...or British Breeds
swatchalong Part 2.
For the past few days
I have been gamely participating with the 'wash and wear' section of the
British breeds swatchalong and I am pleased to report that there have no been
wardrobe malfunctions related to random knitted items dropping from my person.
In total now I have
worn and then re-soaked the swatch 3 times and I have to say that I have been
pleasantly surprised. My 8" former 'carpet tile', whilst still undeniably
rustic is now something more approaching a wearable piece of fabric. It is still
retains a great crispness and texture though and I'm thinking that it would be
great for an outer-wear cardigan. Maybe something with cables or texture.
Possibilities that
spring to mind are :
Now that my report is
complete I will be updating my Ravelry project page and my entry in the Knit
British thread as requested. I was thrilled to discover that Felicity Ford aka
KnitSonic has combined my two passions - knitting and stationery - into a great
downloadable feedback template for this project. I have linked to her blog post
on the subject and if you are at all interested in taking part I can highly
recommend that you pop over and download the template (she has it in either
Word or pdf format).
It leads you through
all the steps and observations you need to capture during the project and is
certainly more comprehensible and readable than my half-hearted bullet journal
scrawls.
Working with the
North Ronaldsay aran, and more importantly for me, reading up on the breed has
really sparked an interest in finding out more about our native sheep breeds.
This was compounded when my DH picked this book up on a recent Lake District
trip.
|
Counting Sheep by Philip Walling |
It is truly fascinating and includes such snippets as why Shepherds Bush
in London is so named. The answer is that this was once an area of extensive
grazing where shepherds would bring their flocks en route to market in the
city. A large bush would be specially trimmed and cut over the years to have a
hollow centre and a sleeping platform within it. This provided shelter for
grateful shepherds and a comfortable nights sleep. Who knew?
So, what's next in my
British Breeds adventure?
I managed to pick up
2 x 50g balls of Blacker Yarns Gotland 4ply on a recent trip to my LYS so my
next adventure will be a pair of 100% British wool socks - watch this space!