Nats 2013

August bank holiday weekend can only mean one thing for the Modelwidow family - it's the National Model Flying Championships at Barkston Heath airfield in Lincolnshire. 

After much preparation we headed off again to run the stand for the magazine.

                 

DD and I are the 'shop' assistants and have a great time being part of DH's world for the weekend.

                

As always we met some lovely people and some not so lovely (and a few who frankly just need to get a life - like the chap who told us, for the third year running, that one of the plans he bought from the company's predecessor about 20 years ago was a millimetre out on the ribs!)

There are some funny moments too, like the little lad who looked around and announced loudly to his dad "Well there are a few planes, but it's mainly comics!" - out of the mouths of babes.......

Lots of people camp, and we have done in the past, but I figure as a working girl I could do with a decent shower (not fighting with thousands of model flyers for the couple of plastic tardis showers available - and no I'm not exaggerating, well about the numbers anyway, they don't literally fight for the showers, actually come to think of it by Monday that can become quite evident if it's been a hot weekend - eewww! ) and a nice bed doesn't come amiss either, so at the end of the day we pack up our wares and head off to the nearby Premier Inn, which means meals in the Brewers Fayre next door and feet up in the evening with time for yarny things. 

 Previously I have been caught out without enough yarn but this year I took my Tiramisu blanket with me to finish and made a stretchy hat on the car journeys to and fro and still had projects in my bag untouched but I was very happy with my end results

              

   

Sock yarn Blankie ahoy!

For a very long time now I have been wanting to make a Blankie out of sock yarn left overs (mad I know)  but I wanted it to be a little different and also portable. Much as I love the mitred square, join as you go type blankets, mine needs to be something I can pop in my handbag and whip out to knit a bit when I have a few minutes. 

I think I've decided on hexagons knit from the outside in (once I've actually tried one I might change my mind though). And then I thought "I need a little bag to carry it in" so off I trotted to the cupboard to see what I could find. Now when we were back packing the other week I found that one of the little ziplock bags  meant for sandwiches was the perfect size and shape for a small ball of 4ply, circular needles and notions, so, based on that and using a piece of shower curtain I created a bag.  

(And who knows when I might need it's shower proof properties again, it wouldn't be the first time I've had to spread my knitting out to dry - along with the entire contents of my rucksack, including £10 notes, despite the raincover. Mind you, there wasn't a stitch on me that was dry that day either and I had full waterproofs - our room in the Bridge of Orchy hotel definitely resembled a Chinese laundry that night!)

Then I decide I would need 6 small stitch markers, one for each decrease point with a different one to mark the start of the round, so out came my beads and bits and voila

                   

Don't you love the cute little 25g ball of sock yarn in rainbow colours? I couldn't resist buying it when I was in Needles & Pins in Keswick. 

I wonder if all this sudden need to make things had anything to do with the fact that I was trying to avoid settling down to write a case study for work!! 

Anyway, now all I need to do is actually start knitting!