Grasmere Church

This is day 3 on the coast to coast when we arrived at Grasmere where William Wordsworth is buried. The village is one of the most beautiful in Lakeland and certainly provided a haven for our weary travellers. They had the chance to visit Dove Cottage in the morning before setting off again on day 4.

I'm back from the coast to coast

I wanted to let you know why I have not posted for a while so as you can see from the photo I look set for a journey. Infact it was the longest sustained hike I have ever done, two weeks on the coast to coast across the North of England from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire, that's Irish Sea to North Sea. It was an incredible journey of a lifetime and I was with my DH and we were leading a group of Americans all the way. We set off on Monday 12th Sept and reached the end on Sunday 25th. I have to admit that I resisted the temptation to take a needle and thread with me, I had enough to do.......

At last, the chance to do the coast to coast

New bit of delicious kit

This new top of mine is almost good enough to eat!  I can't wait to wear it on a cold day.  It is a quilted, ripstop nylon inside and out piece of kit designed to go into a diddy little bag and it weighs only 5 ozs.  Yes, it's destined to be part of my rucksack necessities and will be my emergency clothing for those odd times when it really turns cold. This is a down filled top and it is so soft and warm. At the moment it is lurking in my wardrobe but it's going to go on an adventure with me soon. Oh how I wish I had had this with me in May 2010 when I camped at Tyndrum for 4 nights and it was minus 2 every night with the tent covered in ice in the morning........freezing wasn't the word. Bella was so cold she crept into my sleeping bag every night and the two of us snuggled up but even then I was still cold. The downside was the price at £225 not cheap so I had to wait for the sales ladies and hey Needle Sports came good with £75 knocked off. It has one very slight disadvantage in that it is only a little bit shower proof so no getting it soaked or it won't work.

Hmm, looking at it now on the screen before me I am tempted to keep it for best...and wear it to Quilters Guild Meetings as I am joining the committee as an Area Representative of Region 15W.  Oops better not, I might just need it on that next Scottish trip.

Camera problem solved

Pete's C2C embroidery

We went out hiking all day today and when we came back I took the photos off the small digital camera we use and they were like sludge again... Made me wonder if DH had changed a setting by mistake or something, and sure enough I discovered that the ISO was set to 1600, surely not I thought it should be 400. So now it is and this is the result after taking the C2C photo again.

So always check your camera and make sure its not been touched by predators!  He knows what I mean (family joke).

I have been making Alfred Wainwright Coast to Coast embroideries for some wonderful people from the USA who completed the full coast to coast recently.

They were only the 2nd group in 8 years with this organisation to complete the whole of the route without taking any days off; so for that alone they have been nicknamed 'Team Awesome'.

I have made the embroideries with hand made silk paper top and bottom to represent the two coasts the Irish Sea and the North Sea and then I put a picture of AW himself in the middle with beads for his braces and a few French Knots to emphasise the rocks on the cairn. And his socks have a fluffy topping of knots too!

As I have made about 7 of these I have had to work on a production line and I used my Janome 300e to embroider the words C 2 C and 2011 on the finished items purely because it was the fastest way to do the job.

These embroideries will soon be crossing the Atlantic apart from one going to London and I hope they will express some of the spirit of the wonderful team of lovely Americans I met recently who were determined to finish. This is my gift to them for being such good company on the three days I managed to walk with them; my DH did the whole 14 days so one of these is for him too ;-).

The photography is not my best, but I am in a hurry tonight so I hope you will forgive me.

I have been very busy today.  This was the state of affairs around 5pm this afternoon and I had only just started adding beads and French knots to the embroideries.  But I did finish my project at about 8.20pm so I am feeling pleased with my efforts.  I can't reveal what it's about just yet as it might just spoil a surprise I am planning. I will post early next week and then you will see what I have been upto.