Exmoor

Beautiful beach at Woolacombe. As you can see we went to Exmoor.

View from near Dunkery Beacon towards Minehead

This year's holiday was a little different for us in several ways. Firstly we left our son at home - he is 18 now, and was very definite that he did not want to come. Despite my worries, he has not starved and the house is still standing. Secondly, we very sucessfully took my daughter's friend with us, and thirdly it was Rosie's first holiday. 

We had to be careful not to do too much walking, as Rosie is still a puppy. But she absolutely loved some of the country and beach walks we did, as well as having a larger, wilder garden to spend time in. The cottage was dog-friendly, and she did not seem to mind being crated at night, as we could not completely trust that she would not start chewing. Here are just a few photos that give a flavour of our break.
 

Rosie had a great time in the garden

We toasted marshmallows later ...

Walk from Malmsmead, setting of R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone ....

These are some of the alpaca from the farm where I bought my alpaca wool

View of Dunkery Beacon, and an Exmoor pony

Top of Dunkery Beacon - highest point on Exmoor

Somebody else had made this for Rosie to sit by

Walking down from Dunkery

A caterpillar of an Emperor moth

The cottage where we stayed for the week

Troll Makeover

On our recent holiday we found this sad little creature washed up on the beach.  How long had she been in the sea? What adventures had she been through? Little One decided to adopt her, but she definitely needed a bit of a makeover.

It is amazing what can be done with a bit of pink fluff, some glue and an indeliable pen.  And a bit of pink wool for her new outfit. Her name is Dune.

Now she is ready to meet the other little trolls, and be part of the gang.  But she will always retain the marks of her adventures. (Can you see her smooth hands, feet and ears?)

And the bigger trolls. (Some of these trolls are nearly as old as me, which is why they are so wise.)  I just love trolls.

Shells

I've been busy on one of my little knits, that I know may provoke the question "why?" Not sure what the answer is. 

I made several attempts to design a spiral shell last year and each time I failed. Eventually I put the idea aside. I had designed a collection of small seaside knits, and a spiral shell seemed to be the main thing missing. So the idea has been niggling away in the back of my mind.

I have spent quite a lot of time looking at various shells in textbooks and online. There are so many different types, but I wanted my shell to be definitely conical and not a flat spiral. So I think you might call this a turret or auger shell, depending on which part of the world you live in. I would love to try and knit a conch shell, but I'm not sure knitting lends itself to all those spikes.

My shells are knitted with two doublepointed needles and short rows, and the shaping makes the knitting fall into a natural spiral. The knitting of the shell is not too tricky, although some people may hate the way I have written the pattern. 155 rows may seem a bit much to produce a tiny shell, but as you are decreasing all the time it does not take as long as you might think. I can knock off a complete shell in an evening. The wool is ordinary 4ply sock wool, and I am now slightly fixated on finding realistic shell shades in multi-coloured sock wool. Well it's a hobby! To find the pattern CLICK HERE!

There is one long seam, and I found it easiest to sew and stuff as you go. And then sewing it into a spiral is done with tiny stitches. The pattern has detailed photographs and instructions explaining how to do this.

Just a reminder of my other sea creature patterns. My recent trip to the seaside gave me the chance take some new photographs, on a real beach.

But if this all seems like too much work then keep an eye on my ETSY SHOP, as I still have a few sets of sea creatures for sale there

Sand Dollars, if you were wondering.

Scallop Shell

Starfish