It's been a busy month for shows - after Wonderwool, we headed for the big city and iKnit Fandango in London. This was a show on a whole other scale than Wonderwool - smaller in a "carefully selected" sort of way, set in a wonderful Royal Horticultural Hall: light and airy and bathed in daylight from the glass roof, amazing for showing off all our colours.
That said, in terms of glorious colours, we were thoroughly outdone by a rare outing by the ever impressive Wollmeise.
I've not had a chance to oogle her yarns since Knit Nation several years ago, and Mark of course is still discovering the whole vista of yarns out there, so I'm not ashamed to say that quite a few hanks came home with us from there.
My personal little highlight of the weekend though, was the lovely Helen stopping by to show us her finished Raincloud in Ullcentrum Lace in the Cerise Orange colour way, wonderfully offset by her blue linen outfit.
After a weekend breather, it was off to Devon for Proper Woolly. This was a brand new show organised this year, and for a first show, I must say we were impressed! Great venue of the cattle market kind, with the most convenient parking I've ever seen at a show, lovely happy organisers, great selection of stalls and a brilliant food market section, promoting the best of local producers: apricot and roast almond brioches have a lot to answer for!
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| I don't think Mark is taking the obligatory "picture of the stand" seriously anymore... |
I was particularly excited by my first ever stay in a static caravan, and not just any static caravan: one on Noteworthy farm, where you have the benefit of seeing their Angora goats stampede past as you cook breakfast. You know you are camping with yarn people when you all dash out in your pyjamas, mugs of tea in hand, to watch the goats being fed.
I clearly took the whole "Proper Woolly" concept to heart: I do own a spinning wheel, and I spin every so often but tend to lean towards working with all the actual yarn I already have, yet I came home from Devon with nothing but fibre.
First was this biiiiiiig braid of Shetland in beautiful blues from Hilltop Cloud
and as if one sweater amount of fibre wasn't bad enough, I then had a sudden urge to bring home a raw fleece of all things and plumped for this great Zwartbles one from In the Raw.
Yarn show season is still in full swing, of course, and next we'll be heading off to Woolfest in Cumbria - a first for Midwinter Yarns, and one we've heard great things about. See you there?
