A Morning Out

Mrs Quilt knows of Ferretfingers’ delight in destruction so, when her husband’s office chair fell apart she offered it to us for him to kitform.

Before this present unpleasantness I volunteered at LDNE’s knit’n’natter sessions for older ladies.  A couple of days before lockdown I went into the charity’s premises and took away a bin bag full of knitted squares which I’ve mostly made into blankets.  The ladies are continuing to knit at home and I know some of the staff have been bringing squares into the office.  As I’ve almost run out of squares I emailed last week to ask if I might come, masked and sanitized, and fetch some to work with.

The reply included the following

"Mrs Gish said she has bags of squares which I can get picked up later today and dropped off at the office and Mrs Workyticket has been knitting a blanket for the boss’s new baby grandson which she would like sewn up, would it be too cheeky to ask if you would mind doing this as my sewing skills would definitely not do it any justice and she is so proud that she has knit this while she has been shielding.”

No problem.

Yesterday morning I set off to visit both LDNE and Mrs Quilt.

Mrs Quilt loves fresh fruit so before leaving I picked blackberries, raspberries and blackcurrants from the garden and put them in a small Chinese take-away box.

At LDNE I was given Mrs Gish’s Tesco bag of multi-coloured squares and

Mrs Workyticket’s bag of blue squares with an additional request.

“She says can you crochet a border on it too?”

Which I was going to do anyway.

And

“It’s getting silly now.  I found another bag on my desk from Mrs Cannybody who’s knitted a teddy for the baby but wants you to sew that for her too.”

Then down to Mrs Quilt’s; where we had a socially distanced cup of coffee and a chat in her back garden.  She is an amazing and knowledgeable plantswoman with many glorious specimens “which have no right to be doing so well far North”.

Like me, the garden has helped keep her sane during the present unpleasantness, and we appreciate how lucky we are to have one.

To quote my old friend Peter Ceylon “We should get down on our knees and thank God ...”

As well as the broken chair, I came away with two large plant-pots, two geraniums and the promise of some ferns and other things “which will work in your garden.”

All in all quite a profitable and interesting morning.

Now to start sewing.