Final day of the June knitting and crochet workshop

The sun was shining again, with an early morning mist that quickly cleared as it warmed up.
In the morning we visited Chateau de Dampierre, a beautiful old building that has recently been restored after a fire which damaged much of the building. The chateau is built on a small island where the river Boutonne splits to form a moat around the castle, we wandered through the lovely peaceful gardens which are full of metal sculptures, clipped bushes and a maze. The present owners live in the Chateau so you can only visit the top floor which has been turned into an exhibition space showing various collections of prints, artefacts and fascinating details of the renovation work after the fire. You can also climb up to the top of one of the towers for a lovely view of the gardens and village.

We made our way back to the entrance to the grounds only to find that we had been locked in! Thinking that the girl on the desk had gone off to lunch we resigned ourselves to a 2 hour wait (without our crochet) until she returned, however after about 10 minutes she reappeared looking very flustered (she had been showing another group around the chateau) and released us.
We sped back home for lunch in the garden and an afternoon trying to complete our projects, then the final supper in the garden of chicken tagine, apricot and almond couscous, baked aubergine and spicy chickpeas, followed by apricot tarte tatin.

It has been another lovely week of workshops, everyone has produced some amazing crochet with gorgeous colour combinations and masses of beadwork. Jane and I are looking forward to the next workshop at La Verderie in September.