Little Town of Knitting

Model village of Wool

I was looking through Yarn Forwards site the other day, primarily to see whether there were any jobs being advertised - not that I can move jobs at the moment you understand - but just to satisfy my curiosity as to whether a job was even possible to pursue in one's hobby, when I saw this link to the Telegraphs website.

It turns out the ladies in Mersham near Ashford in Kent have been very busy with their knitting needles and managed to knit a whole town out of wool. It has taken 23 years for their 40 strong afernoon club to create this little town but now due to its large size they are selling it off.

What a tragedy, you'd think that a local museum would want to invest in this unusual take on their town. Still good luck to all the ladies there, hopefully it will raise a lot of money for their hall funds.

Spin Spin Spin the wheel

A good friend of mine went to New Zealand on holiday way back at the beginning of year. We only manage to meet up about twice a year but as she has just lost her job, we decided to have a get-together to catch up on life. She did let me know that she had a "little gift" for me but what a shock I got when she pulled out from the back of her car a full fleece all the way from New Zealand. She squashed it in her suitcase just for me! She's a real love.

So not to disappoint I have managed to dye 100gms of the 1.6kilos she brought back and spun a little. The dyeing process was a bit hit and miss as this was my first attempt, so there are a multitude of different colours going on despite only three dye pigments being used. This is the first batch spun and it looks quite good although it will be a bit more heathery once plyed. I will have to think of a good sweater project once fr the rest of the fleece.

I still haven;t managed to figure out which sheep the fleece has come from - it's definately not a merino or BFL fleece, it is coaser in feel. Unfortuately my dear friend couldn't remember the name of the sheep breed although she thought it might have started with a "b". Answers on a postcard please for anone who knows what other sheep tend to be bred in NZ, it was farm she bought it from, on the South Island.