Woolfest Stash

Finally I've found time to get to the blog again. I've been learning new techniques at work and it always takes much longer than I think it will.

Here's the Woolfest stash additions:

Some more Lopi roving to add to the wheels from last year (from Twist Fibre Crafts)...


...some sock yarn for the Resident Radiologist, chosen by him...


...some Faery Lace yarn from Fyberspates. I hummed and hawed over buying this when Jen was doing the trunkshow in Glasgow and eventually put it down, but when I saw it again at Woolfest, I just had to have it...


...some more Catalina Baby alpaca yarn to add to the left-overs from last year (my sister wants a French Market Bag in the same yarn as the one I made for myself)!


...finally a cheap drop spindle for me. I've wanted to give this a go for a while but didn't want to spend a fortune on a spindle to find that I didn't really enjoy it. Now I just have to get the hang of it!


I've already had a go on it but I don't think I'm holding the roving right - I'm going to take it along to knitting night in a couple of weeks and see if anyone can help.

Woolfest 2008 and a request.

The Resident Radiologist gallantly escorted me to Woolfest this year and bravely faced the hordes of fibre-mad folk that had flocked to Cockermouth. He also took all the photos so that I could keep my hands free for fondling yarn, samples, fleece etc as the fancy grabbed me.

Obviously there were some fibre-producing animals (though not as many as there were last year):


Walls full of colour that made me happy just to look at them:


There was inspirations - see I'm not the only one who knits sock yarn blankets!


There were rag balls of old cut up blankets that looked very pretty all together, but I don't know what you'd actually do with them.


Finally there were the stalls of the fibre artists who made beautiful objects such as this bag...


And these bowls.


As I've said before, just walking around at woolfest makes me happy. The atmosphere is really great - all those people who love yarn and fibres, and there is colour everywhere. I managed slightly better this year on not going overboard and had a pretty good idea in my head what I was looking for before I went. However, the haul is going to have to wait for another day as this post is a bit picture-heavy already.

We stayed in Keswick for the night and went walking on the Saturday morning - around, then up and over Catbells which gave us stunning views out over Derwent Water.

Finally the request: I'm knitting a blanket for my sister with discontinued Jaeger Extra Fine Merino DK and I'm short of the last colour - shade 982 - rose petal. I tried getting a different yarn but nothing matches properly in terms of colour or texture so I've bought up the odd balls I've found in various stores but I'm still going to be three balls short. Does anyone have any of this yarn that they'd be willing to sell / swap / send? The dye lots aren't going to matter too much as the blocks of colour will be separated from one another and any partial left-over balls would be gratefully received. If anyone does have some yarn that they're willing to part with, please leave a comment and I'll get in touch.