This was going to be a WIP-down update, but...

Remember this project?

This is the only new project that I've cast on this month.  I did so because Myra, a friend so close we called her family, told me this summer that she'd like some red cushions.  A few weeks later we found out that the cancer she'd already fought for 2 years had spread to her brain.  We knew our time with her was limited, and I was determined to give her the red cushions that she wanted.

I delivered those cushion covers on the 11th October.  We spent a lovely afternoon chatting, and I was pleased to see that Myra was looking and feeling well.

One week later something went wrong.  Maybe the tumour in her brain caused a bleed, we don't know for sure, but on Sunday 19th October Myra was admitted to hospital, then on the morning of Thursday 23rd October, she decided not to fight any longer.

So although this update is also going to discuss my progress on various WIPs, it is also dedicated to the memory of one of the most loving, yet practical, and down to earth woman I have ever had the privilege to know.

Myra has 2 daughters, I've mentioned them before.  Gemma and Vikki are sisters in all but blood to us.  Last year we completed the Race for Life in memory of my mam, and in hope for Myra:

We walked, and we ran, and we did it all while taking turns to push my sleeping 2 year old niece around with us.  Myra was going through treatment for her cancer, and yet here she was:

This is in no way the best photo of Myra ever taken, but it demonstrates the kind of woman that she was.  Supportive and strong, but not terribly sympathetic when we reached the end exhausted!

So Myra; thank you.  Thank you for being there for us as children, for being there for my mam, for being there for Davie, and for having been a part of our lives.  

And the rest of you, check your breasts!  Myra could have been saved if she had attended her routine mammogram appointments.  The tumour in her breast was tiny, but the damage it caused when it spread to her bones and her brain was devastating.

About those WIPs

I'm sure you can imagine, this week hasn't quite gone according to plan.  For a start, most of it has been spent up in Newcastle instead of Sheffield.  We honestly did not expect everything to happen so suddenly   When my sister drove us up north on Wednesday, we expected to be returning home on Thursday, then going up again to visit this weekend, and possibly a few times more.  So I only took 2 projects with me, plus a small spinning project.

On the plus side, this has forced me to concentrate on these 2 projects, with the result that I have finished something!

This is my Dazzle scarf.  The pattern is by Louisa Harding, and is from her book "Knits from an English Rose".  Mine is knit in King Cole Galaxy, in the colourway Ruby.  I think it looks like a sort of elegant interpretation of something Dennis the Menace might wear.  

I cast on this scarf on Christmas day 2013.  Mostly because Kelly had just given me a Box of Joy as my Christmas present, and I wanted to knit with my new Karbonz immediately!  Then I stupidly slipped on the ice while out running (training for a 10k race for life this year) and spent the next 6 weeks in cast with a broken wrist.  Technically I could knit, but nothing more complicated than stocking stitch, and it was a slow process!

Dazzle was put away, and it remained in hibernation all summer.  But now I shall be able to wear it on my holiday next week!

The other project that I took with me was Kellys socks.  Over the last few days I've managed to finish the first sock, and begin working the gusset of the second sock:

I hope to get these finished in the next couple of days, because I want to concentrate on a bit of luxury knitting while I'm on holiday.

I'm off to Whitby for the Goth Weekend.  I haven't been since the year my mam was diagnosed.  I have no plans to pander to the gothic community, and I won't be dressing up in corsets and crinolines.  But I will be spending my days enjoying the seaside, visiting the abbey, and sitting in quaint tea rooms with my knitting.

This is what I'm taking with me:

This is Lady Persephone Sock Yarn by Countess Ablaze, and the colourway is To His Intense Annoyance from the 12 Caesars collection.  It is going to become socks for Stephen.  Isn't it gorgeous?

This is all I have to say for now.  I'll be back after my holiday by the seaside.

Look after yourselves my darlings.

Bakewell Wool Gathering

'Tis the season...

For Yarn and Fibre festivals!

So last weekend I went to my second festival in less than a month.

Bakewell is a beautiful little town in the middle of the Derbyshire Dales, only an hours drive from where I live.  You can even get a bus there from Sheffield city centre, but as a few of us are not so steady on our feet any more, we thought we'd take the car.  Bakewell is well worth the visit, even if there wasn't a yarn and fibre festival going on.  There is a beautiful river to walk along, many lovely tea rooms to stop for lunch, and of course, it is the home of the famous Bakewell Tart.

