Back with lovely stuff

We had a fantastic 4 days in North Yorkshire this week, staying at the Hawnby Hotel, near Helmsley in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Our room was in the converted stable block, just across the road from the main hotel. Given the amazing hot weather, we were very glad of this, as the building had thick stone walls and stayed cool! It also had a sitting-out area right outside the room which was a nice touch. We would highly recommend this hotel, very friendly and comfortable, with a great restaurant.

I don't have many photos of the general area, it was stunning but give that (a) it was VERY hot, and (b) I was navigating, often along single track roads, I didn't really have the chance to hang out of the car windows to snap the scenery :-) The best way is to see it for yourself, in any event! I have a few photos from Newby Hall gardens that I'll put in another post though. We stopped there on the way up, and also visited Whitby (where I got me a skull and crossbones bag!) and York during our stay. On the way back we went via Leyburn, to the Sheep Shop, more of which later.

In Whitby we also visited Bobbins, which many people have commented upon and which stocks Colinette yarn. Granted, we saw various different Colinette yarns there (no Parisienne which I was hoping to see), but we were rather disappointed at the attitude of the staff. I spotted a fair bit of Noro yarn there and tried to have a look, but a staff member stood in front of us and made very busy stacking bags of yarn without any acknowledgement that there were customers around (it was quite busy in there). I may well have bought Noro there but at that point I decided that I'd rather shop elsewhere! DH also overheard another customer who had asked about knitting with tape yarn, receiving a rather patronising answer! He was less than impressed. A very nice shop but quite honestly we didn't find it very friendly at all.

Part of our York shopping expedition included Sheepish on the Shambles, which was a great place to visit. They even tried to convert DH to knitting :-) (probably encouraged by his spotting some yarn he liked!). Here's the haul we ended up with:



We have: Patons Splash, in black/grey/white, picked out by DH; Noro Silk Garden, Debbie Bliss Wish You Were Here book; Artesano Alpaca Inca Cloud to make the Bertie scarf; Laines du Nord Kiddy Print from the sale bin (only one they had, sadly!), and King Cole Luxury Mohair.

I'll be making a net-type cowl/scarf for DH from the Patons, the Silk Garden will probably be a hat and scarf (I fancy an eyelet scarf for myself like the one I made in Kureyon), and the mohair is for stash at the moment.

More stash was acquired at the Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop, another place definitely worth a visit if you're in the area. They had big bags of fleece ready for washing, prepared fleece, ready made garments, lots of yarn, and various kits and accessories.



We have: 2 balls of the 4-ply with the lacy sock pattern, and 4 of aran in Aubergine plus the pattern for a moss stitch waistcoat. Lastly there is a kit for a simple rib scarf with locks of dyed fleece to knit in as a fringe :-)

More on the next post as Blogger is acting up with photos at the moment.