Olympic Fever

This isn't really a crafty post but since my blog name is Passing the Time, I didn't think that it would be too out of place to post a few pictures of what we did with our time yesterday.

Now goodness knows I am not a sporty person.  My idea of exercise is walking to the local craft shop and wandering round a shopping centre.  However, once every 4 years even I get interested in sport for those 2 weeks in the summer when the Olympics is on.  That is doubly true this time around because it is in my home town, not far from where I was born.

5 years ago when London won the games Mr S and I decided that we would definitely try and go to something just to say we had been.  As I am sure you know, the ticketing was a bit a lottery but we applied for a few things, some of them for the less popular sports in the hope that we would get to go to something.  Sure enough, we have tickets.  Yay!!  And not just one set but tickets for fencing and rowing for all four of us.  Mr S also has a ticket for the centre court at Wimbledon and the male contingent of the family have tickets to the Olympic footie next week at Wembley.  All very exciting.

Anyway, our first outing was yesterday to the ExCeL Centre in London.  We had to get up early for a Sunday (an Olympic sized effort was required for that, let me tell you) and caught the train and then the Tube and the DLR to the Excel centre.

I'd never been to the Excel Centre before and it is massive.  Fencing wasn't the only sport going on there.

I have always liked the look of fencing but I didn't know much about it other that what I gleaned from films like The Three Muskateers. Basically, it is the first one to score 15 points and in the sabre the fencers can use the point or the side of the blade to make contact with any part of the body above the waist.  It is fast and furious and each point can be over in a flash.  It is all electronically scored with a referee to control the match which is just as well as I can't see how anybody could accurately award points without the aid of electronics.

There were 4 matches on at a time and we saw the last 64 (altough there were some byes in that so not as many matches as you would imagine), the last 32, the last 16 and the quarter finals.  We had tickets for the morning and the semis and the final were in the evening but we were home in time to watch them on the telly.

There was quite a bit of showmanship and it made me laugh that there would be this furious burst of activity for a few seconds and then the lights would come on and invariably both fencers would raise a hand and claim the point.  Sometimes, there was no point to claim but other times it was awarded to one or the other.  See what I mean about the electronics being necessary.  If the fencers don't even know who won the point it isn't easy to score the aid of wires and computers!

The eventual gold medalist, Aron Szilagyi from Hungary, is on the right of this picture, in the quarter finals I think.  

You know if I was 20 or even 10 years younger and a bit bit lighter on my feet (well lighter in every way really) I would love to have a go at this.  It looks a lot of fun and if you get the chance to watch or even have a go at fencing I recommend it.

After it was all over we went to see a few of the sights of London although it rained and spoilt it a bit but it did clear up enough for a quick walk across the river and an ice cream whilst admiring a few of the more famous sights.

Look at the colour of the sky!  We were dodging rain all afternoon.

We were walking back to Waterloo station and saw this on the side of the Hayward Gallery which wasn't what we expected to see on the side of the building.  Very clever although it makes you wander what they were running away from!

Tomorrow we are off to see the rowing at Eton Dorney which is an even earlier start than yesterday and we are sitting in a stand which is open to the elements when the forecast is for rain.  This could be pretty grim and I think an extra set of clothing might not go amiss.  If the rain holds off and we can see the rowing, it should be a good morning!

Thanks for reading.  I have some knitting on the go at the moment (although the WIP from Hell - see previous post - is still a WIP and I still haven't done anything with it).  Hopefully, I shall have a few photos of soft woolly things to show you.

I've not posted for a while but that is because all my crafting has been focussed on my City and Guilds course work and specifically my  household accessory homework.  It has proven to be a bit of a challenge <<understatement alert>>.  Right from the design phase, through to the sewing and construction bit it has been slow going.  I have finally got it sewn together but it was not quite what I expected when I started.  This is the top before I put the border on.

The theme was holidays so I wanted to do something that reflected the sea.  I decided that I wanted to do something that had graduated colour, from the pale colours of the beach, through the shallow sea by the shore to the dark greens and blues of the deep sea.  It took me ages to chose a technique to do this. I like the folded patchwork technique so I'd have a go but it was probably a mistake.  I ended up having to stick through layers and layers of fabric which my machine couldn't cope with initially until I found the heavy duty combo of needle and walking foot.  It was only after I had spent hours sewing and unpicking and had finally got it together that I realised that in the book I had been looking at for ideas, the folded squares weren't sewn together with a seam, the raw edges were butted up together and zig zagged together.  <<sob, sob>>  That would have made it so much easier.  However, I had the worlds most fray-able fabric so maybe it wouldn't have helped.

Anyway, the border is now on and I am about to do some quilting to keep the roll over folds stay down.  I have a lovely hand dyed quilting thread for that.  I will also quilt the border and put some beads at the corners of the squares to hide where they don't line up properly to add interest and keep the quilt, wadding and backing tied together. :-)

And when I have finished that I have to do some more knitted squares for MN Woolly Hugs.  I have desperate to have a go at some knitting but didn't think I ought to whilst this project was on the go but now I have a very good excuse.  Lots of ladies from Mumsnet, the parenting website, contribute towards making blankets for those who have lost children or partners before their time.  We hope that as we can't be there with them in RL we can at least contribute to sending a great big woolly hug.  These are some of the blankets that have been done in the past. http://www.woollyhugs.com/  Please feel free to have a look.  I haven't contributed to them all but I am really proud that I have been able to help out on some of these blankets over the past year or two.

So lots to do.  Better get on with it!

Thanks for reading.