The Stitch and Bitch group had their annual meal out on Friday.
We decided to go to the New Inn at Talgarth, which is also the Gatha Thai Restaurant. Part of the attraction, it has to be said, was the set lunch menu for £4.95. The other part of the attraction was that it is cooked and served by real Thai people, so the food is as authentically Thai as it can be.
(Emanation remembers going to 'grungy discos' at the New Inn in her youth - it's a bit smarter than that now!)
The way it worked was that you choose a starter and a soup from a short list, and then the main course from the main menu (seafood and duck £1 extra). The soup was chicken (or 'checken' in the menu) or mushroom, and it came on a plate together with the starter (I had the samosas). They were very obliging about the cooking, too - if you thought something was going to have too much chilli in it, they would cook it with less for you.
The service was good, the food was excellent, and of course we had drinks and a sweet extra - they do coconut ice cream in half a coconut - and the conversation was interesting. We all had a really good time.
We also managed to organise the programme for the coming months. Over the winter, there have been weeks when no-one turned up at the Swan - and I have to apologise profusely to the poor lady who phoned me up to ask about coming along, and turned up on one of those evenings to find herself sitting on her own. By the time I got there, of course she had gone home.
So with that in mind, we're only having a formal meeting in future on the first Thursday of every month, with a demonstration, and if people want to turn up on other Thursdays that's fine, but not expected. Coming up are Crochet and Knit Embellishments on 4th March, Fun with Yarn (!) on April 1st, Knitted Smocking on April 6th, and Backstrap Loom and Stash Swapping on July 1st. June 3rd is the end of Hay Festival, so we might possibly go up to the Festival site and knit in public!
Nearer the time, we'll also organise a Felting Day at Sharon's in Llanigon - but as it will be outdoors, we need to think about the weather for that one.
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4 comments:
Lesley, the mind boggles as to what on earth Backstrap Looming could be . . . and is Stash Swapping something to do with the exchanging of 'jazz cigarettes'?? We must be enlightened.
Stash Swapping is not as exciting as it sounds! Just about every crafting person is a natural squirrel - they buy yarn or fabric on impulse, or have bits left over from projects, and the heaps at the back of the wardrobe get higher and higher.... This is a chance to swap some of those things for other yarn or fabric that they might actually use within their lifetimes.
Backstrap Weaving is just a very basic, primitive method of weaving, with a loom that is kept in tension by the weaver sitting in it with a strap round her back. It's the sort of thing you see in pictures of Navaho Indians weaving rugs and blankets out in the desert. It's also very easily portable. You couldn't heave a standard loom, even one of the table top sorts, into the bar of the Swan to demonstrate it very easily, but my backstrap loom just rolls up and fits in a bag.
I go to a Stitch and Bitch at a local cafe in our town - it's wonderful and have met lots of neat people...
We arrive in the UK on the 1st June and are hoping to be living in Hay shortly after that. I would love to come along to your craft group if it's open to all? And I will be there in time for Backstrap Weaving, which I have done before but it was so long ago, would love to have another go at it.
It would be great to meet you, watchthatcheese! Anyone can come along to our meetings - we're very informal.
I'm doing the demonstrating for the backstrap weaving. It's something I do for historical re-enactment. Now, the group meets at six in the Swan, but I have to work (just over the road) till seven, so that's when I'll turn up.
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