Easter weekends are usually busy times for clergy and their wives and ours was unusually full but this time we back pedalled on church commitments and threw ourselves into family support as a small but dedicated team worked madly to make habitable what the small person calls ‘the builders’ house’. The vicar (still vicarious of course but with no parish responsibility since retirement) declared this to be the first Easter in more than 40 years when his duties were not the main focus of the rest of his family. Gallant fellow that he is, we let him take things easy and kept him from the hurly burly of unpacking.
Somehow in amidst all this furious activity the small person managed to have the most marvellous Good Friday that he will possibly ever have (erm, in which observation of religious custom played no significant part but he did come to church on Sunday). In the morning he pitched up at Lord’s Cricket Ground (HQ of international cricket and a much loved venue – I add, for non UK readers). In the splendid Indoor Cricket Academy he was given a taste of the interaction of willow bat and red ball and then, as if that wasn’t enough, at teatime he found himself in No 10 Downing Street where the Prime Minister’s Easter Egg Hunt was in full swing (an annual event for political journalists and their families). It may take some living of life before any Friday will ever quite measure up to this one! The week end saw yet more Easter Egg hunts, one in his own garden and one after church, which was great for granny as I felt no need to buy him some highly commercial elaborately boxed concoction and made do with a few little chocolate animals instead.
Meanwhile Daughter No 1 has just rung me with the news that the Prime Minister has called a general election on the 8th of June. All those political journalists who were enjoying Theresa May’s hospitality hunting for Easter eggs last Friday will either be whooping for joy (because they love the rough and tumble of the hustings) or, if you have a wife who is about to have a baby, they may well be feeling a little weary. Paternity Leave which is anyway rather minimal with this sort of job, has probably just flown out of the window for one of our nearest and dearest.
And talking of babies, this is my latest little jumper – another of Debbie Bliss’s baby polo shirts (from Baby Cashmerino Bk 3). The Fair Isle design comes from 200 Fair Isle Designs by Mary Jane Mucklestone, Search Press, 2011 and as you can see from the sample shown above I tried a couple of colour combinations before settling on the one that I thought worked best. The main colour is silver and all colours are from Debbie Bliss’s Baby Cashmerino range. The result is a dear little jumper and I may well end up knitting more.
8 Comments
Delicious!
Thank you.
The jumper is lovely.
I sympathise with those Political Journalists who are feeling a bit weary. I don’t think the UK ones have really had a quiet period since the Scottish Referendum, which by now feels like a century ago!
Kind of you, Rachel. Thank goodness that at least the weather is uplifting.
Oh goodness, so sweet! and beautifully made of course. I love that heathery green background, but I’m sure the small person approves of the bright Easter-egg colours. The little touches of colour around the edge of the neck finish it off perfectly, and how nice to have just a couple of buttons on a pullover, an unusual (why? so practical) combination of cosy collar and extra wiggle room for getting it on and off. Great design!
Lovely to hear from you Anna and thank you for saying such nice things about the jumper.
Sorry not to have replied sooner but events are moving so fast at the moment that days – even months – seem to fly by quicker than ever before!
Hello Mary. I’ve just spent a lovely hour or so catching up with you. I had to get from Maidenhead to Abingdon today and had some spare time so tried to go off the main roads, got lost, ended up on Quiet Lane? and passed Ipsden at some point and then remembered you and your blog. I had stopped checking in when you moved and so I had some catching up to do. The jumpers for your grandchildren are great, I really enjoy knitting Debbie Bliss patterns and have knitted the one with the colourful raglan sleeves a couple of times. I’m not brave enough to go off pattern and experiment like you. I hope that the next few months of election fever don’t drive you all mad. I love a general election myself even if we are in “purdah” at work and nothing much will happen until it is all over. I would love to be in the thick of it. Becky x
So nice to hear from you again, Becky and it’s great to hear you’ve enjoyed catching up with the blog. When next we move – which is going to be very soon, i.e the end of this month – I shall try to keep up with posts.
All lanes around Ipsden had Quiet Lane signs and I assumed villages all over the country had them – without ever actually seeing any others. Very odd – are you supposed to walk down them whispering?
I too have enjoyed knitting Debbie Bliss patterns and using Baby Cashmerino wool (very soft and not at all scratchy), although a purist streak in me does feel I ought to convert to straightforward pure wool – which I will when I’ve used up all the spare balls I seem to have collected!
I think the next month may well be the most hectic I shall ever live through but I shall be quite happy to baby sit on election night if daughter No 1 returns to the coalface.
3 Trackbacks
[…] the collar… Daughter No 1 has put in an order for more polo shirts (the knitted versions seen here) which she finds useful as the collar can be turned up around the baby’s face when she has […]
[…] first knitted this little jumper here http://www.addisonembroideryatthevicarage.co.uk/2017/04/18/another-really-lovely-little-jumper-polo-… from a Debbie Bliss pattern. She calls it a polo shirt and though I can see why – collar, […]
[…] Little silver-grey polo shirt with little tree Fair Isle band http://www.addisonembroideryatthevicarage.co.uk/2017/04/18/another-really-lovely-little-jumper-polo-… […]