I did buy a Bakewell tart, but we ate it far too quickly for me to get photos of it!

Instead, here is a photo I took from the bridge in Bakewell:

Just across this bridge is the Bakewell Agricultural Centre, and for one weekend it had been converted into a haven for fibre fanatics.

Now as you know, it's really not very long since I went to Yarndale.  Then last week Countess Ablaze did a mid-month update of regular colourways.  Now I knew I'd be looking at this update anyway, as I needed yarn for a particular test knit I've agreed to do, but as though she'd done it just for me, there was my favourite colourway, on my favourite yarn base!  Nerds Prefer Their Rainbows Darker, on Viscount of Spark:

So between this and the test knit yarn, plus the money I'd spent at yarndale, I was really short on funds for Bakewell.  In fact, I think I had less than £45 in my purse, and that included money for lunch.

So I wasn't expecting to actually buy much.  I thought maybe I'd get a souvenir yarn and a bit of fibre, and be content with spending the day just looking at all the pretty things.

I was wrong!  Look at all of this that I managed to buy:

That's 1 skein of shetland lace, 1 skein of sparkle sock yarn, 500g of various sheep fibre tops, a book on natural dying, a strip of felt with penguins on it, and a bag of Miyuki cube beads!  

Plus, a big bowl of homemade roasted pumpkin and parsnip soup, with a fresh granary roll, for lunch from one of the lovely tea rooms in town.

Amazing, isn't it?

Both of the yarns are from Rosie's Moments.  My mams memorial shawl was made from a Rosie's Moments yarn that I bought at Bakewell last year.  The Shetland lace was actually in the bargain bin for just £6!  Can you believe that?  900m of lovely autumnal beauty for such a small price.

There's a gorgeous pattern that I've been looking at for years that I think will look amazing in this yarn - Maple Leaf Shawl.  It's designed for 4-ply, but I think it will work just as well knit in laceweight.  It'll be a more sheer fabric, or possibly a smaller shawl, depending on which needle size I choose, but I'll swatch and see what I like best.

All the fibre came from Adelaide Walker, for just £2 per 100g.  That's 500g of mostly British combed tops for just £10!  Outstanding value in my opinion.

I also got to meet up with the very lovely James of the Dancing Geek Podcast and fondle his latest sock WIP.  

I discovered the reason why Sleeping Beauty was able to prick her finger on a spindle, something that had always mystified me, as modern spinning wheels have no sharp spindle.  The reason is this:

There's a cute little blue needle protector on the end of this one, because Health and Safety people!  But this is the spindle on a Great Wheel, also known as a Walking Wheel:

This is what the very first spinning wheels were like, in the 16th Century.  With no flyer, you manipulated the fibre around the tip of a spinning needle, much like the mechanism of a Spinning Jenny.  If you were working very fast, it was easy to slip and find your hand pulled towards the needle by your new yarn.

In the background of that photo by the way, you can see some of the ShefKnit girls exclaiming over the new spinning wheel that Tracey bought while we were there :)

I managed to make myself a new contact, who may be able to supply me with a Turkish spindle.  This is something I've been after for a while, but they're so difficult to find in the UK.  You can buy them from the US, but the shipping cost is usually more than the value of the spindle!

Finally, I spoke to the lovely people at Sparkleduck about a particular colourway that I'd like for an especially epic pattern I want to knit.  As they only dye a handful of skeins in each colourway at a time, there was no way I was going to find 3 full skeins in the colourway I wanted at any of the festivals.  However, I've been told that I can request any of the regular colourways on any of the regular yarn bases, and they will dye it for me.  So that is on my list of things to do after Christmas.  

Yes, I know, I said the 'C' word.  It's ok, it's not here yet...

Time to get back to that October WIP-down now...

In Memoriam

In the early hours of this morning I finished a project.  Normally, I don't think I'd dedicate an entire blog post to just one project, but this one is special to me.

