Happy Yorkshire Day

Happy Yorkshire day everyone! Today is the day that Yorkshire folk celebrate their Yorkshireness and all things Yorkshire.  I shall be wearing my White Rose of Yorkshire with pride at knit night tonight.

It came in a kit for from baa ram ewe Yorkshire’s loveliest yarn shop.  The yarn is British blue-faced Leicester produced in Halifax West Yorkshire, which kind of makes up for it not being made from a Yorkshire breed such as Wensleydale or Swaledale.

So I thought I would celebrate with posting some facts about my hometown of Doncaster in South Yorkshire as an expression of my pride.

Not a lot of people know but butterscotch, one of my favourite confections (which has no scotch in it but heaps of butter and other yumminess) originates from Doncaster.  It was made by a company called Parkinson’s and even got Royal approval after it was given to Queen Victoria when she opened the St. Leger horse race in Doncaster in 1766.  Now called The Grand St. Leger it is the oldest and longest horserace in history, not that I know a great deal about horse racing though I did once do a stint at silver service waitressing at the St. Leger.  Butterscotch is still being made by Parkinson’s in Doncaster after a recent revival, yay!

Quite aptly as today is Yorkshire day, hubby and I went to see the Grimethorpe colliery band  from South Yorkshire last night, they are touring Australia at the moment.  You may recall that Grimethorpe colliery band were made generally famous through the film Brassed Off.  Brassed off happens to be one of my all time favourite films, not only for the brilliant and emotive musical score and fantastic acting (Pete Postlethwaite, my absolute favourite actor) but because I grew up in a mining town and lived through that era so it has a particular poignancy for me. I have to say they proved themselves not only to be superlative musicians but also humorous entertainers too, we had a fantastic night.

ttfn Melanie x

Yorkshire Rose

Last night as I was on my way to knit night via public transport I reached into my bag for my sock project to make good industrious use of those wasted minutes.  But what is this? No! I had put the Yorkshire Rose kit in the bag and left the sock project on my desk.  Before you come to the conclusion that I really am too stupid to be knitting for how could a knitter of even mediocre intelligence do such a thing?  I must point out that all small projects go into calico bags to keep them safe and the kit comes in a small calico bag, so all I had done was to pick up the wrong calico bag.

I decided it wasn’t a problem because I had received that day via lovely postie a loyalty voucher for Morris and Sons in the city.  As I was in the city I decided to go and get needles for the Yorkshire rose kit and knit that at knit night instead of socks.  It was no biggy, after all one can never have too many knit pro nickel interchangables.  Except for the fact that as soon as you go into Morris & Sons you are greeted by a double shelf of Noro.  So next thing I knew, there I was with a bag of Noro yumminess farewelling a very lovely young man and thinking how helpful he was.  I don’t know what happened but I’m guessing I came over all faint probably intoxicated on Noroness or something.

So it turns out that forgetting my socks was a good thing I finished the Yorkshire rose at knit night and have a pretty corsage to wear and Noro for two other projects in my queue.  Wait… that makes it sound like I went in there deliberately to purchase the Noro…look finished object!

The kit was bought from Baa ram ewe, where else?  It’s designed by the lovely Verity herself and what can I say, knits up in two shakes of a lambs tail with heaps of yarn left over to make several more.  I shall be wearing mine often and with pride.

Special delivery

The postie came yesterday, hurrah hurrah!   I know several knitters doing the postbox hover at the moment, the anguish and anticipation is horrendous and I hope they are all very soon to be united with their purchases.  This is my last purchase of 2010 and it’s a good one, I’m  so excited to show you my new acquisition and I wish you could squish it too because it’s full of woolly goodness.

It’s North Ronaldsay fingering weight wool in light grey undyed and for those who might not know, the sheep on the Orkney island of North Ronaldsay live most of the year on the beach and have adapted to be able to digest the seaweed.  The yarn is entirely produced and handspun on the island and therefore quite rare and special.  As a new spinner, I love that it is handspun as it shows me what I’m aiming for with my own spinning.  Ah, to be able to spin so beautifully, hopefully with more practice I might one day.  I bought it with Jared Flood’s pattern Celes, in mind it’s a gorgeous lace scarf/stole and I think they would marry very well.

I also got Verity Britton’s Yorkshire Rose kit, because, as you know I couldn’t possibly resist a knitted Yorkshire rose.  The little box contains a pearl button and the brooch pin.

ttfn

Melanie x

Wensleydale

Just a quicky.

I just have to post because I have to tell you how much I’m enjoying knitting Coraline in the Wensleydale DK.  The reason, lustre and bloom in one hit nomnomnom.  I keep admiring it and marvelling at its beauty.

I’m back at work now, 10 hour shifts, so I don’t actually see any daylight, therefore, no natural light photos of the WIP only the original stash one to show, but here it is.

I’m so looking forward to finishing this cardigan, I’ve coveted it for so long.  If you’re interested, I bought my Wensleyadale at baa ram ewe, the best yarn shop ever! Knitting it’s bringing back some lovely memories of my jolly holidays *wipes away a tear*

BTW My sheepy tape measure has been named shlutty because she’s often passed around at SnB night and used by all the lovely knitters there and she rather likes it too! Oooooh!

Happy knitting

Edited to add that I think Shlutty is a Suffolk sheep because of her cute black face, but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.

First steps of new fibre adventures

First things first, as promised pics of finished socks

He loves them, a lot.

I’m feeling a bit left out on the sock front and I know I said I wasn’t going to start anything new but look…

…pretties from Onabee, the new shop in Kensington.  They are shouting knee high stripey socks with plain toes, heels and cuffs to me.  They will be house socks obviously as they are Pear Tree merino 8ply and the plain sage colour is Heirloom merino 8ply but they should be soooo soft and snuggly, or, of course I could make long mitts, either way, nomnomnom.

So today was all about learning to weave with the lovely Jen who if you remember wove me the beautiful box of crayons scarf.  She is such a patient teacher and had me weaving in no time at all look…

Obviously I need heaps of practice before I’m as good as Jen at keeping the edges even but I really enjoyed it.  It’s kind of soothing and grows really quickly, very addictive.  Jen also demonstrated her spinning wheel and drop spindling, I’ve had a go at drop spindling since I got back tonight and gosh she makes it look easy, it’s way harder than it looks and my attempts are abysmal, still I will persist and get good at it, if only for the reason that I love the feel of the fibre through my fingers.  Here’s my third attempt, playing with the lovely fibre donated from Jen’s significant stash…

Please excuse the horrible photobooth picture but it’s kind of hard to hold a camera and a drop spindle at the same time.

Anyway, I had the most amazing day, so thanks Jen a billionty.