Lately In Pictures #9 - The one with the fireworks

Guy Fawkes Night is my favourite night of the year - it combines so many of my favourite things - fireworks, autumn, bonfires, tradition and the chance to wrap up in layers and layers of knitwear. To my knowledge, Guy Fawkes Night aka Bonfire Night aka Fifth of November is just an English thing -  with Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up our Houses of Parliament and all... In a nutshell, it's a night where we build bonfires and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on them, then have huge fireworks displays. You can read more about it here if you're not familiar with it.

On the south east coast a string of local towns have Bonfire Societies that join together to create processions and displays right through the county of Sussex from early September to late November. Our local display was a couple of weeks ago and I thought that November 5th was an appropriate time to share them!

I was expecting it to be freezing cold, so I wrapped up in hand knits - hand knit socks, my Docklight sweater, a big cowl and some handspun wristers. Needless to say, I was boiling and had to strip half of it off!

I'm off to go and play (in a safe, adult and responsible manner) with some sparklers! Happy Fifth of November everyone!

♥

Lately In Pictures #8 - The one at the 2015 Knitting & Stitching Show

Sitting and knitting on the train - I wore my Old Romance cardigan, my Linus shawl and a pair of hand knit socks to celebrate!

The Spin City UK booth was the highlight of the show for me - I love Louise's fibre and I treated myself to three of her beautiful batts. Louise herself is lovely - she was doing almost constant demonstrations of her fabulous resin drop spindles to an awestruck crowd. She was the only vendor solely selling fibre and I think she converted many a knitter over the course of the show!

I was very tempted to purchase a kit to knit this Robin - for my friends little girl - my honorary niece, whose name is Robyn. But I restrained myself - I have plenty of things up my sleeve for Robyn for Christmas this year!

The exhibitions at the show are always interesting and inspiring.

The showstopper for me was The Stitchmonger installation by artist Kate Jenkins - who had created an entire fish counter, knitted, crocheted and felted - down to the lemon slices and seaweed garnish. Lobsters, anchovies, sardines, tentacles - everything you'd expect to see at a fishmongers. The detail is incredible and I could've stared at it for hours!

Pretty yarns in the Colinette booth.

The TOFT alpacas stand was fabulous - I've visited their booth at the show several times in the past - but since the publication of their book Ed's Menagerie, it's so much brighter and busier than it has been in the past. All the crochet creatures hanging from the trellis ceiling has got to be the best promotion for a crochet book, that I've ever seen! I wish I could crochet properly so I could give these critters a try...

This unicorn! This unicorn is glorious!

I was very tempted to buy this yarn from Debonnaire yarns to make a sweater - but unfortunately they didn't have enough (don't worry - I bought a sweater quantity elsewhere!).

These birds by Katherine Bertram are stunning!

This is my fourth year of visiting the show - and while the exhibitions are incredible - and you can get some some fabulous yarn there, every year it seems to get more and more commercial. I think that's primarily due to the cost of having a stand there - but I think it would benefit from more indie businesses like Spin City vending. Next year I think I'm going to head to Yarndale and/or Unravel to get my fix of handdyed yarns! But maybe I'm just a yarn snob. Haha.

♥

Lately In Pictures #7 - The one with the camping and the piggies

Hanging out by the seafront after work and one of my favourite photos of my parents.

 Photographing cones of yarn to (eventually) destash on ebay.

 An impromptu camping trip to Knepp Wildlife Safari Park and toasting marshmallows over the fire pit.

 Enjoying the campsite - it's the prettiest campsite ever - and modelling my swish new yellow raincoat. From Topshop if you're interested - I never thought I'd fit in to Topshop clothes, but apparently I do now! Yay.

 Spotting Longhorn Cows and Tamworth Piggies. Yep. Piggies. You can't say the word 'Piggy' and not smile. Try it.

And spending too much time untangling skeins of yarn with my mum. Her yarn, not mine. Mine rarely gets this tangled! ;)

It's been a pretty good couple of weeks. I've been working lots and knitting lots, with driving lessons thrown in here and there. Tomorrow I'm going to the cinema for the first time this year - I don't know quite how that's happened, but it's really hard to get to the cinemas from my parents house, compared to where I lived in London! So I'm as excited as a child that's been promised a day out - there's going to be popcorn and pic'n'mix and all sorts. Living the high life! Haha.

♥

My Week In Pictures #6 - The one where I realise I cannot write these posts on a weekly basis...

 Heading to the beach for a swim to cool down after work.
 Visiting this lovely lady in London town for her birthday.

 Posing in cocktail bars.
 Actually drinking cocktails... (contrary to how often I photograph them, I don't actually drink all that many - they're just pretty!) Eating enormous desserts...

...and enormous baskets of chips. Essentially all I do when I'm in London is eat excessively!

So it's clear that I cannot post weekly photographic updates of my week - primarily because my weeks are often very similar from one to the next - same beach, different knitting, different food! Instead of My Week In Pictures, I'm probably going to post Lately In Pictures, whenever I have things I want to recap and share. I've been working a lot recently and retail isn't overly photogenic! Haha. Still, money is after all, money - and after five months of living with my family, it's really time I thought about what I want to do in the not-too-distant future. Small steps.

I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon buried up to my elbows in yarn and fibre, to restore my equilibrium! (And to get a few more things to talk about in tomorrow's Fibre Friday post!)

♥