Knitting at the Bean Box

 I got a message on Facebook yesterday morning from a friend who has just taken up knitting, and was in a bit of a pickle.  After warning her that I'm only at the Ladybird Book of Knitting stage myself, we agreed to meet up at the Bean Box, where she would treat me to a coffee.

It's been pretty damp over the last few days, and showery, which has made the garden at the Bean Box look really lush and green.  We took shelter in the undercroft of the house, that opens onto the garden.  It's a low arched room, now lined with bookshelves.  Tim the Gardener, who used to sell his books from the alley way entrance to the the garden of Tinto House, now sells from the Bean Box.  He's got an interesting and carefully curated collection of books there - he often buys from the outdoor bins at the Cinema Bookshop, and I always have really interesting conversations with him when I'm on the desk.  He has a huge knowledge of historic literature.

Tim's also taken over their garden - after he told Johnny, who runs the Bean Box, that  he was tired of walking past it looking so awful (I'm paraphrasing here!), when it should be a flagship for people entering Hay over the bridge.  His condition was that they wouldn't criticise anything he did!

Down the middle of the room is a long table with chairs, and we settled near the door, where the best light was, so we could examine the knitting.  She's starting with a scarf - and it's a patterned scarf, so she's leaping straight in with learning knit and purl in ribs.  We only had to undo four stitches at the end of a row - I'd taken my own knitting along so we used my spare needle to slip the stitches onto, and then she could finish the row.  

Then we had to work out how many stitches she was working with - the pattern said 16, and she obviously had far more than that in a row, but she couldn't remember how many her other friend, who had cast on for her, had started with.  Well, it was 46, and she was about four or five inches into the pattern, so that seemed a good number to keep to.  There were plain knitting rows in the pattern, so we decided it would be best to do a couple of plain rows and then get back to the ribs.  

It was really pleasant to be sitting there, looking out at the garden, and knitting in company.  I kind of miss Stitch and Bitch for that (the group stopped meeting over lockdown), and Catherine said she was really starting to enjoy the knitting while we were chatting together.  I think she'd been having to concentrate too much to relax to begin with - you do have to pay attention when you're starting out, and I could at least talk her through what to do when she made any mistakes, and reassure her that these things can usually be easily fixed.  

While we were there, several people came to browse the books, and stopped to chat, including a lovely Australian couple who are spending a month touring around the southern parts of England, mostly - the roads are a bit different to what they're used to in Australia!

So that was a really lovely start to my day, and I'm looking forward to seeing Catherine's scarf when she finishes it!