Woolfest

We had a fantastic long weekend in Cumbria and another fab year at Woolfest. Cumbria is a long drive from Cornwall, so we like to split the journey. We stopped off at Dunham Massey which is our favourite place to take a break. It's an historic National Trust property and in the park right in front of the house there are deer. 

The deer are very tame and Simon got very close.

The gardens are beautiful and large. There is a lake, streams, various formal and wild areas to explore. It was sunny when we arrived so walking around the garden was an oasis of calm after 5 hours on the motorway.

The following day, we spent most of the day exploring the Lace District. We stopped off at our usual spot at Ullswater and had a picnic lunch. 

Again the weather was beautiful.

We took full advantage of our National Trust memberships and explored Aira Force.
We've been there before but it's a beautiful walk along a stream and waterfall and it was worth visiting again.

It is quite hilly and we made it nearly to the top of the falls.

I made time for a bit of al fresco knitting in a few beautiful locations. 

In the middle of the afternoon we headed to Cockermouth to set up for the show. I put together a little Flipagram video of how the set up works. We turn up to an empty sheep pen. The show is held in a livestock market so it's pretty basic. It's quite a challenge to turn it into an attractive pop up shop.

The show itself was fantastic as usual. The number of visitors seemed slightly lower than usual. I was worried about how the EU referendum results the day before the show would affect visitor numbers and sales. Sales were about average so I was happy.

The hit of the show was the Lavinia top. We put it on display on the front table and halfway through Sunday we ran out of patterns and had to remove it and put another sample up.

We had a slightly different set up this time which worked well and I'll be doing something similar at Yarndale in September which is our next show.

I didn't get a chance to look around properly but I did manage a quick walk around before the show opened on Saturday and a quick 10 minute run to my favourite stalls on Saturday afternoon just before closing to buy a few quick things.

Injabulo make fabulous baskets and I was so tempted but we had no spare room in the car so I made do with a small bowl. I always stock up on buttons from the Textile Garden. And I got two skeins of beautiful sparkly yarn from Debbonnaire. These are not for me but for a design for a magazine.

There are a variety of sheep breeds on display at Woolfest and a few alpacas (which I missed).

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