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.
2 comments:
What a great way to spend a rainy afternoon.
Sounds like it will be worth a visit. I assume they washed the footballers' socks before hanging them. I wonder what Queen Victoria would have thought about having her undergarments on display?
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