back on a warmer day when there is sun and have a proper wander around the whole of the grounds – as there is so much more I'd love to see if time and weather permits.

I now intend to torture Trev with Lost In Austen so he can see Harewood House some more in all its technicolour glory!

What did you get up to this weekend?

The Bromptons Take On Sheffield

A couple of weeks ago we decided to do something a little different and we joined a gathering of the London Brompton Club in Sheffield – where a couple of members had planned out a full day's cycling around the city and we thought it sounded like good fun! We were also largely persuaded by the promise of fine weather – not yet being in possession of wet weather gear, knowing it would be a warm, sunny day meant that all we would have to worry about was our own fitness levels.

We may our way to Sheffield and before we had even left the station had bumped into three other Brompton-eers (auts?). We wandered out to the lovely plaza at the front of the station to the designated meeting point and we waited.

As we waited, we were joined by yet more bikes and their owners:

We were approached by a gentleman called Jeff who runs a site called Sheffield Cycle Chic who asked if he could take my picture for the site! They champion people cycling in normal clothes on hills and I'm extremely gratified to have been thought stylish enough to be worthy of a picture! Although of course I don't particularly think I looked it. Shamelessly borrowed are the pictures they took of me:

I love how my bike looks in that last pic!

While all this was going on, a couple of people started to tweet about this strange gathering of Bromptons in the square outside Sheffield station. They even posted pictures:

Our numbers continued to grow:

While we were waiting for more people we got a good look at several of the surrounding bikes – giving lots of ideas for accessory potential. Here are some of our favourites.

Bikes that look like animals! The already famous Bumble B…

And a titanium Tigger…

My favourite bike was probably Janet's with all of the flowers and butterflies – looks perfect on that background and she had an awesome wicker basket too!

This I believe is the Lady GaGa bike – everything in black or pink…

A titanium bike in the beautiful Raw Lacquer finish. Check out the brazing on those joins!

We came across many a special Brooks saddle:

Some good Carradice saddlebags – another British legend!

Eventually it was time to think about setting off and we all gathered round for a bit of a pre-ride briefing/pep talk:

We all lined up for the obligatory thirty-odd-Bromptons-all-in-a-row shot:

And we set off!

We hardly took any pictures on the move, as we haven't mastered the art of cycling while taking pictures, like some have, so again I have borrowed photos from others.

We got to visit the birthplace of stainless steel and hear how the steel trade has changed in Sheffield over the years.

Almost every picture ever taken of me has me with my eyes closed and/or my mouth open, so it's nice to see others continue in this vein, although the subsequent picture of Trev is nice!

We stopped before lunch at the soon to be demolished Don Valley Stadium and Trev climbed up inside some large metal thing to take pictures:

Hello!

Finally it was time for lunch! We had an epic meal of fish and chips – although my having a fish cake, with curry sauce seemed a controversial choice. I'm still struggling to get used to fish cakes containing both fish and potato up North, whereas down South it's all just fish! Tasty, nonetheless.

My redness here can be attributed to both sunburn (yay, finally – I normally get my first bout of sunburn in March, so was feeling sad to have waited so long!) and extreme unfitness. I'm going for more of the former

Serving over thirty hungry riders was a challenge, but the shop managed it admirably!

After lunch we rode up a LOT of hills. So many hills, to the point that while I never got off the bike and walked, I thought I was going to collapse in a heap on the Tarmac and not get up again.

But, the prize was some nice views over Sheffield – this is what you see if you stand at the Cholera monument and look across the city:

More hills later, we made it to the Sheffield branch of Edinburgh Bicycle Co-Operative, where we were all presented with goody bags and our bikes felt quite at home in the sister store of where we ordered ours. We had lost a few riders by this point but were still thirty-strong:

Our final real stop was at a coffee place/pizzeria called Nonna's, which has a racing culture all of its own. We were given truly amazing free pizza and free espressos – much needed at this point in the journey, although unusually for me I was too tired to really eat anything.

Thank you the lovely staff of Nonna's!

Not long after this we made our way back to Sheffield station via the city centre, where those of us with the time enjoyed a well earned pint before saying our goodbyes and heading home.

We had an absolutely brilliant day – cycled over 18 miles in the end and needless to say ended up feeling completely shattered but very satisfied. The LBC are already in talks planning another ride in Yorkshire, but in the meantime we're looking at other events we can attend. It was really lovely to meet new people and make some new friends and we can't wait for the next time!

A big thanks to Graeme and BumbleB for giving permission to the group to use their photos.

Saltaire

I feel a bit guilty writing this post. I had plans, for an amazing post showing you all this special little piece of Yorkshire, which is a World Heritage Site and rather wonderful, particularly to knitters – unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to manage it just yet.

We decided a few weeks ago that it would be lovely to cycle to Saltaire along the canal – it would probably be about ten miles, but we thought quit flat and easy-going.

We were a bit wrong! While I'm reliably informed that the towpath is significantly better than it used to be, it will still rather challenging in places. Once we got past Rodley, what was a path, became incredibly rocky and uneven – making cycling feel rather bone-shatteringly tough and putting an awful lot of strain on your arms, just to hold you up.

Eventually we made it past that, and a few miles later, I took a tumble. Not quite sure how it happened – I was trying to get onto a raised part of the path, which was really just solid mud – I braked due to said mud, back wheel slid out, bike went sideways and I went off. Thankfully, I was on the opposite side to the canal so I didn't go in the water and smacking my head on the floor made me rather glad I had a helmet on. The helmet also meant that my first concern was any potential damage done to the Brompton (yay none!) rather than my noggin.

I'd crunched my left side and hurt a bit, so we got off and walked for a while. We started cycling again later, on paths that were pure mud. And wet mud. Cycling in mud, is not fun. You have no grip and I was terrified of taking a tumble again (and getting even more mucky – I was covered in streaks of mud at this point anyway) and this bit was just impossibly stressful.

By the time we got to Saltaire a few miles later, we were absolutely knackered and didn't have the energy for going around the mill or exploring the village. We ate our packed lunch and wandered off to Don't Tell Titus for some much needed refreshment:

Then we went home. On the train and bus – bikes folded and carted around as luggage.

I am 100% aware of how pathetic this attempt was! I'll blame it on not being used to the distances, which we have since bettered, falling off, and the terribleness of the towpath in places, leading to every single part of my body hurting. I hurt so much that when we got off the bus in Headingley, I hurt too badly to cycle the five minutes home and instead walked it.

We will be sure to go back again soon, tour the place properly, take oodles of pictures and share the woolly goodness with you all. I do feel rather embarrassed that all I have to show for this excursion is a picture of two pints taken on my mobile phone. Not my finest moment!

But on the plus side, at least we know where it is now and now easy it is to get to/from there on the train