My dear hubby took me and the caravan over on Wednesday evening. It was a glorious drive over, the shadows on the hills were so beautiful.
We arrived at Graysonside and as we set the caravan up we got the feeling we were being watched!
On Thursday, I spent a quiet day, knitting, spinning and reading! Bliss!! But as the day went on, the weather started to change, becoming wetter and windier by the minute. It got so bad that a nearby tent actually blew over and was rescued by some hardy souls!
It was quite scary, as the caravan was rocking violently. I was so pleased to see Carrie Anne, Becky and Bev!! As Andrea wasn't able to make it, we decided not to put up the tent and just squeeze into the caravan. This is a pic of the four of us.
On Friday and Saturday, we started with a hearty farmhouse breakfast, well worth staying at Graysonside for alone! On very full stomachs, and with a lot of excitement, we went to Woolfest!!
As last year, it was an amazing combination of animals, fibres, equipment and wonderful people. I met many people who I only knew through Blogland and it was brill to put faces to the names. The first bloggers I met were the wonderful Artis-Anne and her fab daughter Kath. It really made my weekend meeting these two warm and friendly ladies. It felt as though we 'clicked' straight away, as though we'd known each other for years!!
On Friday and Saturday morning, I spent the day shopping, while on Saturday afternoon I attended the Artic Lace workshop with Carrie Anne. This was really interesting, learning about the Eskimos of Alaska and their use of musk oxen hair ( is it spelt quivert?) in knitting.
I mainly bought fibre, including Shetland, Blue Faced Leicester, Ryeland and Gotland fleece.
This pic shows the dark Gotland as well as the golden and smokey Angora from those gorgeous bunnies! There's also some Suri alpaca in there too! 
I also got a couple of extra bobbins, for all that spinning I'm going to do and a niddy noddy.
I really would like to try some more dyeing, so I bought some Procion dyes from DT crafts and some natural dyes from Pure Tinctoria. The undyed yarn is in sock and lace weight.
And finally I bought some reading material, some Spin Off mags, a book on natural dyeing and a kit from Natural Dye Studio, to crochet a mohair scarf! Gulp! It seems to be simple crochet, so fingers crossed!
So all in all, a fantastic few days. And to top it all off, I won Kaths Krafty Kreations blog prize! Thanks Kath!! It came with a challenge, which I'll post about next time. So here we are worn out and skint, but very, very happy!! Thanks to the rest of my caravan comrades for a fab time! Shall I book up for next year??
17 comments:
OMG, how many daft faces can we pull between the four of us? LOL! Thanks for a fab weekend, I had the best time :)
Sounds like you had a fab time... both at Woolfest and in the caravan!!
Great photies and yes please lets organize next years and maybe we can drag you down here to Wales before that ?
Think it's going to take a while to get over this weekend but..yes please I'll do it all again next year. Had such a great time, and I can't wait to see how all these fibres will look when you've finished with them.Thanks again.Bex
It is obvious that you have all had the best of times, I am so pleased this venture really paid off for you. Your haul in humungous! Well done. Looking forward to hearing more on Tuesday.
Hi there, Im the 'hardy soul' in blue! Although in that photo I seem to be more 'standing around being a bit clueless'. I stumbled on your blog through various other woolfest blogposts. Its a shame I didnt get an opportunity to chat to you all at the campsite but I wussed out on the weather and went home on the Friday. Looks like you bought some great stuff!
That's some nice stuff you bought there, and it was great to meet you :)
Mum's DH is the hardy beige blob to the left of the photo with the tent! So nice to meet you and as you said it felt as if we'd known you for years! Glad to hear you like your prize and bear in mind it's not a serious challenge! Love the haul and look forward to seeing how your dyeing turns out this time - I forsee another fun days playing!
Lovely to read such a happy post!
What a coincidence, we were staying at the same place. Mum and I were supposed to camp, but it was raining on the thursday when we arrived, and we'd got caught up in the traffic after the accident on the A66, so we took there last room. We proberbly passed in the dining room at breakfast time!! Glad you had a good time.
Great pictures - and dont you just love the view as you drive into the Lakes?! Breathtaking :) Looks like you all had lots of fun and great haul as well.
Lovely to meet you - sorry I dived off, but got the massivest headache and was totally overwhelmed by Woolfestitis. I don't know who emptied my purse and filled up my shopping bag... Hope to see more of Carrie Anne, so hopefully more of you as well.
Well, you sure made the trip worthwhile and I'm green with envy so I'm definitely going to Woolfest next year.
Cheers Gillian
I'm so jealous. It sounds like you all had so much fun! Artic lace worksop sounds really interesting.
Mooooo!
All hail the caravan! I bet you were glad of it in this weather.
Sounds like you had a great time
well - another woolfest person - I am finding all sorts of bloggers I never knew about by blog hopping from knit-tigger - and hello to you! i loved woolfest - out knitting group (from hexham) went over en masse!
nice to 'meet' you
Oooh lovely things! Sooooooo jealous.
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