Amazing Weather for a Glorious Walk!

Such a good day of weather here today in Shetland. The last three days of March are traditionally the 'borrowing days' when March borrows a day from May, June and July and this indicates the likely weather in these months. Well if today is anything to go by, June is going to be a cracker!

I went with my good friend Elizabeth for a circular walk, one of the Walk Shetland routes (although it was not signposted when we got there until the stile at the end ....) http://www.walkshetland.com/weisdale-and-tactigill-circular.php We walked up the Hill of Sound and across to the cairn on Weisdale Hill before heading down to the Tactigill Burn and following it back to the road. Even if you don't fancy the hill - the views are amazing! - the burn is a lovely walk in itself. From the cairn we could see the east and west coast of mainland Shetland as well as the islands of Foula and Whalsay and north to Ronas Hill and south to Fitful Head. As Elizabeth said, it's not a big island when you see it like that!

I also found Burn Water, a geocache (http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC34V2Z_burn-water?guid=96ba6325-08f7-480f-b0dd-f34aaca95a8c ) which our route took us past. The cache is near some clay deposits which were declared unsuitable for working. and have interesting layers in the rock formations.

 These layers can be seen further down the burn too and show how the rock shifted when the hills were being formed.

 

 

There are many twists and turns in the burn and we lost count of the number of times we crossed it to get the easiest walk along it. There are numerous pools and waterfalls, most splashing only a short distance but one was large enough to be marked on the map.

 

 

A Turtle's Tale of a Plastic Bag

This animation has been made by all the pupils at Ollaberry School where I work. Please look at it and share it so that their message gets spread far and wide!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keRWIwdrVHM

Mostly prem things this month

Hand in Hand for Syria has a hospital in Northern Syria which has a NICU. They need prem items for this and I have been making a few items for them, mostly hats. I will be sending them via LILY. I am still collecting blanket squares to send to LILY who make them up into blankets for the Syrian refugee children, numbers of displaced children are growing daily.

So, my stashbusting for January continued with:

 More prem baby hats, weight 31g

 

Knitted prem blanket and crocheted prem hats, 105g

 

Crocheted hats, 2 strands, 112g

Plus 130g on a gift for a friend who hasn't received it yet - so no photos! ;)

Stashbusting in 2014:
January 428g 

First 50g!

This little (tiny) lot took less than 50g of yarn, Crofter's DK by Sirdar to be exact, the last bit is in my scrappy scarf wip.

To give you an idea of scale, here is the cardigan with my TV remote:

Prem baby things are always needed both in this country and now in Syria, as Hand in Hand for Syria is needing them for children's hospitals in the north of the country.

Stashbusting in 2014:
January 50g

Stashbusting for Stashaholics

There should be an AA programme for people who craft with yarn! I don't know any of the fabled people who only buy what yarn they need for a project and have no unused stash in their homes.

I myself have yarn in boxes - lots of boxes (sorted by weight!) and bags and wip's and buy yarn, very often without knowing what I will be doing with it when I get it home!

I have been finding scrap projects lately to use up the little bits of yarn, I have just made a crocheted child's hat and am currently making a knitted scrap scarf. I have also learnt to do a bit of Fair Isle so will be able to use up some of the Shetland yarn I have collected over time - large plastic box full!

Please feel free to join us on our stashbusting challenge. I will be attempting to post the total weight used each month as I stash bust, mostly for charity with the odd gift thrown in. If you don't know where to start, I can give you plenty of ideas of items to make, where to send them - or even send them myself through Loving Hands Shetland.

Scrap hat:

Pattern here: Scrap hat pattern