Crochet on the Isle of Wight…

I’ve just returned from a family gathering to the Isle of Wight to celebrate my father in laws 80th birthday! Yes it was a weekend for family time and celebrations but there’s always time for a little crochet too… 😊

So in this blog post I’ll share the crochet related things I got up to and saw, as well as some coastal inspiration (of which there was plenty)!

I had never been to the Isle of Wight before which is a little surprising as it’s an island less than 60 miles from where we live right on the south coast of England and we can even see it from where we live on a very clear day.

My husband enjoyed family holidays there as a child which was one of the reasons we chose to celebrate his fathers 80th birthday there. They had a great time remembering childhood holidays…

It’s always nice to travel places by ferry and the short ferry crossing really adds to that holiday feeling. I brought my blanket for a photo opportunity…

But why did I bring my blanket? More about that later… 🙂

Although it was a very grey day the arrival in Cowes was still very beautiful…

We were staying in Shanklin on the south east of the Island and after checking into our holiday accommodation we had a walk down to the seafront……and walked through the high street where I was happy to see my ‘Cat Card’ design on the front cover of Simply Crochet!

And then I saw these adorable needle felted guinea pigs and rabbits wrapped in crocheted blankets in the window of another shop…aren’t they sweet?! 🙂When we woke on our first morning we were treated to a wonderful sunrise and as I looked out the window I saw these two crows perfectly perched…Such a special start to the day! And it proved to be a beautiful sunny day… perfect for a walk around picturesque Godshill…My crochet project at the time was crocheting flower samples for my ‘Crocheted Flowers’ workshops that I’m hosting locally soon… as always my crochet is with me in my bag and it was the perfect opportunity to photograph my daffodils with some daffodils!

The next day was a little grey again but those crows were there on the same branch. It’s obviously a favourite morning perch of theirs!

We visited Ventnor. A beach with such rich coloured tiny pebbles…

And we ended the day visiting the famous Alum Bay and Needles. Alum Bay is famous for its multi-coloured sand cliffs and the colours were particularly amazing in the late afternoon sunshine…

It’s so beautiful isn’t it… and we timed our stop at the Needles perfectly for a brilliant sunset!

On our last day I was keen to visit a local yarn shop and ‘Strictly Knitting’ in Shanklin was close to where we were staying. It’s a shop I can highly recommend… …it stocks a huge variety of yarns. I wanted something local and I was happy to discover that they stocked some locally dyed yarns… I couldn’t resist this colourway called ‘Sunshine’ that seemed the perfect souvenir for our sunny stay on the Isle of Wight and reminded me of those sunrise birds too!

This photo was taken on Yaverland Beach. Another photo opportunity for my blanket…

So why did I bring my blanket along with me? Well when I introduced my new Crochet Along a couple of weeks ago, a lovely lady called Sally from the Isle of Wight left a comment on my blog about crocheting blankets by the sea and we got into a conversation… I discovered that the crochet groups Sally organises are using my Seaside Stash Busting Blanket pattern as a project to work on so there are many in the making on the Isle of Wight!

And this conversation resulted in me visiting the ‘Crochet Cafe’ in Sandown which is just amazing! Here’s a link to their Facebook Page

There are pop up cafes on different days of the week all around the Island… we saw another advertised in Godshill…

…isn’t it a wonderful concept! 🙂

So I visited the group in Sandown on Tuesday together with my daughter, sister in law and niece and we were made to feel so very welcome!

Here I am with Sally and her daughter… I love that everyone is welcome, regardless of age… and dogs are welcome too!

Von showed me some spinning in action which was great to see… have a look at this video clip.

And I finally met lovely Joy from @joyswoollybits who I’ve followed over on Instagram for sometime. It’s always great to finally meet people in person…It’s just so heart warming to see crochet in action in this way and this ‘Crochet Cafe’ is really bringing people together! The sense of community through crochet is something so special. And the fact that many were making my blanket was wonderful to see! This was definitely a highlight of our stay for me… 😊

Out in Sandown I saw this window display of knitted toys and look, there’s a little schnauzer!! Our Salty didn’t come with us on this trip and although she would have loved it, she actually had an amazing time staying with my parents…

Time was running out and there were still places we wanted to see so onwards to Whitecliff Beach where we did some seaglass hunting…

We enjoyed driving up to the viewpoint on the Brading Down Road for brilliant Island views…

And finally Steephill Cove…

Oh what a wonderful place the Isle of Wight is… we were of course visiting in low season and most of the tourist attractions were actually closed. But there’s so much of the islands own natural beauty to discover and enjoy that we didn’t mind that at all. It’s also a place where I saw so much creativity and community spirit… and lots of evidence of yarn lovers!

I felt inspired, refreshed and motivated after our visit and would absolutely love to return!

Happy Crocheting Everyone… 😊❤️