Woolfest 2013

The morning of Woolfest dawned yesterday, and of course it was raining. Sadly not the best weather for a trip to the Lakes, but perfect weather for yarn purchasing. It was a fabulous day out, despite the weather. I am incredibly greatful to eweniq for all her hard work driving and excellent company.

After an awful drive over (including a debate about where the fog lights might be on our hire car), the day was quickly brightened by colourful yarn...

... beautiful spinning equipment....

... and of course, cute sheep!

But what did I buy? Well, I did stick to form....

My first purchase was Laal Bear Lush Hand-dyed Sock Yarn 75% merino, 25% nylon. The colourway is Beltaine, which is the festival that marks the beginning of summer at the start of May. The colours are more teal and magenta than my photography skills let on. This is destined to be socks, but what pattern depends on what happens when I ball it up.

Next up, a little quality time at the Sparkleduck booth. I really enjoyed knitting socks with their yarn after getting it from Woolfest 2011, so I was determined to go back, and this colour just spoke to me! It's Spirit yarn (75% superwash merino wool, 25% nylon) in Sea-quine. Also destined to be socks, probably in a pattern from Socktopus but not deciding what yet.

I was also determined to visit Ripples Crafts after finding her on Twitter and often nearly purchasing her yarn. I got myself Hand Dyed Sock Yarn in Violet Ombre 75% wool, 25% nylon. And yes, you guessed it, probably more socks....

The Easy Knits stand in the photo above had so many beautiful colours, but the one that really spoke to me was this Deeply Wicked (100% superwash merino) 4ply in Crystal Blue - more turquoise and less green than the photo lets on. However, in a shocking turn of events, this is probably going to be a shawl.

On our way out, we ran into Knit.Spin.Cake., who suggested we visit one stall that we had kinda missed as it was right in the corner, up a dead end.The reason?

Ten of these for £10 - they are Woolyknit 100% superwash merino wool DK in navy. Destined to be some jumper, sometime, after I've knitted the queue!

Woolfest 2011

Woolfest is only the second knitting-festival-thing I have ever been to, but it was just what I'm looking for in one. There was a lot of yarn to keep me happy, enough other aspects of the craft to inspire me to try something new, and some very cute animals.

I went with my mum, and we rented a cottage near Bassenthwaite Lake for a week (though I could only stay for five days) - I've been to a lot of places lately so I'll probably do a proper travel post soon. Here's a photo of everything that we bought, and I think it's quite a haul! The natural roving and the two blur rovings on the left are my mum's, though the herdy notebook is mine.

There are two cakes of roving are Waratah Fibres Polwarth-cross for Stephcuddles (here's a better photo just for you):

This is the one I cannot catch the colour on, sparkleduck self-striping sock yarn - the website is under construction but says they will be at Knit Nation (though I won't be) - well worth keeping an eye on as there was a LOT of beautiful yarn there (including some sparkly stuff which I managed to resist). This is going to be the first pair of socks I knit for myself; two at a time and toe-up.

Some blue sock yarn from Laal Bear. Not sure what I'll knit with it yet but it is very cuddly.

I couldn't even wait for a ball winder to start knitting with this; some toe-up socks for an as-yet-to-be-decided female friend. The colours remind me of one friend, but I only knit her some socks two weeks ago. Hohum.

I also bought myself a couple of hanks of merino roving, in the hope that I can learn to spin soon. I guess I've got a lot of knitting skills lined up so it might be a while. And it seems the purple theme remains....

So, now I just need to get knitting. Bring on the wool!