Family

Yesterday we surprised my auntie with a family lunch for her 60th birthday. I only have a little family. Here’s a pic of me with my Granddad who is 86 this year and not doing too badly – he plays bowls these days and still does his own garden. A few years ago he taught himself to play the guitar and started touring pubs with a folk band. He also plays chess competitively and used to be a keen golfer. He’s pretty eccentric and as sharp as a button.

Little forgotten blog

Hello readers, it’s been some time! Yes I’ve been busy over the last month and rather neglected my little loom and blog, but the loom is used to that now. Hopefully I can put it all right…

I finished my wall hanging – I actually finished it the day after I wrote about it which was the end of May, I think. It has turned out quite nicely but I can’t help thinking that it works better as a rug which is probably why it’s called rug wool!

(Oops just spotted some wrong threads in that photo!)  

It’s predominantly dark navy so when I held it up to the white wall (they’re all white) it appears even darker. It needs a very strong directional light on it to highlight the colours because it contains really bright colours in the weft but the dark warp makes them hard to see under daylight. What it really needs is a nice strong halogen bulb on it but our house, conforming to Building Regs, only has feeble low energy ones. Anyway I rather like the injections of colour, you suddenly see a flash of shrimp or red or olive but then you move your head and it’s gone again. As cool as this is, it also has the effect of making it pretty difficult to photograph!

So I finished it but haven’t yet got it hung up. Basically I don’t know now where to hang it so I’m going to leave it a while and mull it over. It seems to have settled on the floor in front of a sliding door, so maybe that’s where it will stay!

I have to say, I do like the Axminster wool which I used on both the warp and weft. You may remember that I had a panic that it wouldn’t be strong enough on the warp because you can break it…and it turned out fine, no broken threads. So thank you to Charlotte, Benita and Dorothy for your reassurance.

In fact, I liked using it so much that I ordered a great big cone of it in ecru – you can probably see my thinking there! I have decided to see if I can use the full width of the loom which I have never done before and see if I can’t make a rug using clasped weft again but this time in more distinct diagonals. So don’t be surprised if you soon see a photo of the dog sitting on the navy one and the ecru one hanging on the wall!

Purl, SoHo

All the time we were in New York excitement was bubbling in my veins about going to the knitting shop, Purl, in SoHo. I’d seen it advertised in Selvedge magazine and I was so excited about going there while visiting the city. I remember first seeing the advert in the magazine and thinking that I would call in next time I was in town, but then realised it was SoHo (NY) not Soho (London). Gutted!

So on our last day – yes, I waited five days! – we took a walk off to SoHo to find it. In fact it was basically the only shop in New York that I was excited to go to which just goes to show how bizarrely my mind works these days.

When we found it, I was not disappointed. It’s quite unlike any wool shop I’ve seen in England – over here they’ve either all closed down and turned into charity shops or bars, or they stock a few Rowan colours, masses of gaudy acrylic baby wool and lots of naff tapestry kits with pictures of churches.

I didn’t take any pictures of the shop but here is their website – www.purlsoho.com

They stock so many yarns and so many fabulous colours plus fabrics and books and so on. It was all so pretty and the people so friendly!

After deliberating for ages I came out with a bagful of wool and a fist, very much not, full of dollars!

I don’t know what to do with them yet….hmm.

Bank holiday

As today is a Bank Holiday it meant I didn't have to work! Yay! I'm not good at Mondays except when the banks are shut.

I spent a lovely afternoon weaving, ah the bliss! I haven't done any weaving for what feels like ages. Remember I said I wanted to make a wall hanging? Well today I finished getting the warp on the loom and started.

I made up a 400 end warp in black, navy and plum Axminster carpet wool. It's a lot more slubby than I expected but it has a fabulous texture. This is the perfect project to try out the technique whose name I can't for the life of me remember! It begins with a 'C' and you can see it below..



I'm rather pleased with how it's going so far. More pics soon.

I hope you're having a great day, whether it's a holiday for you or not.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Museums and art galleries

We were so impressed with the museums and art galleries that NY has to offer. After toddling up the Empire State we went to the Museum of Modern Art. This was a real treat and they had a great selection of exhibits once we had got past the b*llocks on the ground floor. There was a woman sitting on a chair just staring and members of the public could go and stare back for as long as they wanted, 20 minutes or so. Give me a painting any day! This was the first exhibit we saw and I thought I might be disappointed because I feared it might all be like this. But then through a set of doors we went and the rest was fantastic.

We also went to the American Museum of Natural History and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, both of which held great collections on just about everything. This first set is from the American Museum of Natural History and contains images from their space centre, a beautiful window, a Chinese wedding carriage, tribal masks and hats, and some wonderful beaded Native American clothing.

I think these last ones were from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but I could be wrong!

 

Empire State & Katz Deli

The first place we went to on our trip was to see the Empire State building. It was Monday morning and not at all overrun with tourists which, by the looks of the vast but empty snaking queue lines meant we had chosen a good time. It’s a phenomenal building especially to think that it stands proud of the surrounding buildings and yet was built nearly a century ago. It really sets the tone for the city. It must have been received with such awe when it was first built and all the other existing buildings would have been much smaller. I have to say it was expensive to go up it - $70 for two – but it was a great experience!

This was a view from the top which Ivan tiled to make one big photo:

Here’s one of the entrance in all it’s Art Deco splendour:

Another day, Ivan was keen to sample the culinary delights of a New York breakfast and where better to head than Katz Delicatessen? This is the place where Meg Ryan enjoyed more than she expected in When Harry Met Sally – you know, the, “I’ll have what she’s having” scene.

It was just around the corner from our hotel so we called in and ended up with rather more than we expected to! Although not in that sense, I hasten to add, just that the food portions were HUGE. Without really knowing what we were ordering, we each received no less than THREE “sunny side up” eggs on buttered toast, with a substantial salami, a bowl of chips each (chunky ones not skinny fries, tea and orange juice. I practically had to roll out of the place – three eggs!!!

New York, New York!

Yes, that’s right, my absence of late has been because we took ourselves off on a trip to the Big Apple! Woo hoo!

Impressions? Well, it was awesome, manic, cultured, wildly varied, textured, noisy, exciting, stylish, bright. It’s a place of huge contrasts – the colossal polished skyscrapers versus the gritty realism of the smaller streets, particularly where we stayed which was on Lower East Side of Manhattan.

I have decided to break the photos down into several posts so this one centres around the general architecture around Lower East Side. I hope you enjoy!

           

This part of the city was incredibly textured with the brick and grime and graffiti – all the buildings are unique and there’s an amazing sense of layering especially when you look down at the buildings from high up. We loved the fire escapes on the front of the buildings too.