cold fingers

 I'm sorry that this post is a little late but we have been busy moving things around so the gas men can install a new boiler which involves rerouting pipes etc and trying to destash as we go. 

So far I've reduced the contents of the airing cupboard by more than 50 percent and managed to take a car load of stuff to the tip/recycling centre. Three boxes are sat in the porch ready to go to the charity shop and I will have more to send in the next few weeks.

However, I did get to take a day out just over a week ago to visit the newly reopened Ruddington Frame knitters museum. They have acquired another building which now accommodates the new cafe and shop which also links access to the chapel exhibition space,

The main reason for visiting was to look at the current knitting exhibition and check out the refurbishment of the workers cottages.

Many of Jen's pieces are worked with metal wire which makes them 3 dimensional.

Other parts of the exhibition included knitted lives, where people had been given the opportunity to knit a square ( or not) to put on show,

Typically I forgot to take a photo of the empty card and the reason !!

A stroll round the rest of the museum reminded me of the terrible working conditions that existed, the knitting frames as so close together that you sometimes wonder how people actually got to them to work on them.

You also have the opportunity to have a go on a sock machine and explore some of the museums collections.

The workers cottages have been renovated to show the living standards of the workers and the managers office.

I took the opportunity to sign up as a friend of the museum so I can visit again and receive updates on the progress,

That's about it for now, the workmen have got all the doors open and it feels like about 5 degrees in here so I'm off to get a cup of coffee to warm my hands up xx

wet and windy Good Friday

Yes, typical British Bank Holiday weather, cold and wet and the forecast is for more of the same.

I dutifully started the day with some house work then more importantly I undid some of my knitting as knitting the same row twice did nothing for pattern.



BY dinner time I had heard about a guess the celebrity sock competition at Ruddington Framework Knitters museum and as I had not visited the museum for a couple of years I thought it was a good excuse for some fresh air.

The journey takes two buses, not long trips but enough to warrant knitting or as today, drop spinning. This always gets strange looks and today the looks came with questions, what was I doing, what what I using etc. Sometimes I think I need to carry cheap spindles ( Dowel and cds) to get people started.


Description taken from The Ruddington Framework knitters Museum Site

'Step back in time. Come and see this unique complex of listed frameshops, cottages and outbuildings arranged around a garden courtyard, together with a former chapel in which many of the knitters worshipped. The site has been restored to show the living and working conditions of the framework knitters who occupied it throughout the nineteenth century.'

Ruddington Framework Knitters' Museum is a small independent working museum, established by the efforts of the local community, which saved it from the bulldozer and put it under the control of a charitable Trust.

Amongst the sock machines I met Helen who uses Victorian sock machines to make socks to sell in the shop and it turned out that we both had the same tutor for City and Guilds at college, small world. The sock machines are intriguing but I will NOT be getting one, NO MORE hobbies needed in this house!!!



After a short video, you get to wander round the Framework Knitting machines, the courtyard and out building with the wash house etc. There is also a workers cottage to look round, just mind your head if you venture up to the attic!!

Meanwhile, in the former chapel, a line of socks could be seen. This is the guess the celebrity sock challenge and I fell at the first hurdle as not having a TV and not following football, many of the names on the list were a mystery to me-)



There is also a collection of stockings through the ages including those of Queen Victoria.

A pot of tea rounded off the afternoon before venturing back into the pouring rain.