Let me set the scene:

My mam was an amazing woman.  I can't even begin to explain the things that she lived though, the responsibilities that she took in her stride, or the impact that she had on so many lives.  But trust me when I say she was remarkable.  This photo was taken on a family outing in June 2011:

Mam was also the woman who taught me to knit when I was maybe 6 years old.  I can only assume that she did a lot of knitting at the time because it was less expensive than buying clothes for us, because I learned later in life that she really wasn't a big knitting fan.  In fact, when I started high school in 1990 she cast on a royal blue sweater so that I could have a sweater in my school colour for the winter.  In 1993 I finished my GCSEs, and no longer needed a school uniform, but mam had not finished knitting that sweater.  So she decided to try to finish it for my sister.  In 1995 my sister graduated high school, and still no sweater.  We have some very close friends who lived across the street when we were children.  Gemma and Vikki are like 2 more sisters to us.  So mam decided she would try to finish the sweater for Vikki finishing high school.  Needless to say, she never did.  

You  will have noticed that I always refer to my mam in the past tense.  This is because shortly after the photo above was taken, she was diagnosed with stage 4 Ovarian cancer. 

They call ovarian cancer the 'Silent Killer', because the symptoms are hard to spot, and easily dismissed as being something far more minor.  My mam had 3 cesarean sections during her life, when she complained of abdominal pain her doctors blamed adhesions on the scar tissue and never bothered to investigate further.  In the end, her cancer was spotted because she developed a lung infection that wouldn't shift, and when they tested the fluid that had built up on her lungs they found cancer cells that had spread from her ovaries.  By then it was just too late.  I can't emphasise enough how important it is that you know the symptoms of ovarian cancer as well as we now know how to check for breast cancer.  Go here and find out more, it might save your life.

My mam fought this horrible disease for 17 months after her diagnosis, she saw her first grandchild born, and reach her 1st birthday, but on the 8th November 2012, with us there holding her hands, she finally stopped fighting.

We miss her more than words can say.

Life goes on

To begin with, it was simply too painful to think about what I might want to do as a memorial for my mam.  She never wanted a fancy tombstone or anything, she wanted us to remember her in our hearts, as she was, not as a block of granite with writing on.

Then earlier this year I found a pattern on Ravelry called "Rocky Mountaineer".  It's part of a collection by Susan Ashcroft, also known as Stitchnerd, based on various trains.

My mam had always wanted to travel on the Rocky Mountaineer, and when she retired, she finally fulfilled that dream.  Her diagnosis came just a year after she retired, so that Rocky Mountaineer trip was her last big holiday.

In a few weeks it will be 2 years since we lost my mam.  Although it still hurts, it is finally possible for me to think about working on an heirloom type shawl made in her memory.  Obviously, the Rocky Mountaineer was the perfect choice.

So at the end of August, I chose my yarn, and it had to be blue, of course, in homage to that long ago sweater that my mam never finished, and I cast on:

As I worked the seemingly interminable garter stitch that forms the first third of the shawl, I decided that as this was to be in memory of my mam, I really wanted it to be special.  So I decided to bead the lace section.

I wish I'd made that decision before casting on.  Adding beads to lace with a crochet hook is time consuming to say the least.  I timed myself, and it was taking me a full hour to knit just one row if it was a beaded row.

Any other project, I might have changed my mind and decided not to add the beads after all, but this one I wanted to be perfect.  I made an error in one of the lace rows one night, and rather than call it a 'design feature', I carefully ripped back the 3 rows I'd knit since making the error, and picked up all 216 stitches.

It was worth it though.

Last night I added the last bead, and cast off the last stitch:

I even stayed up a little longer to soak it and pin it out to block.

Here is the final result:

I am so pleased that I put the extra effort into adding the beads, and making sure that this is absolutely as perfect as I could make it.  I will wear it, and I will think of the best mam anyone could ever wish for.  And when my niece is older, I will pass it on to her, as a reminder of the grandma she only knew for 14 precious months.

In memory of Margaret Lynn, mother, wife, sister, friend, and beacon of strength for all who needed her, right to the end.  I will love you forever.

October challenge progress, and some other stuff...

I've just got back from a lovely weekend visiting my family up in Newcastle, and I'm currently catching up on Strictly Come Dancing.  I have been doing some knitting tonight, but as I've been working on a beaded shawl with hundreds of stitches, I've only managed 2 rows all night, and I think it might be a bit late to start another row.

