Ironbridge

A few weeks ago my son and I had a day out in this wonderful little town.

This is Ironbridge on the banks of the River Severn in Shropshire. It's known as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution so I was expecting something a little more  - well, industrial. Had I visited in the second half of the eighteenth century It would all have looked very different.

'Coalbrrokdale by Night' by Philip de Loutherbourrg (1740 - 1812)

Abraham Darby developed the use of coke, rather than charcoal in the manufacture of cast iron early in the eighteenth century, producing a high quality product at low cost.  The original smelting works led to factories producing ceramic tiles and china, all within a few miles of each other in what was then known as Coalbrookdale.

Some fifty years later, Darby's grandson (also called Abraham) decided that a bridge was needed to link the town with the industrial works on the south bank of the river. The result was the first bridge to be built entirely of cast iron anywhere in the world.

'Ironbridge inder Construction' by Elias Martin (1739 - 1818)

During recent conservation work, parts of the original paintwork were exposed and the whole bridge has now been re-painted in this colour.

Doesn't it look magnificent? I love all those repeated lines and patterns. From the start, the bridge was something of a tourist attraction and anyone and everyone had to pay a toll.

As you can see, you even had to pay a halfpenny (pronounced haypenny for my younger readers) to take a lamb across the bridge.  There were no exceptions at the other end of the social scale either.

'This bridge being private property, every Officer or Soldier whether on duty or not, is liable to pay toll for passing over, as well as any baggage waggon, Mail-coach or the Royal Family.'

Within the six miles of the Gorge, there are lots of exciting museums to visit. There's one about Coalport China, a tile museum, a clay pipe museum ... you can visit the Darby houses and, as if that wasn't enough, there's a re-creation of a Victorian town at Blists Hill. I do love a good museum so this is very much my sort of place.

By now you've probably guessed that we had been lured to Ironbridge by all this glorious history ... well, if so, you'd be wrong. What we actually drove two and a half hours for - beautiful country all the way - was this ...

Yes, it's a book shop (of course it is). This is not just any old secondhand bookshop though, this is Twice Told Tales which specialises in Penguin and Puffin books. We both collect first editions of the Puffin storybooks, old green Penguin crime books and Picture Puffins.

This is just part of my collection - green penguins at the top and puffins below. The picture books at the end of the middle shelf are my Picture Puffins. These were wonderful books, full of information and with beautiful artwork.

At the bottom right corner is my checklist of Puffin Picture books which I bought from the Penguin Collectors Society and which has helped me list my collection correctly. Both the text and the illustrations often changed between editions (and yes, it does matter).

We spent hours in this little bookshop, sorting through all the treasures and couldn't have been made more welcome. It's a wonderful shop and we'll definitely be going back. Now that we know what a beautiful place Ironbridge is, I think a holiday is called for. I'd love to visit all the museums and it looks a great place for walking too.

Anyway, want to see what I bought? I had to restrain myself as there were so many books I'd never even seen before so I concentrated on the more unusual ones.

These two books are from a short series I'd never heard of before, published in the 1940s and 50s. I do love books on design.

There were some beautiful Penguin books on music; I managed to restrict myself to these two.

There was also a book of madrigals and another one of part songs ... choices, choices. I did get a few Picture Puffins too, including a rare one ('The Story of Louisa').

If you collect Penguin or Puffin books, a visit to Ironbridge is an absolute must.

Downstairs is more 'normal' stock and this looked good too - we definitely need to go back here.

After lunch sitting outside a friendly cafe near the bookshop (Ironbridge seems to be a very friendly place), we had a walk along the river and went to one of the smaller museums. It's such a beautiful place, just look at this wild flower meadow on the banks of the river.

And I really liked the buildings too - isn't that brickwork great?

All in all, Ironbridge was a revelation to us - we'll definitely be going back.

Works in Progress

This is where I try to turn the muddled collection of projects that I'm currently flitting between into something that looks planned and orderly.

I nearly always (who am I kidding? - always) have several blanket projects on the go but, lately, blankets have started to take over the house.

Now I didn't make these but I have been responsible for crocheting some of them together. They are going to be decorating my local park next month as we celebrate its 100th birthday.

This is one of the trees being fitted for its blanket. There are going to be ten trees decorated like this as well as half a dozen park benches covered with blankets and more used as picnic blankets on the grass.

We've had hundreds and hundreds of knitted and crocheted squares donated by volunteers; every time I go into the wool shop I come home with bags full of them. Finding people to crochet the squares together has been more of a challenge but we're getting there.

This is my favourite blanket, crocheted together by the brilliant Karen who also made all the crochet squares. This one is going in pride of place on the bench by the War Memorial in the middle of the park.

Here's one I made ...

This is one of a pair of long, thin blankets that I'm going to wrap round the top of the stone pillars at one of the park entrances. Just in case you're wondering, it takes quite a long time to crochet 96 flowers and even longer to sew them on. My friend Pat (who's doing sterling work on crocheting squares together) is making another pair of pillar blankets which will be decorated with pompoms.

The big day is Sunday, 14th July and there's still lots of crochet to do but I am not going to panic. It will get done. If anyone local is reading this, do come along to People's Park In Banbury on the day. It's going to be like a huge village fete with lots of fun for everyone. The day will start with a huge procession from the town centre to the park, via the Cross. It will be led by a Fine Lady (on a white horse, of course)* and will be full of groups big and small from across the community.

The original procession in 1919 was led by a white horse who had served in the war, complete with campaign medals on his bridle which must have been very moving. Sadly, it poured with rain on that day; keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't do that for us. We've had lots of rain lately, quite a lot of it torrential so let's hope it's getting it out of its system.

In between organising this yarn bombing, I have been working on other stuff too. What shall I show you first? Some pretty crochet?

I'm still in love with the new Sirdar Happy Cotton that I showed you the other week. After my 'how much can I make with ten 20g balls?' obsession, I'm now using twelve colours - plus cream - to make ... a blanket (of course I am). After crocheting a few squares I thought they looked a bit plain so I've added a little bit of running stitch across the diagonals to liven them up. This is a beautiful yarn to work with; I'm not normally a big fan of cotton but this one is lovely and soft to use.

More crochet but this time a shawl (very daring). This is a sparkly sock yarn and I'm using linen stitch which I absolutely love. It's a bit like moss / seed stitch in knitting which is one of my favourites. You can see it a bit better in a close-up.

I was originally going to make this shawl in Stylecraft Batik Elements but, after buying the yarn, I decided it wasn't right for this project. What to do with it? Turn it into a blanket of course.

I'm going to combine it with three shades of Stylecraft Batik, only one of which I had in stock so yet another order is now on its way. Please tell me this happens to you too.

The other project that I keep picking up involves lots of little triangles.

Each triangle starts with 60 stitches and you decrease rapidly on every round so they're quickly finished. The yarn is Schoppel Wolle's Edition 3 and I'm enjoying seeing the colours flow as I knit. Sewing the triangles together isn't quite so much fun though. I think this is going to be some sort of table runner, which is what I call this sort of project when it's not big enough to qualify as a blanket. There are going to be seven bright coloured stars, surrounded and joined by the green triangles.

I wouldn't like you to think that these are the only projects I've got outstanding. There are lots more; these are just the ones I'm actually working on at the moment. What about you? Are you working on something fun? A nice blanket perhaps?

* For my non UK readers, my town's claim to fame (along with Banbury Cakes) is its very own nursery rhyme:

'Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross,

To see a fine lady upon a white horse.

                 With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,

        She shall have music wherever she goes.'

So now you know.