Friday, September 11, 2009

Planes, trains, automobiles and socks

So can you guess what I have been doing today? I will give you a clue, it isn't quilting, well not directly anyway. Quilts have come from it and I hope that I have the source material for a few more.

I guess I should also admit that the title isn't entirely accurate, I haven't seen a train today. I am hoping you will let me substitute a helicopter. It's sort of like a train, isn't it? No, oh well, how about a bike? Sorry they are my best offers.

The planes are from the Battle of Britain Memorial flight. The first two to come over were the Spitfire and the Hurricane. I didn't manage to get any really close up shots I'm afraid. When they come over low it is very obvious how fast they are and I just couldn't follow them and adjust the camera quickly enough.

They were followed by this helicopter. Sorry helicopters aren't really my thing so I will have to leave identifying it to the reader. I am pretty pleased with some of the pictures of it though and I think I might be able to get a pattern out of them.

I think any minute now you are going to work out where I am. I have spent the day watching the racing at Santa Pod. It's been a lot of fun, and I can't remember when I last watched so much racing. I know I would get bored if I did it every day of every race weekend, but just once in a while it's great. We even had good grandstand seats, which made getting the photographs a lot easier.

While this probably sounds like a holiday, and it feels like one, there is actually a serious side to this. I've taken about 700 photographs today to try and get a few more for my car series. I am also looking for a good image to include in the new art quilt book. I am hopeful that I may have got one today, but I will still try and take lots tomorrow as well. Due to a couple of quite nasty accidents (sore cars, the drivers are fine) the racing ran very late today so I missed out on getting pictures of the Street Eliminator cars. I have a real soft spot for these cars, because they are all street legal. I will be trying very hard to get some good pictures of them tomorrow.

I did also mention socks, remember? I was ordering more supplies recently and I came across a DVD on knitting two socks at the same time. It was discounted and sounded strange so I bought it. It is by NenahGalati and it's weird yet wonderful. I liked it enough that I ordered her other DVD's and some needles. I haven't knitted socks on circular needles before so I decided to try one first. Wow! I love the technique. I've managed to knit down to the heel in the gaps in racing today. Normally I wouldn't get past the ribbing in that timescale. I will be doing more socks like this, it's fun. I had planned on showing you my progress on the blog today but we happen to be staying in a hotel with free Internet. If you don't live in the UK you may not appreciate how strange that is. Trust me, it just doesn't happen. Now we know about this hotel we will be staying here again. So as I could show you some of my proper pictures, my sock will have to wait. Sorry.

Oh, I've just realized I haven't told you about the cars and bike. They are, Ian Turbeville on his top fuel supertwin bike, Dan Larsen and Danny Belio in their top methanol funny cars.

1 comment:

Susan Briscoe said...

Funny you should mention socks, I had a sock knitting post saved in my blog drafts - have added it so you can check out a couple of techniques I use. I haven't tried the circular needle idea because I can go pretty fast on a set of 5 - so long as they are bamboo!