Accidents will happen.....

Did anyone else love Elvis Costello? Late '70s, early '80s.... I am definately showing my age now.
No photos today and just a few words of warning. Maybe no one else is quite so clumsy, or so lacking in common sense, but just in case I shall share what I learned.
A nice comfy chair, a netbook, a cup of tea, and a clumsy person is not a good combination. In the words of the great Elvis Costello ' Accidents will happen ' It's more a question of when? rather than if. My poor little netbook is now hopefully drying out with no lasting damage. My computer repair man is coming round tomorrow and I have been told DO NOT TRY TO SWITCH IT ON.  Apparently any moisture left inside may short circuit something vital and could totally kill my hard drive. I wish I had known this before I tried to switch it on last night.
On the plus side... I don't have sugar in my tea because it acts as a conductor and can make the damage worse than it already is.
I have now out stayed my welcome on my daughter's netbook so bye for now and hope to resume normal blogging very soon.
Fiona x

My Creative Space

Today I have been multi-tasking...

A bit of knitting

A bit of crochet

A bit of French knitting

A bit of inspiration, a bit of imagination and a bit of a combination.

And here is the result.

I had a request for two long stemmed white roses. Since none of patterns matched exactly what I was after I improvised. Knitted the base of the bud. Crocheted the main part of the flower. And since the stem needed to stand tall I used a little French knitting dolly and reinforced the stem with a bamboo skewer through the middle.

Other creative people are showing what they have been up to at Kootoyoo. Click HERE and have a look.

Urban Crochet

Just a wee something I spotted in Dundee yesterday.

The drain pipes outside the Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre.

No idea who did it, or when they did it, but it made me smile to see these crochet flower garlands.

Caledonian Canal Cruising

I'm back on my comfy sofa after a week spent on the Caledonian Canal. Who would have thought that cruising the canal in July could have produced such extreme weather conditions ?

We enjoyed three kinds of weather... Raining. Just stopped Raining. & Just about to start Raining.

Combined with Wind. Lots of Wind. & Oh dear lord is that a Hurricane?

But guess what ? We had a fantastic time. It's true that in the first few days my temper frayed and my language reached an all time low. But considering that none of us had done any kind of sailing before and that we sailed into the worst weather conditions on Loch Ness, I think we did surprisingly well.

Our first night was spent berthed at Urquhart Castle Bay. There is a big difference between watching an instuction video on berthing and tying up your boat and actually doing it, especially in strong winds and I was a bit scared that we would wake in the middle of the night to find ourselves adrift in the middle of the loch. It was quite a relief to wake in the morning exactly where we should be.

Our second night was spent at Fort Augustus, a lovely little town dominated by the five locks that take you up onto the Caledonian canal. The canal itself was created to give a safe passage from Fort William on the west of Scotland through to Inverness in the North East. It meant that ships could avoid the dangerous waters of the North Sea and get supplies through to the other side a lot quicker. It was started in 1822 and finished in 1847. It's all pretty amazing even by modern construction methods but way back then it was literally dug out by hand. The locks join up Loch Lochy, Loch Oich, Loch Ness and Loch Dochfour and covers about sixty miles.

The locking system at Fort Augustus involved two crew members pulling the boat through each of the locks as we moved up the steps. Definately MAN work. Calum and Martin did a grand job and Rhona and I put the kettle on for a nice cup of tea when they got back on board.

Not really much of a sea dog but Angel got little treats from the lock-keeper at Fort Augustus. I think she is particularly pleased to be back home. She got quite good at jumping back onto the boat after her walks but had to be lifted off and she doesn't like being lifted. Poor baby...

Stopped off here at Kytra Lock for some lunch before heading out on to Loch Oich. It looks so peaceful and we should have appreciated it more at the time because as soon as we were through the lock the wind really got up and sailing across the loch in a little cabin cruiser was pretty scary. We heard along the way that a weather warning had been issued and that the next loch down was closed off to boats due the severity of the winds. So all we had to do was keep going and get berthed at the Great Glen Water Park at the end of Loch Oich. What a job we had berthing there... The wind was so strong and we were really grateful to a couple of fellow travellers who got to help secure our boat. We could never have done it alone. Our boat was one of the smallest in the fleet which meant it was easily caught by the wind and could go into a spin just when you were about to throw the ropes to shore. Pretty hairy......

A few days later....

Well, not many photo opportunities in torrential rain, and gale force winds. Pretty dodgy trying to get the camera out when you are concentrating on not falling in the water while securing your boat.

By Thursday the winds had died down, which was a huge relief. You know you have experienced a lot when you are holding ropes at a lock, rain dripping off the end of your nose and you agree with the lock-keeper that it's nice to be out of the wind.

I spotted this rainbow on Thursday evening just before dinner and guess what ?

After dinner we had four full hours of Just stopped Raining. Martin and I took Angel for a nice long walk along the canal tow path into Fort Augustus and stopped at the pub for a wee drink before heading back. We met up with two ladies who we had met previously at The Great Glen. They were canoeing the length of the canal. We talked about a yacht which we had seen tipped over on the loch earlier in the day. They had actually seen it go over and decided to get off the water for a while to sit out the worst of the storm. They were camping most of the route but were treating themselves to a night in a guesthouse. I was truly impressed by these ladies who had certainly earned a night of comfort.

