Yarn along

I’m playing around with crochet motifs with a view to making this shrug for summer evenings. I thought about making a shawl but I like the vintage look of this shrug and think it would be more practical and wearable for me. The yarn is Rico essentials 100 % extra fine super wash merino from my local yarn shop and is a dream to crochet with. At present I am just practising while watching tennis in the evening but as I’m enjoying the construction of the motif and the pattern only calls for 30 or so to be made I think I may go ahead and buy the required amount of yarn for the project.

We’re off to the South Downs tomorrow, staying in a flint barn on an English vineyard, not far from Charleston Farmhouse and Monk’s House, the homes respectively of Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. I have visited these houses many times and  they never cease to inspire and thrill me. You can probably tell that “Night and Day” is a favourite and well-thumbed novel. The new and very readable biography of Virginia Woolf by Alexandra Harris I bought last year when I visited the excellent exhibition about Virginia Woolf at the National Portrait Gallery. We went on a sweltering hot August day and at 5.30 pm entered the lottery for tickets to see “A Streetcar Named Desire” by Tennessee Williams at the Young Vic theatre. We were disappointed in this quest so hot-footed it back to Trafalgar Square to listen to a talk on Virginia and Vanessa given by the curator of Charleston Farmhouse. Dare I say he wasn’t very good? The atmosphere in the NPG was buzzing though with a live DJ set and a pop-up wine bar so we had a glass of wine before wending our way across the Thames under an ink-blue sky and the train home.

We eventually saw the live feed from the Young Vic of  “Streetcar” at our local theatre. Gillian Anderson played Blanche Dubois and she inhabited the role completely. It was a wonderful play.