Fibre Fest 2011

wow, it's taken me a week to do a Fibre Fest re-cap. That's partly because I was exhausted afterwards and partly because I don't quite know what to say. I'm a bit mixed about the event.

But let's start with the positive parts. The event was set in a the beautiful grounds of Bicton College near Exeter. There was an animal area. It's always nice to show people were our wonderful yarns come from.

There were some very cute lamas:

and some gorgeous alpacas:

I especially love their haircuts:

Several different sheep breads were on display. Unfortunately they were not keen on being photographed. I ended up with a lot of sheep bottoms. Perhaps it was too early for them. But I did get a good photo of these gorgeous angora sheep:

Or I suppose that should be angora goats? Angoras are goats, not sheep, right? Or are there angora sheep too? Someone correct me please.

I chose to have a 'shell stall' this year. That means I would have 3 walls to display my shawls on but it also meant i could only afford a small stall and we were a bit cramped. all the photos are taken with my mobile phone and some are a bit blurry. Sorry.

I had a small table showing off The Easy Lace Collection booklet and a couple of other patterns. The Easy Lace Collection sold really well at the show.

My display of sock yarns:

Three of my scarves:

The Daisy Shawlette was very popular. And the larger size will be published next week. I'm finishing the cast off and blocking it today. Will also e-mail the testers today. They've been waiting patiently for me for so long.

We have 3 rather blurry shawls:

From the left we have Sophia, Lazuli and Two of a Kind.

Lace yarn and patterns:

The Midnight Stole which always gets lots of admiration from knitters and non-knitters (there were a lot of those at this show) at shows.

Ok, now for the not so nice bits about the show and I've been wondering about how honest to be but I'll be honest. Sales wise this show was a waste of time for me. I only just covered my expenses. The show was so well organised and the setting was beautiful that it was a shame that the organisers didn't bother advertising the show properly. To stall holders I felt it was promoted as a national show. I paid twice as much for my stall as I did at Woolfest and my stall was a lot smaller than my Woolfest stall.

For some reason the organisers didn't advertise in knitting mags. I can't remember seeing a single ad in knitting mags and I read a lot of them. I spoke to an editor last week who said she don't remember seeing a press release about the show either. Apparently the show was advertised in places like 'Devon Life'. 90+% of the stalls sold knitting and spinning supplies. And there were quite a few spinners there. I sold a lot of patterns to spinners. But there were very few knitters. A lot of people told me they didn't knit. I heard from one stall holder that a lot of people thought it was a gardening show.

So this is my plea to any knitting show organisers: if you want quality vendors and they sell mainly knitting supplies then please advertise your event where knitters can see it, like knitting mags, Ravelry etc. If you're charging 'national fees' for stalls then please make sure you advertise it nationally and make it a 'destination event'. For Woolfest and Wonderwool knitters come in coach loads. They make a weekend out of it. and they come from all over the country. Fibre Fest was very much a local show. it's great for those of us who live in the south west to have a good show with national vendors. But at the next Fibre Fest I think a lot of those vendors won't bother coming because most businesses can't afford to do shows if they make a loss and most people don't want to give up a weekend to only just cover their expenses. Most of us who run craft businesses rely on partners or friends to help out at shows. I picked Simon up at work on Friday and he gave up his weekend to help me out at the show and then he went straight back to work on Monday. He doesn't mind but he did feel a bit like it was a waste of time since I didn't actually make any money.

Okay, rant over. I did meet some lovely knitters. I met  a lot of knitters I already knew from my workshops and knitting groups especially at Spin A Yarn but also from Cornwall. I met knitters who I'd met at Wonderwool and Woolfest. A HUGE thank you to all those who stopped by my stall and to all those who bought my yarn and patterns and The Easy Lace Collection. It was great meeting you all and you made the weekend worth it.

On a different note. There is an error in The Easy Lace Collection. It's not an error that affects the patterns. On page 10 where I show how to do the crochet cast on the last sentence above the photo in column 1 should read:....... crochet a chain a few stitches longer than the number of stitches you want to cast on.


I will update the e-book and upload a new version on Ravelry so if you've purchased the e-book on Ravelry you can download the new version. You'll get a notification to your e-mail address. If you've purchased the print version please make a note on the page so you don't forget. I'm having it corrected for the next print run.

I'm back

Well, I've not really been gone, just haven't had the time to blog for a while. The rest of Bible Week (when I last posted) went really well. We all had a great week and were exhausted when we came back.

Last Saturday was my birthday and I had a fantastic present from my Crafty Threads swappee, Donna. Here's a pic:

It was my only present that I knew would be knitting related and I love it all. Also had two small stick of rock in it which the girls grabbed. Other presents included money and gift vouchers, bracelet from Em and two tapes from church from Ness and Simon got me the Boye Needlemaster set which I've ordered from the Woolly Workshop but it hasn't arrived yet, only ordered it a couple of days ago. Some of my money I spent on a new mobile phone. It's really cool.

The rest of my birthday money was spent today at Fibre Fest. This is the first year for FibreFest. The FibreFest marquee was very good although I had expected more stalls. The outside bits which were part of the Bridwell Country Fair were a bit rubbish really. Apparently they had to cancel the livestock exhibits because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak a few weeks ago. We did go on a tour of Cold Harbour Mill though which was excellent. It was very interesting to see how the yarn used to be spun and all the various processes it goes through. The mill still spins yarn which they sell in their gift shop. I was very tempted by some of the merino yarn but stuck to getting two bags of dyed merino tops,

I also got some merino silk from Fybrespates today

some pale pink silk dk from Knitting 4 Fun (Forgot to save the pic after editing it and then delted all the pics on the camera so a pic another day).

Some gorgeous alpaca/bfl from Brightdyes and another pack of Yarnimals. arent' they cute? I already ahve some pigs, sheep, ducks and horses and some sheep earrings. They're sold on Etsy and at the Woolly Workshop and were recently mentioned in Simply Knitting.

I also got to meet Chrissy of Bright Dyes, The Woolly Warbler Tracy and Kathryn from Knitting Haven. They're all very nice people and it was really nice to meet them. Kathryn and I had a look around the stalls together and it was nice to have another knitter to look at yarn with. Simon looked around with me when we first arrived but he wasn't that keen. He liked the looms and spinning wheels though. I think he fancied getting a loom.

I also chatted to Clare Crompton who is the author of the Knitting Bible (which is a brill book btw) and also teaches workshops at Spin A Yarn in Devon. I've done 3 workshops with Clare and she's a brilliant teacher. Talking of Spin Yarn, they had a stall there too which was manned by a lady who lives in Cornwall and it was lovel ychatting to her too. She told me about a local spinning group in the town where we live so my next thing is to track them down.

Which nicely leads me on to a parcel which arrived today. Luckily the post lady was kind enough to put it in my recycling bin and it was my Drop Spindle from Cazzie. We did a swap, she had some merino lace from me and I had a drop spindle and some tops from her. I ripped it open and had a go and well, lets just say that I don't think you can call the result yarn. My 2nd go, as seen in the pic, is looking slightly better but still quite thick. I'd like to eventually spin the merino tops I got today into sock yarn but think I will practice on other stuff first. Simon has plans for me spinning my own yarn, dyeing it and selling it. Perhaps in 10 years time. I'd like to get in touch with hte spinning group thoug has they may be willing to teach me how to spin on a proper wheel.

The pics today are a bit rubbish. Our camera takes really bad pics in poor light and it was already getting dark by the time I took the pics.