Weekends are days of rest, no?

Our Guild’s annual exhibition was on Saturday. I dyed up some yarns to put on the sales table, and as usual the ones I disliked most were sold - other people have such odd taste! I have almost finished one sock with some of the leftover pink and green. I have gone for toe up, short- row heel and picot edge. I probably should have searched a little more to find some smaller needles as these are 13s, and the material is not really dense enough for socks. But they are pretty, so I don’t mind.

Back to the exhibition. Unfortunately it was very poorly attended. We thought a combination of the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC, Armistice day and no rain all combined against us. I got some pink spinning done anyway. There is a competition every year, the theme of which is decided by vote at January’s AGM. This year’s was a bag, and I may have mentioned that Plan A was abandoned when I realised my tension was not in the least bit consistent in the different coloured skeins I had spun. So I did the “LITTLE SLIP OF A THING” from Knitty, with some grey and white handspun and just a little tweaking. I thought a white base would be impractical (oh the words of my mother about not buying ANYTHING pale as it would show the dirt), so opted for grey with a white ridge, and then because it was easier to find the grey yarn in the mess that is my house, I did the handle in grey too. (Actually it also felted a bit better than the lustrous white). I wasn’t expecting it to be one of the favourites, but it actually came joint second (the bags were all anonymous while voting took place). Fave comment was from Mary who said “I vote for the one which catches my eye… I don’t vote on quality”, and it turned out she voted for me.


On Sunday I went to the Hobbycrafts show at the NEC to help on the Knit and Natter stand as Fred had mentioned on the UK Handknitters’ list they were after volunteers . When I eventually found the stand I was sent away again while it was quiet to see the show myself. I whizzed round two halls pretty smartish as I was not in the least bit tempted by the cardmaking equipment. Web of Wool was there so I bought three balls of yarn. As I have very small feet I will probably be able to get three socks out of each ball. I also bought some boxes from the Really Useful Products stall as I am a complete sucker for plastic storage. I may also have bought Nancy Bush’s folk socks book. It was using birthday money you know so doesn’t really count.

I only taught a couple of girls who knew some of the rudiments on knitting how to do a bit more. We did have quite a few people come and ask us knitting questions. Noonie was using a large circular frame to French knit a piece for a blanket so with my sock knitting (so many comments that they’d not seen anyone using that many needles for decades), we did attract some folk. One women claimed she had driven all the way from Lincoln to learn how to finger knit.