Granny's Magnificent Jumper & Badgers

Lorna, our Marketing Dragon has persuaded her friend Mr Ian Ashton, to tell us one of his amusing craft related stories.

Granny’s magnificent jumper:

When I was a young boy Granny announced that she would knit me a jumper in which to play cricket. A cricket jumper was a grand thing, all cable stitch and extra-long so it covered your back when bent over batting and the maroon and blue school colours round the vee-neck. 

There was only one fly in the ointment. Granny couldn’t knit her brows.

 The jumper was an almost perfect cone with a neck that descended to about waist level. The two stripes round the neck were a sort of polka-dot with white stitches showing through randomly in amongst the maroon and blue. The cabling was so thick that the jumper made a fairly effective sort of armour against any fast bowling. The piece de resistance however was the sleeves. 

Cricketing jumpers in those days tended to have longer sleeves, especially for bowlers, because the umpire looked after them while they bowled and tied the sleeves round their waists and in consequence the sleeves stretched. Granny’s sleeves would have gone round a very portly umpire without stretching, one being significantly longer than the other as well. 

Of course I had to wear the jumper. Thank goodness my dear aunt unpicked it and knitted it up into something that looked like a proper cricket jumper and because my Granny’s eyesight was not too good and she never noticed either the original defects or her daughter’s reworking.

What a lovely story - thank you Mr Ashton.

Now, I also want to talk to you about badgers. Yes, thats right those black and white woodland creatures who live in sets.  To be honest, they are not something I know very much about as I don't live in the countryside. But one group of crafters feels very strongly about what is happening to the badgers , so strongly in fact that they have set up a small album of badger related items  and will give a percentage of all sale to the Stop The Cull campaign.

Click here to get the facts about culling badgers.

Click  here to have a look at the wonderful makes in the BFG Fight the Cull Badger Showcase.

Well that's all for this week, I will leave you with this thought:

Creativity is contagious - pass it on!

To read more by Ian Ashton click here