Celtic Challenge 2006
It was a lovely sunny day yesterday and armed with my Ashford traditional I trundled off to Tregenna Castle Hotel in St Ives to participate in the 2006 Celtic Challenge. Scotland were defending the title they won in 2005 where they were the quickest in the Sheep to Shoulder challenge to turn cleaned fleece into a jumper in a day. There were reports in the local press that the Scots jumper may have been more suited to a small child and at one point there were reports that the jumper had no back but these all appear to be unfounded ;) This year, however, there can be no doubt that we were well and truly beaten as Scotland finished their 63 square blanket in the allotted time whilst Cornwall produced only 42 squares. Congratulations to Scotland you beat us fair and square.
The Cornish spinners did sterling work, keeping the knitters supplied with more yarn than they needed at all times. It was a great laugh and I hope to be invited back next year, though I'll sit in a different chair as the press photographers seemed to hone in on it. I'm never keen on seeing photos of myself so here's hoping they find something else to put in - lol
The lovely Champagne Bohemian was there on the knitters table and at one point looked quite bemused as 6 of the knitters got up and wandered off to see what was happening outside! Maybe no-one had told them it was a competition - lol
It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with local schools coming in for workshops and a great atmosphere. There was a video link between us and Scotland with an MSN type chat going on. The banter going back and forth was very funny.
There were several other record attempts during the day. Knitting with the largest needles was one - apparently the gig oars they knitted with last year didn't count as they weren't needles so they had special, giant needles made this year by an oarsmaker in Henley or somewhere:
Beauties aren't they? Wonder what they'll do with them now?
Here's Frances Jago attempting to beat the speed knitting record. She knitted 251 stitches in 3 minutes which doesn't break the record but certainly ranks her somewhere high. Her hands were flying so fast I had to put the camera on sports action setting to stop it blurring!
The carding team kept us amply supplied with batts of organic Romney from a farm up the road. It was lovely wool and some it had been dyed with tea. That wool was a bit sticky and I mused at one point whether it was the milk and sugar which had made it sticky - fnar.
More pics below
The Cornish spinners did sterling work, keeping the knitters supplied with more yarn than they needed at all times. It was a great laugh and I hope to be invited back next year, though I'll sit in a different chair as the press photographers seemed to hone in on it. I'm never keen on seeing photos of myself so here's hoping they find something else to put in - lol
The lovely Champagne Bohemian was there on the knitters table and at one point looked quite bemused as 6 of the knitters got up and wandered off to see what was happening outside! Maybe no-one had told them it was a competition - lol
It was a thoroughly enjoyable day with local schools coming in for workshops and a great atmosphere. There was a video link between us and Scotland with an MSN type chat going on. The banter going back and forth was very funny.
There were several other record attempts during the day. Knitting with the largest needles was one - apparently the gig oars they knitted with last year didn't count as they weren't needles so they had special, giant needles made this year by an oarsmaker in Henley or somewhere:
Beauties aren't they? Wonder what they'll do with them now?
Here's Frances Jago attempting to beat the speed knitting record. She knitted 251 stitches in 3 minutes which doesn't break the record but certainly ranks her somewhere high. Her hands were flying so fast I had to put the camera on sports action setting to stop it blurring!
The carding team kept us amply supplied with batts of organic Romney from a farm up the road. It was lovely wool and some it had been dyed with tea. That wool was a bit sticky and I mused at one point whether it was the milk and sugar which had made it sticky - fnar.
More pics below
posted by Stacey at 2:09 AM
1 Comments:
sounds like you had a great time. Re your problem with posting comments I've had that too, particularly on Woolywormhead's blog. If you click on the time of the post rather than the "comments" bit next to it it may work. Seemed to for me!
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