Fantastic Woolfest

Woolfest was fantastic. We drove up to Cumbria on Wednesday and arrived about tea-time after a 7.5 hour drive. We didn't do much Wednesday  evening as we were both very tired but on Thursday we got up to do some sightseeing. We drove around several lakes and did a couple of short walks but I'll talk more about that next time and share some fantastic pictures.

Then on thursday evening we headed to the Woolfest grounds. the show is held in a livestock market and we were allocated a cattle stall. It looked like this when we arrived:

We covered the sides with fabric and put up shawls and organised the yarn and the final look was this:

We put the sock yarn on one side

and the lace yarn on the other side

and hung up as many shawls as possible

The lace yarn was very popular:

Sock yarn didn't seem so popular this year and I heard some other indie dyers say the same thing, but that means there will be a lot of sock yarn in today's update. I'm in the middle of updating the website now and will continue today and tomorrow until I get through everything.

It was great to meet so many customers too, both old and new ones. And also great to meet several knitters who've knitted my magazine designs. some even brough me their knits to show me. I saw a great version of Lilia (from Yarn Forward) and I wish I'd taken a photo of it but I didn't think about it at the time. I also had some lovely comments from knitters. On Friday one knitter told her friend as she came into our booth that I was 'knitting royalty'. Not quite sure i agree with that one but it did make me laugh.  On Saturday I was even asked for my autograph which shocked me quite a bit. The girls laughed last night when I told them I was 'famous'. I find it quite funny really but also very flattering. Whatever my so-called 'celebrity status' is I'm very happy that knitters are enjoying my designs.

All in all, it was a very successful first Woolfest and I'm already looking forward to next year. I've also been thinking about which other shows to do next year.

We leaft Cumbria yesterday morning and had a long and hot drive home. It was incredibly hot yesterday even with the air con on all the way and we encountered a couple of traftic jams too but finally made it home. Inspired by all hte lovely fibre I saw at Woolfest I pulled my spinning wheel out last night and finished spinning the Touch Yarns mohair/merino fibre I had on the bobbin. I'm planning to navajo ply it.

I then started spinning some merino/tencel fibre I dyed ages ago and finished spinning half of it last night. I'd planned to try and spin something close to a laceweight yarn but it was so slippery and challenging to spin I've ended up with a much thicker singles.

Here's some of the yarns in today's yarn update which can be found here.
Merino Plus:

  

Ocean silk:

Ocean Silk:

Merino Plus:

Oganic Cotton Sock - which is back in stock for the summer

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Woolfest Preview

It's been busy around here lately but I'm almost ready for Woolfest. We leave on Wednesday but i'm teaching at Spin A Yarn on Tuesday so everything needs to be ready tomorrow. I've got a few skeins that need re-skeining. Emily and Simon have promised to do that for me tomorrow. Simon is doing some right now.

There are a few yarns that need labelling still, which i'm planning to do tomorrow. Emily has cut up labels for me. in fact Emily ahs been brilliant over the last week and done lots of work. she wanted to earn some extra money to buy some stuff for her fish tank and some snorkelling equipment for our holiday in August so that was good motivation for her. one day last week she brought two friends over and asked if they could all work for me to earn money. One of her friends said that she wished her Mum dyed yarn so she could re-wind it. She was watching Emily re-wind yarn for me at the time.
Here's Emily putting stickers on my bags:

Vanessa was keen to help but has 3 GCSE exams in Maths, Science and Media plus 2 English mocks in the next week so her life has been pretty much full time revision lately.

This has been the state of my lounge for the past week. Labels, patterns, winding equipemnt and yarn everywhere.

Here's the yarn that's already boxed up:

Yarn for labelling:

And here's a preview of the yarn that's ready:

Exotic Cobweb Lace:

Supreme Lace:

Sock yarn:

 more sock yarn:

Organic Merino Sock:

more organic merino sock:

Fantasy sock:

more Fantasy sock:

Silky Merino Lace:

More Silky Merino Lace:

Bambino Lace:

Ocean Silk and Pure Silk Lace:

I'm taking Merino Plus Sock,. Fantasy Sock, Bambino Sock (only a little bit ), Organic Merino Sock, Organic Cotton sock, Supreme Lace, Bambino Lace, Angel Lace, Silky merino lace, Exotic Cobweb Lace, Amazing Cashmere Lace and Angora Lace. There will be over 20 kg of yarn.

