Sheep, Knitting and Photos

My route to the Open University tutorials passes a church which sometimes has sheep in the churchyard. I have often thought about stopping and taking some photos, and finally did so on Saturday.



The Delve Swatch Scarf was at the halfway point (finished one skein out of two). I'd taken that along with the intention of photographing it somewhere. So while the camera was out, I dangled it from the fence and snapped away.



I crossed the road back to the car, and it was here that the Stranger stopped me. He seemed to accept it as a not-insane thing to do, and suggested that the village's Millenium Stone might also be a good backdrop. But there was no pavement, and I had enough photos.

The other place I'd stopped was Wallingford. It is on my route, and has a quilt shop. I also wanted lunch.

Wallingford town centre has an unusual layout, and it would be interesting to know how it developed. There are effectively two sides to a very wide street or market oblong, but I get the impression that someone plunked a church into this area, and then someone else built some shops at the end of the churchyard. I took this photo on the pavement of one side of one street, looking across the street on my side, the churchyard, and over the other street to the shops on the far side of the road.



Village Fabics is at the south end of town. It is very large for a British quilt shop, with about six or seven "rooms". At the back is a sizable workshop, and possibly another one upstairs. There was a very small selection of knitting wool, a few balls of Rowan and Katia. It was hard to get a feel for how much fabric they had, because it was all so spread out.

Most quilt shops seem to be arranged by colour, but Village Fabrics is arranged by theme. For instance there is a "Christmas room", which has a selection of Christmas themed fabrics and books. Other themes I noticed were Japanese fabrics, '30s reproductions and (USA) civil war reproductions. This probably suits some people, but I'm much more likely to decide to make a purple quilt then a '30s quilt, and it would be difficult to assemble a collection of possible purples.

I bought a small selection of fat quarters and a copy of Australian Patchwork and Quilting. I'll be going back again, partly because it doesn't involve a detour.