So lucky you, you get an update on my progress so far in our October WIP-down!

Finished Objects (FOs)

I'm pleased to report that the first 2 items on the list are now complete, and both have been delivered to their new owners.

I did show you a photo of the completed baby cardigan, but sadly, I was too busy catching up on gossip to take photos of the cushion covers after they had been put on their intended cushions, but I did get this quick snap of one rather over-stuffed with my own sofa cushions:

WIPs

Next on my list is the shawl I'm knitting in memory of my wonderful mam.  This is the shawl with hundreds of stitches and added beads.  When I first cast this on I hadn't decided to add the beads.  If I had, then I think I would have pre-threaded them onto the yarn.  It would have allowed for better placement in the lace-work, and it would have been much quicker than adding each bead individually with a tiny crochet hook.  However, I do still like the way the beads are working:

As proof that I can't possibly just work on one thing at a time, I've also made a little progress on the tweed sweater that I'm making for myself.  Just a couple of stripes, but I'm a woman of not inconsiderable size, so knitting a row of ribbing that will encompass my bust takes a little while!

The final project that I've made some progress on is Kelly's socks.  These are a brilliant small, portable project, so I've been taking them on the tram into work.  I only get a few rows done each working day, but that's enough to mean I'm now working the gusset on the first sock.

This yarn is brilliant, you don't need to knit any fancy patterns, this sock is just a simple rib, but the changing colours in the yarn make those fabulous patterns.  The yarn itself is a good, sturdy, superwash wool with nylon, which is good, because it'll need to be fairly sturdy the way Kelly treats his socks!

So that's what I've been up to for the last 2 weeks.  I think 2 finished projects, and noticeable progress on 3 more is not too bad for the first half of a month long challenge.

Impromptu Shopping

As I said at the start of this post, I've just been up north to visit my family.  I'm not the only member of my family with a crafty streak.  My sister bakes, and makes cards, my step-mum also knits, and my dad does wood carving.  Mostly he carves decorative walking sticks and knife handles, and he's recently started volunteering at Ashington woods, teaching basic wood carving skills, such as how to carve a spoon, or make a clothes-peg.

My dad loves hearing about our crafting, and he will often suddenly present us with some little tool that he's carved for us to help with our hobbies.  This weekend he had 2 things that he'd made for me - one is a cute french knitting bobbin that is so comfortable to hold, and it has a little face on it, because apparently a knot in the wood looked like a smiley face, so he picked out those details in the finished object.  There's also a matching device for lifting the yarn over the pins.  The other is a pendant for a necklace in the shape of a flower, carved out of stiff leather and set with a little crystal, but the best bit is that in the notches between the petals are tiny little blades, tucked away so they can't cut you by accident, but you can use them to cut your yarn.

On top of these gifts, he also took me shopping, because my step-mum told me about her new favourite wool shop, where you can buy 400g balls of yarn!  400g!!!  So this is what I brought home with me today:

It's cut into my Bakewell budget a little bit, but all of that lovely aran will be perfect for my charity knitting this winter, and how could I resist the sock yarn and super-cute mini-skeins?

If you're wondering why I have a budget for a small town in Derbyshire, it's because next weekend that small town is hosting Bakewell Wool Gathering, but I'll tell you all about that next week!

Aaand... Penguins!

The yarn isn't the only shopping I've done this week.  Winter suddenly arrived in force exactly 1 week ago, then apparently decided not to bother after all by Friday, but on Tuesday I didn't know that we weren't in fact about to face another biblical style flood, and my walk into work on Monday had informed me that last years winter boots would absolutely not be up to the task of keeping my feet dry.  So I went shopping for boots and some new winter clothes.

I found the things I was looking for, and you're wondering what exactly this has to do with penguins, right? Well womens clothing stores are weird places, and as you approach the checkout you find mysterious little displays of useless little trinkets that you absolutely MUST HAVE.  Usually they're things like nail polish, or lip-gloss.  So as I went to pay for my new clothes, I found these little fellows:

Believe it or not, they are actually pots of lip-gloss.  Clearly this is not why I bought them.  I have no desire at all to wear pink lip-gloss, strawberry scented or not.  But glittery penguins, now they are a thing that I need to own!

