Excited!!!

Hi, nothing to show this week BUT I'm off the Wonderwool in Wales tomorrow where I will be both shopping and helping out on Sunday!!!! Will provide photos etc when I get back. If anyone is going to be there, I will be in the interactive area on Sunday morning ( probably Sat pm as well if I run out of money)

Pretty flower piccie to make up for lack of stitch this week.



Have a good weekend.

Hi, I've been a bit busy, knitting on the bus, during lunch breaks and yesterday I put the finishing touches to this.



I dyed the merino after it had been spun and the pattern is Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante .

New Bobbin Lace Magazine

I received this magazine through the post a couple of days ago. It is a free copy of the first issue of KanT@Brugge and contains pricking for 7 designs. The accompanying letter was in French and instruction re no of pairs of bobbins and thread is in French and Dutch with Dutch working instructions for one of the designs, the others seem to have standard 3 colour working diagrams. There are just ten pages as there are no advertisements or articles, just the lace prickings and photos.
the link to the shop in Brugge that has produced this is here.


More about the one of the designers Martine Bruggeman ,

Paper Roses

A recent visit to see fellow blogger Sally resulted in an impromptu workshop on how to make paper flower followed by how to spin on a drop spindle.

Here is my flower


and here it is being modelled as a buttonhole by Bikerted.

Must do it again soon Sal!!

a bit of this and that

Hi, this post was going to be about the Red Marley Freak hill climb but as I don't have any photos sorted I will have to leave that post until later.
So what have I been doing apart from work and watch old motorbikes try and get up a 1:3 hill? well, I visited Wollaton Park which is just outside Nottingham. The sky was a bit threatening but the flowers were cheerful and the deer unaffected by weather.







I rashly made this comment'' looks fascinating but this is one hobby I definitely do not have enough room for!!!'' a couple of weeks ago, forgetting that I had several small weaving looms in a cupboard
So here are my toys :)





of course, I had to play!!



I hope you all had a good weekend and I will be updating the previous post comments with the answers to the objects beginning with C

Thanks for reading :-)

Ideas of Inspiration, Letter C

This time I found 16 things beginning with C and photographed them.



So can you identify all of them? should I make this a competition?

Hope you are having a good holiday.

Ideas of Inspiration

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.