Most yarns will be removed from the shop on monday evening and all orders placed before 6pm Monday evening will be posted on Tuesday. Orders after that will be posted when we return, so on 28 June.

I don't think I'll have time to post any more before we go but I will take lots of photos and do a long Woolfest post when we get back.

If your'e going to Woolfest, stop by stand F115 and say hello.

Yarn Forward

ETA: Sorry some photos have been removed because of copyright issues.

the new issue of yarn forward.

My design in this issue is 'Tabitha' a lovely lace deisng worked in the round in one piece.

Back to yarn labelling and tidyeing the house up a bit. total chaos here.

Nite x

Let's Knit

I've got lots to do and very little time. So this will be mainly a picture story.

The new Let's Knit came out this week and I've got a shawl, Candace, worked in Supreme Lace. Other yarns that can be used are Silky BFL Lace, Bambino Lace and Angel Lace. I've just listed some Supreme Lace and more yarn to come on Monday or Tuesday.

My second design for Let's Knit this month is Cecile, an elegant summer cardigan knitted in Rowan Milk Cotton DK. This cropped, short sleeved cardi features a deep scoop neck, little arrowhead lace border and a simple eyelet pattern. perfect for hot summer days.

Let's Knit also used Cecile as a feature in their fashion story. Look how perfect it is for day and evening wear. Your essential summer cardi.

The new Yarn Forward is out too but I've not had time to take photos yet so that will feature in my next blog post.

Just listed Supreme Lace and Merino Plus in the shop. Yarn everywhere and most of it's dry now and the rest is on hte line and nearly dry. Lots of labelling and preparing for next week's dyeing.

Havea  lovely weekend x

Crochet and a bit of yarn

Let's take a look at the yarn first. I'd hoped to do a shop update yesterday or today but time has run away from me. I've had dyeign to do and pattern writing to do and parcels to wrap up and ran out of time. So there may be an update tomorrow or if not, definitely on Thursday. I've done the photos, I just need time to sit down and edit them and actuallly do the update. Here's a sneak preview of what's coming in the next update.

Supreme Lace which now has a new base yarn and is equally as gorgeous as the old verson:

Merino Plus:

I've also got some Pure Silk Lace and Ocean Silk 4ply drying.

it was on the line on Saturday but was only half dry by the end of the day and has been drying inside since as we've had rain. With no heating on (as it's supposed to be summer) yarn takes forever to dry and this yarn is nowhere near dry.

In fact I'm getting a bit worried about drying facilities. I dyed 5 kg of Angel Lace and Fantasy Sock today and with rain forecast again for tomorrow I'm going to have an awful lot of wet yarn hanging around. I may have to put hte heating on to speed up drying. I'm praying for sun on Thursday and every day thereafter until I finish dyeing yarn for Woolfest.

Now, on to crochet. The new issue of Inside Crochet came on Saturday.

 My first crochet design is due in hte next issue of Inside Crochet and there was a preview pic on the back page:

It's a Flower Square blanket worked in YarnAddict Fantasy Sock in agorgeous Silver and Starry Night colourways. I can't wait to see it in the mag.

Next issue is not out till August, in fact it'll probably arrive when we're on holiday. I got my crochet hook out on Saturday to test an excisting design and got a bit carried away. While I was holding the hook I started playing with some new shapes and came up wiht a couple of things I can't show you but Ialso came up with this beautiful hexagon shape:

I decided I wanted something knitted up in Ocean Silk for Woolfest and had planned on trying to whip up a small lace scarf but decided to try crocheting with it instead. Wow!! it's beautiful to work with.  I just love it. It's soft, delicate and feel almost laceweight like although it's a 4ply. Perfect for those who want delicate lace but are a bit nervous about a laceweight yarn.

colours are way out as the pics were taken yesterday evening.

I decided to mix 2 colours. I'm not quite sure how to arrange the hexagons yet and I may not have time to finish the whole scarf before Woolfest. I'm limiting myself to one hexagon a day as I've got deadline knitting to be getting on with.

I'm toying with the idea of a crochet club. In fact I've been thining about it for a while. I'm thinking of doing a club that runs for 3 months and each month there will be yarn for one part of a big project using various shapes. For example, let's say i decide on a blanket, month one and two would probably contain one or two skeins of sock yarn to make up shapes for the blanket and the third month would have the yarn for the edging.  this is still in the planning stages but I'm working towards a September start.  Watch this space!

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