I'm not done though, there's more...  

The glittery penguins being found near the checkout of a womens clothing store sort of makes sense when you realise that they contain lip-gloss, but I have no idea what-so-ever what this was doing there:

You wind it up and it waddles about.  It is outstandingly cute.  But how did this end up being bought along with a pair of skinny jeans and a lacey top?

And on that slightly baffling note I shall leave you.

Sweet dreams my dears.

Octo-Mojo

This year the focus among the Sheffield knitters group has been on knitting from stash.  But, it's now October, and we're all flagging a little bit, so Helen came up with the idea of a challenge to get our mojo back.

The challenge is to finish off as many WIPs as possible.

WIP = Work In Progress

People often ask "what are you working on right now?" and it's not as easy a question as you might think.  I don't know many monogamous knitters!  By that I obviously don't mean that knitters have especially complicated love-lives, I mean that it's rare for a knitter to be working on just one project at a time.

I like to have about 3 projects on the go.  One complicated and challenging, one simple, and one small enough to carry on the tram into work.

The problem is, it rarely works like this!  There are projects that get put in Time Out because they have misbehaved, there are projects that push to the front of the queue, and there are projects that beg to be cast on right now!

Look at that beauty!  This yarn is like the Holy Grail.  It's part of a collection hand dyed by Countess Ablaze inspired by Suetonious' Twelve Caesars.  A handful of one of a kind colourways are released each month, and there is a bit of a fight to claim your favourites before anyone else can click on it.  This particular yarn sold out in record time, less than 4 minutes after the update went live!  I picked mine up from the Post Office yesterday :)

As well as being a stunning colourway, this is my favourite yarn base in the world.  4-ply, super-soft, and sparkly.  So as you can imagine, I'm itching to get this on the needles!  I can hear it calling to me!

Then there are all the gorgeous smooshies that I bought at Yarndale, whispering in my ear about all the lovely things that they want to become...

But I must resist!  And here is why; as of the 1st of October 2014, these were the things that I had on the go:

1) Olly’s cardigan - needs 1 and a half sleeves, and the button band knitting. 

2) Myras cushion covers - the one new project I’m allowing myself to cast on, because I want it done before I next go up north, which I hope to be in less than 2 weeks.
3) Mams memorial shawl - about 65% complete so far. 

4) Kellys socks - working the heel of the first sock, so still plenty to do.
5) Chunky squares blanket - I’m not going to finish this, because it’s a part-work thing, but I’d like to catch up to the current update.
6) Dazzle scarf - I’ve been working on this since last Christmas, only half a ball to go, really should finish it! 

7) Tweedy Tubey - I want this done before winter properly arrives, but I’m not really expecting to get it finished this month as I’m only about a quarter done so far. 

8) Thinking Cap - I cast this on before breaking my wrist in January, and never picked it up again after. It’s a great big fiddly pain, but I want to get it done this year at least. 

9) Giant Red Cardigan Of DOOM! - If I get to this, it’ll be a bloody miracle, but it’s another one that I want off the needles before 2014 is done. 

10) Kyna - I started this after I’d finished last years Christmas knitting, it was supposed to be a nice, relaxing, selfish knit, and as such I never got time to work on the damn thing! So it’s been stuck with just the set-up rows done for almost a year.
11) Lace scarf - Included only because it’s on my WIP list, this is a no pressure knit that lives at Stephens house. There’s not a chance in hell that I’ll get more than a couple of rows of this done before Halloween!

The 'Progress' Part

I've already made some progress through this epic list.  With just 1 week until I need to hand the first 2 items to their new owners, I've been concentrating on those.  Olly's cardigan is now complete!

And Myra's cushion covers have been cast on:

I honestly don't think I'll get through the entire list before the end of this month.  But I'd like to get at least half way through.

At the end of this month I'm going on holiday.  I think I know what I'll be knitting while I'm away, and it's not anything on this list I assure you!  Holiday knitting has to be my favourite yarns, and no pressure.

After that, I have to start thinking about Christmas... but I'm trying not to think that too loudly just yet!

Yarndale 2014

When I was younger, I kept a journal.

When I got older, I learned that sometimes keeping an honest account of things you've done, and not locking it away from prying eyes can get you into trouble.

