Yorkshire Road Trip

Last week  my boyfriend and I went went on a trip up to Yorkshire for a track day (spectacularly unimpressed with both Croft circuit and Javelin Events, but at least I got a lot of cross stitching done after I decided it was too unsafe for me to drive round the track, grrrrr). We decided to take a few days for it so it felt like a mini-holiday.

We stopped part of the way there so we didn't have to drive for 6 hours solid, and went to the OK Diner on the A1. It's an 50's American-themed restaurant that does gorgeous burgers and the best strawberry milkshake I have ever tasted, so good that we went back for breakfast the next day. I was also really impressed with the new Travelodge beds, so spectacularly comfy that I'm thinking of buying the same mattress for home.

The next day we went to Stump Cross Caverns in the Yorkshire Dales National Park. I went on a guided tour of some caves in Derbyshire a few years ago, this was very different... We just paid and were sent down some steps after putting helmets on. We were pretty much the only people down there, which was a bit terrifying! I kept wondering if we would ever be found if we fell over and broke our legs... Some of the passages were quite low and narrow so I had to keep concentrating on the gorgeous surroundings and took lots of photos.






I saw that the next photo looked like there was a demon in the rocks, but when I looked without my camera I could no longer see it....


On the way there we seemed to drive along the Tour De France route - so much knitted jumper bunting!

I fell a little bit in love with Yorkshire - the views were breathtaking. Even the clouds seemed more interesting than down South.


I'm sure if I lived in the middle of nowhere I'd end up really bored and lonely, but the thought is still really appealing. Maybe I need to win the lottery and buy a holiday home (and a teleporter).


Never trust a Miskit....


She looks all innocent in this photo, but somewhere (hopefully in the garden) she has hidden a dead sparrow. Seems the bell isn't working as well as I'd thought. At least the 4-a-day-inside-the-house massacre has stopped...

#30for30crafting

Most evenings I just collapse on the sofa in front of the TV after work. I have a gigantic pile of half-finished craft pieces that doesn't seem to be getting much smaller. When I read about #30for30crafting on HugsAreFun it seemed to be a good way to kick myself into action so I don't feel so guilty about the hours I spend on the sofa! It was set up by The Crafting Geek and is simply doing 30 minutes of craft a day for 30 days. I suspect I started it on the 5th June, as the 4th June mostly involved playing ukulele in the rain at the Queen's Baton Relay in Southampton (as well as watching men set themselves on fire and dive from an insane height into a giant paddling pool).

I bought a 2014 fabric calendar panel from Polka & Bloom and had only managed to stitch "2014". As this is obviously of limited use after this year, I thought it was an ideal project to spend the next 30 days on. This is how far I had got by Sunday.

Obviously I will iron it at some point...


 Flower - I think I will leave the grid and spiral pink. Not much point choosing the pink version to go with my one-day-pink-and-green craft room if I embroider over all of it.


Bird - I have since sewn his eye which makes a huge difference. I'm leaving the rest of his markings pink.


I don't know how much of this I will actually embroider - I'm doing it symmetrically so it won't look weird if I don't manage all the flowers etc. I think the 30 days is a good deadline to stop otherwise I could spend all year on it. Maybe I will cut the embroidered bits off after December and use them as patches for something.