Sam the Jubilee Ram

I made Sam the Jubilee Ram as an adaptation of the pattern for   Sam the Ram  on Ravelry.  He was fun to knit and as you can see he was awarded a small rosette for "Best in Show"!  The Union Jack Flags pattern was great to use as part of the bunting for our display. I made these as part of the Kent Guilds Display at the County Show.  The Show was very hampered by heavy rain this year so visitor numbers were down but at least we were back in our marquee near the sheep pens. 

Socks Again, Yarn Overdyeing

At a meeting of the Godmersham Spinners we had a demonstration of yarn dyeing to create fairisle effects which was interesting and made me want to get home and start dyeing. I wanted to create stripes, it needed 27" to knit one round of a sock, using 56st and 2.5 mm needles, I wound a skein of commercial blue sock yarn to three times this length and marked it into thirds, wetted it and laid it onto clingfilm, I left one section as blue and painted the others green and purple, then covered with another layer of clingfilm and microwaved for 15 mins. It does knit as stripes, but I did the rib and heel in plain blue for contrast.

Guild Meeting

Yesterday was the first meeting of the Kent Guild for 2011, several members were sporting wonderful new wheels, so Father Christmas had been very busy. There were lots of goodies on the trade table and I came home with more than I took! I found an Inkle Loom with some tablet weaving cards, coolwool dyes, I've not used these before, a deep wicker basket and a four shaft extension for a 16" loom which I hope can be converted to a little loom.

The North Downs Guild have a new website, which gives full details of their activities and meetings.

Lots of snow here

We have a lot of snow, try to keep the bird table and feeder topped up.

Lots of snow!! Warm Sweater

Just finished my winter sweater, I knitted this from the top down, all from oddments of handspun yarn and vintage buttons from my late mother in laws button tin.

Yarn Dyeing

Have had great fun overdyeing some spare hanks of grey yarn spun from a Jacob fleece, I plan to make a sweater or perhaps a bodywarmer style top, dyeing over grey gives a subtle difference to the finished yarn, there was still dye in the vat so I added more colours and used up quite a few odds and ends of yarn. I think the colour variations will make a good mix for a very subtle stranded yarn pattern.

Chutney and Jam

Made Crab Apple Jelly, Norwich Apple Chutney and Apple Tomato and Chilli Chutney, which is hot!, plenty of Chutney stored up for the winter, but only made two jars of the crab apple jelly, which set very well and has a very pleasant taste.