Us Ladies Wot Lunch!

I had the most brilliant day on Friday, when I went to the Wensleydale Longwool shop, near Leyburn, with Carrie and Hazel. We were met there by Becky and Bev , and last but not least,Silvia, who had a fab pressie for Carrie!

In the shop ,we drooled over the gorgeous yarns and accessories and formed a long queue to pay for our purchases, I've never seen the little place so full! I was very good and only bought some aran to knit a beret pattern I've had for ages.

We then moved into the carpark, where we caused major congestion looking at Carries pressie from Silvia, a gorgeous spinning wheel!! I think we were as excited as Carrie! Unfortunately Silvia had to go to work, so we waved her off, then went into Leyburn, to a lovely little tearoom above Serendipity.

Carrie and Bev


Once again we caused chaos, as the tables sat four and we were a five! So after some minor furniture rearrangement, we eventually got settled and became ladies wot lunched!

Becky and Hazel

After lunch we sauntered around Leyburn and Becky took us on a mystery diversion to The Shawl. This turned out to be a beautiful hidden gem, the site of the original settlement of Leyburn, with stunning views and, as an extra bonus, sheep!

And en route toThe Shawl, I spotted this....

The photo isn't very good as I used my phone, but it was a trompe l'oeil painting of a cat on a coal hole door and in the very top left corner, a little bird! I loved it!!

Thanks to all the girlies for a fab day out, with special thanks to Carrie for taking me and putting up with my blethering all the way thee and back!

On the knitting front, Ian's hat is coming along nicely, it's a quick knit,but I've been having blinding headaches, which have slowed down my progress, but I'm plodding along!!

When I downloaded the photos from my phone, I found a couple of pictures of some canvases I painted a few months ago, mainly to fill a space on our bedroom wall!

I really enjoyed doing them and would love to do some mixed media canvases, all I need is another 24 hours in a day!!

Pooped and Penniless!

I think it will take me a week to recover! But Woolfest was a fab few days!

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??