World War 1 Knitting Exhibition

On a sunny Saturday back in August, Amanda, Mum and I went to Sheringham Museum to visit another of their knitting exhibitions.  Dad came with us, but not for the museum - he wandered up and down the high street with all the summer tourists and we eventually found him sitting up by the steam railway, tapping his feet to a two piece band who had set themselves up to entertain the passersby!

This is not the first time we've been to a woolly festival at Sheringham, this was the site of the gansey spectacular a couple of years ago and look where that's led us!  I'm just about to embark on knitting my fourth!  (And actually they're holding another gansey festival next summer, but this time with Scandinavian and North European varieties - I can see this is going to be dangerous.)

While the last show we went to concentrated mainly on clothing and the fishing industry, this year they'd gone a bit mad and yarn bombed everything, which I really liked.  I now have an idea of some crocheted rope to drape around my pergola, although if I hang anything else off it, it might just topple over in the garden!

The exhibition started off with a film show but, after being told it ran for about five hours, we gave up on that pretty quickly, and headed around the exhibits.  They'd set up a makeshift hospital there and it had never before now occurred to me that even bandages were knitted? 

I thought this was a lovely idea - the "try it on clothes line".

And some of the clothes are so classic, that they've hardly dated at all.

Mum was reading the display on the screen and we found a letter written to a Mrs Long in Stepney!  (We don't think it was one of our relatives though!)

This vest and bloomer set has rather taken my fancy and I've just finished making one in blue - no doubt I'll post pictures later on once it's sewn up.  I love it though - it's so delicate, although knitting with 3 ply has been torment!  Unfortunately, there's no friction to it, so it just kept sliding off the needles.  I'm not sure I'll use it again, although I do have enough yarn left over - it's a vintage Jaeger yarn - to make another set.  We will see .....

After we left the exhibition, we visited a wool sale, but, amazingly, none of us bought any - crikey!  I did learn a new acronym - SABLE.  Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy.  I certainly have that!

River Waveney Sculpture Trail

On a roasting hot day in August, I took myself off across the border into Suffolk to visit the River Waveney Sculpture Trail.  Because I was off for quite a while - four weeks - this summer, I wanted to keep busy, but in a "gentle" way, so an art trail in the great outdoors seemed like a good idea.

I have to admit that I didn't really "understand" too many of the exhibits - my brain doesn't work like an artist, far too practical, but that didn't take away from the enjoyment of the exhibition. 

Some of the pieces made me laugh - like the giant crab, but then some pieces could just have been growing at the nature reserve anyway?  This tree was an art installation, but I'd never have known unless I looked at my catalogue - it was just a tree!

This wasn't an art installation - it was a view!  And rather a lovely one too.

I did really love this mirrored cube - it was fun! 

I loved this - a hammock under a tree made of cable ties - I had no idea they came in so many colours!

This piece of glass was probably my favourite - with the sun shining on it and the light coming through it, the colours were all reflected on the ground around it.  I would love something like this in my garden, although Finn would make this far too dangerous an endeavour!

These were basically saucers and I cannot remember what they signified now, but they had varying degrees of water in and I thought they were good bird baths - although I'm not sure that's what they were intended for!

And actually, this wasn't an art installation either - it was a pile of wood they'd put together for insects and creepy crawlies, but I thought it was rather beautiful.

No idea.  I think it was something to do with water and rubbish.  But I thought the blue was beautiful!

And this wasn't art either, it was some agricultural machinery!

A lovely day, much too hot for wandering around, but it was very shady in places which was lovely.  And I did really enjoy it, I just didn't understand most of it.  But I don't really think actually that matters very much.