How to wear a swatch..

...or British Breeds swatchalong Part 2.

For the past few days I have been gamely participating with the 'wash and wear' section of the British breeds swatchalong and I am pleased to report that there have no been wardrobe malfunctions related to random knitted items dropping from my person.

In total now I have worn and then re-soaked the swatch 3 times and I have to say that I have been pleasantly surprised. My 8" former 'carpet tile', whilst still undeniably rustic is now something more approaching a wearable piece of fabric. It is still retains a great crispness and texture though and I'm thinking that it would be great for an outer-wear cardigan. Maybe something with cables or texture.

Possibilities that spring to mind are :

Vivian by Ysolda Teague

Owligan by Kate Davies

Urban Aran Cardigan by Jared Flood

Now that my report is complete I will be updating my Ravelry project page and my entry in the Knit British thread as requested. I was thrilled to discover that Felicity Ford aka KnitSonic has combined my two passions - knitting and stationery - into a great downloadable feedback template for this project. I have linked to her blog post on the subject and if you are at all interested in taking part I can highly recommend that you pop over and download the template (she has it in either Word or pdf format).

It leads you through all the steps and observations you need to capture during the project and is certainly more comprehensible and readable than my half-hearted bullet journal scrawls.

Working with the North Ronaldsay aran, and more importantly for me, reading up on the breed has really sparked an interest in finding out more about our native sheep breeds. This was compounded when my DH picked this book up on a recent Lake District trip. 

 

Counting Sheep by Philip Walling

It is truly fascinating and includes such snippets as why Shepherds Bush in London is so named. The answer is that this was once an area of extensive grazing where shepherds would bring their flocks en route to market in the city. A large bush would be specially trimmed and cut over the years to have a hollow centre and a sleeping platform within it. This provided shelter for grateful shepherds and a comfortable nights sleep. Who knew?

So, what's next in my British Breeds adventure?

I managed to pick up 2 x 50g balls of Blacker Yarns Gotland 4ply on a recent trip to my LYS so my next adventure will be a pair of 100% British wool socks - watch this space!