There's nothing to do with knitting in this museum (Stonehaven) ....

 ...said the volunteer as we walked in and had a brief chat with her. Challenge accepted !! ( a big thank you to the Tolbooth museum for letting me take photos etc)

Evidence 

1, Spinning wheel in the corner, at first I thought that it was a bobbin winder but I'll settle for spinning wheel.

2. Photos of people knitting although it looks more like a sleeve than socks.

 3.  A man wearing a gansey

4  Spindle whorls

                                     

Not bad :-) There were plenty of other items in the museum ranging from a jail cell to everyday objects.

                                                                 Including this sampler

road trip knitting

 I'm thinking ahead to our next road trip and what to pack. I've discounted the lace as I don't think that I will be sitting outside much and pins in the van carpet does not sound pleasant. I do have a small cross stitch project that I'm doing for my sister in law so I'll slip that in along with the big band sampler.

As usual it's a charity shop find but I'd forgotten a certain baby called Fox so it's now being claimed by his grandmother.

Spinning wise I've opted for convenience  and a selection of Petes Fibre Studio fluff along with some polworth that need finishing.

For knitting I'll chuck in my knitting bag with some natural yarns and patterns along with a road knitting project using again Petes fluff, This was one of my TDF spins.

It will be interesting to see how much I get done !

Tour de Fleece day nineteen , and a taster of Field to Fashion Exhibition

 Wednesday saw me up early to ply the Texel and get it on the line before heading out to catch a train.

I've added it to the TDF bag which is now weighing in at about 1500gm so I've made a small dent in the stash but I really need to keep this up for a while longer especially since the weather is so goo for drying yarn as some of it is destined for the dyepot.

I headed over to Derby to see the Field to Fashion exhibition at the Museum of Making. I did cast on a headband whilst waiting for the train. I'm still trying to use up my oddments so this is mainly polworth left over from some hats knitted up last year.

I really enjoyed the exhibition and will re writing a post on it over the next couple of days. I will also be retuning to the museum as there is plenty more to see.

Tour de Fleece day four, 2026

 Today has been another wait in and hang around with the builders and fencing contractors (for next door) turning up. The kitchen now has a plaster board ceiling, no cupboards or lights.

First job was to finish a headband that's been in progress for a while. I still need to darn in the ends and give it  block but it looks ok

Next I dug out around 50gm of  white faced woodland that I popped in a dye bath a couple of weeks ago along with some texel.

Later I got the louet out and finished up the World of Wool carded wool, very neppy but It did spin up ok in the end.

Both of these are now ready to go in the wash at the weekend.

I have a few more oddments to spin alongside the regular 100gm bags that I have made up. I'm thinking something naturally dark next.

No posh coffee today, maybe later in the week, I have plans to travel around a bit more next week although it may depend on how long it takes me to sort out the kitchen once they have finished, all of this is due to a plastic waste pipe resting on a metal hot water pipe and slowly melting over time.

Hawes part one ...Finding Fluff, Sticks and String in the Yorkshire dales

 

We have recently stayed in the Yorkshire town of Hawes for a few days to escape from reality and collapsing ceilings. This seemed like a good time to charge up my camera and go in hunt of anything textile related in this small town.

The first place to start is the The Dales Countryside Museum who kindly gave me permission to take photos and post here with a link to their site.

(This post will possibly be split into two or three as I was having so much fun with my camera)

The countryside museum has a small gallery celebrating their knitting heritage as well as other crafts like rope making and braid weaving.

In the past, this would have been a common sight along with water mills dotted along the rivers to power the machinery needed for spinning yarn .

 If you want to delve into the history of socks, caps. jerseys and bonnets being knitted in the Dales then The Old Hand Knitters of the Dales written by Marie Hartley and Joan Ingilby is a book to read. The book is available at the museum and on some second hand book sites ( hunt around as some versions are going for silly money but as far as I can see they are all the same book with different covers , I have seen it for £5.95 on one of the second hand book sites,

Knitting sticks/sheaths ( providing an anchor for a needle like a Shetland knitting belt ) were used to hold a needle so knitting whilst walking was possible. These varied from purely utilitarian to extremely ornate as given a love tokens at times. (I may have acquired one, more about this later)

Interesting also were the legwarmers used by the lead miners

A nice touch was the addition of information about the fleece.

 

and the dyes

and the pattern source

                 Examples of socks were also on show with the same helpful information.

Interestingly the museum does not have any of the Dales gloves in their collection , these knitted gloves always remind me of the Sanquhar glove in Scotland.

          I do have a book about the gloves and plan to attempt a pair at some point.There was a scattering of spinning wheels and associated fibre tools along with examples of other local crafts.

I will continue in the next post. The Museum does a week long ticket with concessions for over 60s and a discount if you belong to the caravan club. I certainly got my £3.50 worth !!

 

am I still knitting?

 Hi, Sorry I've been quiet but we've had a bit of house drama which I will fill you in on in another post.

Back to the fibre crafts, I have actually been spinning and knitting and more importantly prepping fleece ready for or next trip.

There's a bit of everything in here, Romney, Shetland, Jacob and some of Pete's dyed fibres. I'm not sure how much will be spun up but it doesn't weigh much.

On the Argonaut I have some Portland, one bobbin down so far and its nestling on a rather colourful hat that I'm thinking of embroidering with tapestry wools that I've been hanging on to for years.

On the needles I have mitten, I'm still using up a lot of old hand spun that been lying around for years.

My last spin of Jacob and white faced woodland has now morphed into a couple of hats ( nearly) and there should be enough yarn left over for another one.

Also on the needles is something rather unusual for me, some commercial yarn which I will review in another post as I have had a few thoughts about it. This is the first time I've knit with anything other than my own yarn for a good long time but I'm knitting these mitts as a KAL with some friends as they venture into stranded knitting.

I will gift them once finished and that has dictated the colour choice. The pattern is Starla Mitts by Traci Scott, a free pattern on Ravelry.

very quick yarn update

 I needed some yarn for an upcoming road trip so I cimbed some washed white face woodlens and some jacob, spun the fibre ready for a hat.

just a rambling post

 Will it ever stop raining ? I'm longing for some sun, blue skies, regardless of the temperature. Today I've stayed in and tried to get some sort of order in the workroom as I was faced with this earlier.

and I needed to make a start on prepping some brown Jacob ready to spin on my next trip.

slight improvement ! I did also empty a couple of containers out from the cupboards.

Back to the Jacob, it was already washed so I just combed it through, beautiful colour that will be very useful in my next bout of colour work knitting.

my current project on the needles is knitting up some early hand spun that I discovered in one of the bottomless pits, I think that it may be merino, I'm not sure who dyed it but I don't think that its one of mine. Correction, Its Polworth, dyed by babylonglegs and spun in 2010. No wonder I couldn't remember the details but here is a link to the blog post.

and the mittens finished 16 years later....