The blog-post that I had planned for today was going to be all about the shawl I spent last week knitting for my Mum. It’s the Hervst Afond Scarf from Knitting Brioche by Nancy Marchant that I made with this yarn from The Constant Knitter:
Unfortunately, I can’t blog about the finished object on this F.O. Friday; because I’ve no photos to show you. I thought I took a photo of it as I cast it off. I realised an hour later that it was a video – most of which is black because I put the camera on the desk after I snapped (as I thought) the shawl. I gave the shawl to my Mum as she was leaving to go home and she opened it the next morning; so there were no photo ops of her trying it on.
I even brought my camera with me when I visited her today but I couldn’t pluck up the courage to ask her to bring it out just so that I can photograph it. I mean, how do I explain that I want to photograph the present I gave her without making her worry about any time she may have accidentally dropped me on my head as a child!
So I bailed and came home again, photographless and with this lame excuse to give you. Sorry!
I’m just glad I got it finished in time to give to her for her birthday last Sunday. It was not so much “down-to-the-wire” as “well-past-the-wire-and-several-furlongs-later”. Despite getting DH to drive slower than the speed-limit, so that I could maximise knitting-time on the way over to my sister’s house for the Birthday Celebration Lunch; I still had another hour of knitting after I arrived. Thankfully, we were the first to arrive and The Earl had fallen asleep in the car on the way over; so I used the excuse of staying in the car with him as my cover for continuing to knit. I’m sure other knitters have done this or similar.
I’m also happy to report that she loved it and was mightily impressed with the brioche-knitting technique. So I’ll be making more of these, I think.
I know you all like pics, so instead, let me tell you what I did with my Friday evening: I met up with other Fibre-istas at Fibre Fun Friday in the Tea Gardens, 7 Ormond Quay in Dublin City Centre.
Fun with Fibre and Funny Tea
It was my first time to visit The Tea Gardens. It’s a fantastic venue for Fibre Fun Friday – kudos to whoever found it and chose it. Despite being on the quays in Dublin City Centre, facing right out onto the Liffey, it’s location is a little obscure. If you’re walking down the Quays from O’Connell Street keep going until well after you’ve begun to doubt yourself that you’ve gone too far. As you walk closer and closer to The Four Courts, properties are becoming less likely to house Tea Gardens and more likely to be Solicitors Offices. Then, finally, a small and demure street-frontage beckons to you in acid green!
Look out for the sign
The street-frontage is as wide as the sign in the above picture. Then it’s down some steps to a welcoming mural at the bottom.
The little “OPEN” sign reasures you enough to push the door and peer past the curtain. Then, just follow the sound of chatter and giggling – that’ll be the other fun Fibre-freaks. People start gathering from 6:30 p.m. and the advice is to come early if you want to get a chair! Being a Japanese-styled Tea Garden, however, the floor is perfect for sitting on.
Under Me Oxter - coz that's how I knit 