We knitters tend to favour soft yarns, we go oohh and aahh over cashmere, merino, baby alpaca and such and I'm no different. I paid top sterling for my quivit and angora but if I'm to take good hard look at what I'm wearing in my daily routines it is going to be garments that stood the grime of life. I'm a mother of four kids under 10 years, I have 2 border collies, a flock of chickens (cockerel Henry and his six wives) , I don't have a cleaner as such so I'm fully hands on person. That doesn't go well with malabrigo lace which will peel horribly as soon as I glance at it. All this preference of soft yummy wool results in the fading of many great sheep breeds and we knitters have contributed to this . Wool have so many characters and a great source to reading and understanding those I found in this book by Clara Parkes.
Here the story goes back to September 2010 where I was asked to have a knitting stand in the new forest festival in Minstead. If you got the patience you can see me knitting and talking about 5:20 into the clip.
The stand next to me belong to Sue cole, spinner and weaver. She is rearing some gotland sheep in Mintead (my neighbouring village) and was kind enough to gift me some 3 ply natural grey gotland yarn. The grey actually consists of varied amounts of black and white hairs. The yarn is Not soft, but has a lot of attitude, and it is pleasing and satisfying to the touch. Yarn you can trust not to wear off.
So I used it in 'Curling' by Anne Hanson.
You can always trust Anne to produce beautiful lace . This is the left mitten unblocked, whats left is obviously the right one. Le sigh..... :)
No comments:
Post a Comment