Here are my hardy crew on our last night. Thank goodness I was the one with the camera and that it's not smelly vision. Damp, and barely washed, we weren't exactly at our best but we felt so proud of ourselves for everything we  had achieved during our journey. Calum did a great job steering though choppy waters and berthing in appalling conditions. Rhona, at only 13 has steered a cabin cruiser on Loch Ness and ably assisted in berthing and securing our boat. Martin did a bit of everything and was a true star keeping our spirits up during the worst bits. I like to think of myself as a master of knotting and anything rope related.

We treated ourselves to a fantastic meal out for our last night at a little restaurant nearby. Thankfully most of the diners were fellow mariners and there was no dress code, but the food was excellent and would not be out of place in a classy city restaurant.

Leaving Lock Dochgarroch and heading back to Inverness.

We will no doubt be comparing bruises and boat related injuries for a few days yet but we would definately do it again. I could tell you about a particulary ropey roping incident when I thought I might never crochet again.... Or the time we nearly lost Martin.... or the lady we saw who misjudged the distance to the pontoon and landed in the water while berthing (not me thank goodness).. But I think I've just about covered everything now.

Back to work in the morning.

Fiona x

My Creative Space

I have always been a little bit (okay a big bit) in awe of people who can draw. Artists always tell me that everyone can draw.. that even I can draw.. but I know that whenever I try to draw something it never looks like I want it to. This isn't a major problem in my life. I have found many ways to be creative that don't require any drawing skills. However, every now and then, I want to make something that needs to be drawn out first and I get so frustrated that my doodles don't look the same on paper as they do in my head.
I've had a couple of ideas which I wanted to try out in silver for a while and yesterday I spent the afternoon in my basement doing just that.

I found these templates in my Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of crafts and used them as the outline for some silver pendants.

This is my favourite one. I still have to do some serious polishing but so far I am really pleased. I hammered the silver before cutting to give him a hairy look then added the flat collar after. Do you think he should have an eye ? I'm still undecided. You barely see the eyes in real Scottie Dogs because their hair is always in the way so maybe he should stay the way he is.

Still a bit more work to do on this one but at least she  has an eye! It's not very clear but I hammered the little wing with a kind of feathery texture though the rest of the bird is flat. I'm thinking now of a wee branch for her to sit on... or maybe a couple of friends then linking them together in a bracelet..

It's been a while since I did any silver work and I had such fun with these ones. I really ought to do it more often. Will just need to buy more silver.

For more creative spaces click HERE and visit Kootoyoo.

London Weekend

I have just spent a fabulous weekend in London with my husband. It's our wedding anniversary in a couple of days and for the last few years we have been really lucky to able to get away on our own to mark the event.

Martin was working in London during the week so I flew down on Friday morning to meet him at City Airport. You can't go to London without taking a photograph of The Houses of Parliament !!! This one was taken from the water. We were on one of these at the time.

 

London Duck tours are a great way to see the city. We lived near London for a long time and both of us worked in the city at some time but you tend to miss things like this when the city is where you go to work. So we had a bit of a tourist day. The 'ducks' are amphibious vehicles, first built for the D-Day landings in the 2nd World War. Now put to good use showing off the sights of London and other cities with waterways. We did a similar tour in Boston last year. The tour took us around the city of Westminster, then onto the Thames to see everything from a different angle.

We stayed at a hotel in Docklands, an area which has undergone a massive regeneration in the last ten years.

This was the view across the Thames basin from our hotel. The old industrial crane things(?) make an interesting feature beside the new luxury riverside apartments. In the background you can just about see the O2 arena.

This is where we went on Saturday night for the hi- light of our trip.

Woo hoo.... Bon Jovi live at the O2. We had the best tickets.. just 4 rows from the stage !!!

The concert was amazing. They played for three whole hours and were just  brilliant.

Can't quite believe I got such a good clear picture. ( there are quite a few rubbish ones with the heads of strangers in the way but at least one good one.)

Fabulous weekend all round and back to normal now.

Fiona x

My Throw of Many Colours...

It's My Creative Space Thursday again and it's already Friday where most of the participants are but it's still Thursday here so here is what I have been working on today..... I have been working on it for a bit more than one day obviously, but it's nearly finished today.

Does anybody out there love Dolly Parton ?

My daughter is leaving home to go to University in September and I offered to make her a special granny throw to take with her. It seemed like a good idea to me so I was really pleased that she thought so to. Maybe it will become a family tradition to make 'Going to Uni Blankets'. Maybe one day Megan will give it to her daughter. Maybe Megan's daughter will give it to her daughter....

Maybe not, but it's a nice thought.

So, to explain a little bit more. I love a Dolly Parton song called Coat of Many Colours.

It's about how her mum made her a coat out of lots patches of many colours, and about how much love her mum put into it. Sadly, for poor wee Dolly everybody laughed at her home made coat. Must have been before recycling, upcycling and restyling became so fashionable as it is now.

Just imagine, a quilted, patchwork, multicoloured coat.... Gorgeous.

Well the Throw of Many Colours is nearly finished. It's 5ft square with just another round in blue to crochet and a few ends to sew in and it will be all done and ready to go to Aberdeen in September.

I did offer to tell Megan stories 'from the bible' (if you know the song) while I was working which she declined but we have had a few good chats along the way.

I'll sign off now before I get all sentimental.

See more creativity HERE