Machine Knitting Camp @ Victor Harbour II

Welcome

                            Adare House...         
 These leadlight and painted windows were in panels next to the side door which opened onto the landing. The trades men's entrance is at the back of course , and had no ornamentation... By the time I wanted to take photos of the stunning front door, a heavily timbered affair, I had run out of space on the card.....and so also missed out on photos of the other demonstrators. Hopefully some one who took some photos of them will send me some of those and I will show those next time.
The woman on the left seems to be in a welcoming pose, or was she asking for her housekeeping money.....she carries a lovely chatelaine and her gown is just gorgeous.On closer inspection, she is indeed saying Welcome, click on the photos to get a closer look....
How differently we live now in jeans and shirts or t-shirts and we shop and pay by card....

 The woman on the right was a visitor and is saying Adieu.
She also is beautifully dressed.

On Sunday I was able to see Jan Edwards session on Intarsia weaving on the knitting machine. She showed tartans she had knit-woven to show a loom weaver that she was indeed able to reproduce a tartan pattern on the knitting machine.
She had also launched out into doing quilt patterns in a lovely rug.
Her piece the resistance though were her cross stitch based patterns into weaving and lastly but most importantly for us creative knit-weavers , was a stunning "painting" interpretation of a scene in the Flinders Ranges.
lovely colours of deep reds and contrasting beiges of rocks and creek runs.

My session was after morning tea and it seemed well received. In fact one of our members was very enthusiastic about some of the things I had produced that she thought she would get her girl guides to start some as they had shown they were interested in learning how to use a knitting machine. She was telling me this as we were walking back from loading our cars and I was listening attentively and not watching where I was going.I swung my head up to express my appreciation for her ideas and ran slap bang in to the cross beam of the wooden cross near out rooms.... was it a reminder not to be cheeky under the poster of yesterday?

The photo at the bottom shows my table with all my gear,
looks a bit like my Willunga Artisan Market display.

The wooden fire place was in the Baronial Hall
where we had our meals. It has been converted to gas...can you imagine the amount of wood that must have been used in the early days when that was all they had. Hughes Park where we were in the early sixties, had to reserve all the sheoak wood for the Homestead alone as that is a wonderful wood for inside fires. It used to take the men days and days to supply the Homestead as well as all the other cottages of the manager, overseer and station hands with fire wood that had to be cut by a rotary saw mounted on a trailer and then split by axe to fit into the wood stoves we all had to cook on...
Those were the days.....

Machine Knitting Camp @ Victor Harbour

Adare House

After a week of dithering as to what to take to the Victor Harbour Machine knitting camp, by Friday I had finally sorted out my gear and the car was packed and ready to go.
First though, I had to go to my book group reading at a friends place in Port Willunga. The new books I picked up from the library looked more promising than the book we had to read for the month past.It was an interesting meeting with a wide varieties of opinions. I left a bit earlier than usual, though not before afternoon tea as my friend makes the most delicious cakes.....
So I traveled via the Hindmarsh Valley road ,past all the dairies with the beautiful Friesian cows, the paddocks all green after the good rains we have had, to Adare House at Victor Harbour. Took the turn too early and had a little tour of the surrounding suburb before getting out my map and seeing I was almost there anyway.

Breakfast in the baronial hall

 Adare House was the summer residence of the South Australian governor in the days when domestic servants abounded and little scullery maids were a dime a dozen.
Now it is the head quarters of the Uniting Church Conference center and they cater for small groups like ours as well as larger groups.
It is always great to meet up with machine knitting mates you may not have had contact with for 12 months or so.
I was allocated room 3 which I would be sharing with two other knitters.

Games Room Window

The rooms have 8 bunk beds and an ensuite. Because there were only three of us we could all have a bottom bunk which is just as well as none of us really want to clamber up a little ladder to sleep in a top bunk...
So then it is a matter of unloading your gear from the car and fortunately we can drive the car up the steep incline to unload and then put our cars back into the car park below.
My knitting machine and display gear were taken to what is known as the "Games Room" and I was able to arrange everything before going back to the main meeting room to meet up with everyone and have our salad roll or what ever we brought to have for tea. Some of our members come from far away, three from Mildura and a couple from Cowel.
Some ordered fish and chips from Victor and went off to collect it but I had brought my own food. We all went to bed early.

The photo above is of one of the numerous stained and painted glass windows which are right through the mansion and are stunning to see.This one is in the "Games Room". I could do an article on just the beauty of the numerous windows that are there. The wood work too, is absolutely stunning in this place. You wonder at the time people were able to spend on these practical yet decorative items in those days, why are we in such a hurry these days and have things done in such a short time?
Not us machine knitters of course, we do have to plan and design and swatch and discard and start again....
As you can see from the photo at right, I was getting frustrated because the cast on was not going the way I wanted and asked for Assistance........
I was on for two sessions on Saturday so only got to see one of the other demonstrators who was doing socks and mittens. 

Seal Island

There were no demonstrations after afternoon tea so I took myself off to look at some of Victor Harbour's galleries. Most were closed by 4 pm so drove on to the Bluff and took a photo of Seal Island which looked lovely with the sun and deep shades on the rocks. The Bluff is a great place to sit and observe Encounter Bay with the horse tram trundling away in the distance across the causeway to Granite Island. I went to the opening of the Horse tram back in the nineteen eighties as my young friend was one of the original drivers of the lovely draft horses they use.

Is this South Australia?

Instead of turning right after coming off the Bluff I went left and finished up at King's Beach. Could not resist taking a photo of the distant cottage and the Devon cows in front....
Is this South Australia?? so green and lush looking...
The evening meal at Adare House was a very plain affair, the food for the whole weekend was more suited to ravenous teenage boys rather than a group of women....the brochure said catering was done by well trained staff, I wonder did they all have the weekend off and substituted some young fly by nights.....