24 June 2012

Woolfest 2012

I took an impromptu 400 mile, round-trip, drive to the Lake District yesterday with my friend Andrea so we could visit Woolfest 2012. It was a last minute decision that involved a 6am start and a 3.5 hour drive in the pouring rain (this is looking like being the wettest June in the UK since records began over 100 years ago) with some areas of the UK (like the NW of England where we were heading) who had a month's worth of rain in 24 hours on Friday. 

But it was fun! We spent about 4 hours perusing all the stalls, learning about different breeds of sheep and buying wool!


Common themes in 2012:


Beautiful fibre.



 Amazing hand-dyed yarn in rainbows of colour.


Giant wooden buttons - that toggle was about the size of my hand.


Giant knitting on enormous needles, with super thick yarn.

There were also some amazing completed items, like this crocheted blanket and a picture of Klimt's The Kiss.



I manage to maintain some degree of control and not buy everything I saw, but I did manage to enhance my stash somewhat:


Beautiful hand-dyed 4-ply to make some cowls, from Eden Cottage Yarns, some hand dyed aran from Kate Davies, along with one of her newly released patterns, called Sheep Carousel - a tea cosy cover made to look like a carousel with sheep on it and 2 skeins of sadly discontinued Noro Blossom to make a seaweed scarf. 


50p balls of 100% wool in great colours, ready to knit another Debbie Bliss Farm.


A lovely cone of linen to make a scarf or shawl.....400g for £6 - a bargain, from Texere Yarns.

We stopped at Ikea in Edinburgh for swedish meatballs on the way home.....oh and at Waitrose to buy some of my favourite yoghurt......

4 comments:

Thimbleanna said...

Wow -- looks like you had lots of fun. Those jumbo buttons are gorgeous -- as is all of that yarn.

I sure wish we could have some of your rain -- we're having what they call a "moderate" drought here. I'm thinking it will dry up over there in August. And Edi has an Ikea? Oh dear....

Bethany said...

Ooooh... all this gorgeous yarn!!! This post is eye candy for sure! What a fabulous trip... I would have bought a ton!

Heidi said...

Lovely! And that tea cozy pattern is adorable.

I have to tell you that I previously had not yet my kids play with their blankies from you. Sam was so destructive of any and all toys, and I couldn't bear to see them ruined. But today I let them both have them, and they had a blast. They love the squeaky toy and since they know both the stories (3 Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood), they were using them to tell the stories and embellish. They call them their "clouds." Thank you again so much. Such a beautiful gift for them. And now I pray Sam doesn't destroy them.

Karen S, Lykkefanten said...

Sounds and looks like it was a good choice to go. I wish I could have gone, but my stash is probably the slimmer for me not having that opportunity.