Pietra di Bismantova

After a month of bad weather, the sun poked its head out, accompanied by a galeforce wind straight from the Arctic.

The perfect afternoon for climbing Bismantova, at 1047 metres, the rock dominates the mid Apennines.

Look at those blue skies. And no we didn't scale the bare rock walls, although many others did, but found a muddy path round the back.

The hermitage

The flat top measures one kilometre and well worth the climb. Snowy mountains all around us

Sheer drop

Pretending I can't feel the cold in newly knitted purple cotton cardi. Maybe it could have been a size smaller but georgeous colour.

FLAG

Ladies and gentlemen please welcome

FLAG!!!!

Val Modolena

Not feeling too spritely, today's walk was rather a sober one and we stuck to the roads.

Starting point: Church Madonna della Battaglia,

legend has it that a miraculous fog fell here in 1092 thus letting the local queen win a battle against the German emperor. (373 metres).

And finished here. "Mandarein" farm restuarmt where we had 5 pieces of cake (very small pieces-honest) before walking back uphill.

The road follows the south facing slope and all the snow had melted. In fact we were almost overdressed.

Whilst there was still plenty of it on the other, north facing vally wall. See pretty picture

So, all in all, a good walk and made a break from the ongoing 'flag' project. Got to the middle red stripe, 60 rows of garter stitch in lace weight yarn. It is moving slowly but I'm pleased with results. Maybe I'll have done the back this time next Sunday. Have a good week...

slipping into Icelandic mode.

http://www.helenemagnusson.com/

The Icelandic Knitter

So this is my next project. When the wool arrived all the way from The Shetlands I was a bit dubious about the colours, dare I say almost beige. but after reading up the designer's blog I slipped into the Icelandic mode, neutreul sheepy colours.

I spent the afternoon winding up thirteen little centre pull balls on my ,rather blue, thumb.

To stop any arguing beteen the balls I then had to wedge them into boxes as instructed.

Here we are at 20 rows done only another 280 to go.

And while this was all going on inside the house, outside the snow was falling yet again to create another frozen landscape. All part of the Icelandic theme (well if they had castles).

Anyone for sushi?

Dedicated to Simona who, despite the high bar stools, never says no to a sushi........

But she'd have trouble eating these, note the chopsticks......yes, they are knitted!!!!

Plenty of WOOL and WALKING in the Apennines this Sunday.
RE the former, finally sewed in all the ends and found suitable buttons for my Debbie Bliss folk chic fairisle jacket.
Killer obviously likes it too...


RE:the latter, annual walk from Traversetolo uphill to Svizzzano.

A rare occasion of Victor bringing up the rear



The church, where we know from experience there is a bench in a sunny spot, perfect for halfway pizza.








Looking back homewards..

That's neat, that's neat I really love my tiger feet...

I fell in love with this tiger yarn the moment I saw it, it immediatly brought to mind a song from my youth, just LISTEN TO THE CHOROUS and your toes will soon be tapping too. BIG THANKS to Laura who spoiled me by sending it all the way from America a while back. At first I could just not get the stripes to work out but this time they just flew off the needle and I got them done in two days.