These days, I can't say I really do anything exciting enough with my life to get me into trouble more serious than perhaps some people finding out just how much money I spend on yarn.

But these days journals are so last century, instead we have blogs.  So I'm going to keep a blog, and here it is!

Do you need to know any more back-story than that?  No, I don't think so really, so let's just dive right in shall we?

YARNDALE!!!

Last weekend I went to Yarndale, on a coach trip organised by the very lovely Eleanor of Knit Nottingham.

The coach set off from Nottingham at a totally ungodly hour, and stopped in Sheffield to pick up stragglers (my friend Krissy, and myself), then pootled on up to Skipton.

I wasn't actually paying enough attention to be able to tell you what time it was when we arrived, but arrive we did, and dived right into Skipton Auction Mart.

The Auction Mart is where on a normal day you'd find farmers buying and selling livestock.  It's a big hangar-like building with a concrete floor, drainage channels, and pens for sheep and the like inside.  To be fair, some of them did actually contain sheep, or alpacas, or bunnies.  But most of them had been transformed into cubbies of yarny joy.

I understand that giant walls of text, no matter how carefully separated into neat paragraphs, is considered bad form in the world of blogs, and that readers will cry "TL;DR!" if you don't pander to the modern day goldfish-like attention span by punctuating any blog post with regular pretty pictures.  So, here's a pretty picture:

When I eventually get it to upload, then this is actually a photo from Yarndale last year, but this year I was far too busy fondling the smooshies to remember to get the camera out very much.

I did take this photo though, which might not be terribly exciting to you, but it is to me.  The reason being that the organisers of Yarndale asked last year for crocheted bunting to help decorate the building (see the photo above), and this year they asked for crocheted mandalas.  Now last year, no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't find the bunting that I'd sent in, but this year I found my mandala!  And here it is:

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  This year we were given a lovely souvenir guidebook as we entered, and this included a floor plan, as well as several patterns, and details about each of the exhibitors.  So we used the guidebook to find stall 1, and set out to see everything in order.

I had a sort of shopping list for the day - I wanted a niddy noddy to replace the improvised contraption I have been using that's made of a coathanger, sellotape, and chopsticks.  I was also after gradient yarn.  It's hard stuff to find, because it's difficult for dyers to dye, but if there was going to be any for sale, then I figured it would be at Yarndale.  And I was after undyed yarn so that I can have a go at natural dying.  Oh, I was also half looking for a sunflower swift.  Those umbrella ones just scare me.

I found the undyed yarn straight away, my first purchase of the day.  100g of 4-ply corriedale.  Yummy!  And a bargain at only £5.00.

Next I found a selection of niddy noddies, and managed to resist all the pretty fibre on the same stand.  It was Wingham Wool Work, which is actually not too far from Sheffield, so if I'm feeling flush, then I can go and visit some time.

You'll see a photo that includes my new Kromski, mahogany stain, niddy noddy at the end of this post, but just so you can see how much of an improvement it is for me, here's what I have been using up until now:

After this, I started to suffer from what the lovely James of the DancingGeek podcast calls 'yarn fumes'.  It's an apt term I feel!  But whatever the case, I can't actually remember all the stalls we visited, or the order in which we visited them.  So I'll give a shout out to the ones I remember most:

Cuddlebums - lovely gradient yarns!  I found my gradient, and even better, it was 4-ply, my favourite!  I also got a gorgeous purple yarn with a splash of bright rainbow colours at one end of the skein.  I've seen skeins dyed this way before by the amazing Countess Ablaze (girl-crush, you'll hear a lot about the Countess in this blog!) but I've never actually knit with one, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it knits up.

Triskelion - Oh how I love this stall!  I could photograph this and put the photo on my wall to look at all day long.  In fact, I'm not sure why I didn't photograph it!  I bought from Triskelion last year, but sadly my meagre budget prevented me from doing so this year.  They dye semi-solid colourways in astonishingly deep, intense jewel tones.  Here's the pitiful start that I've made on a project using one of their yarns:

Hilltop Cloud - apparently this is the place to go for fibre.  After visiting their stall at Yarndale, I can absolutely see why.  I was unbelievably restrained and only bought a couple of 20g bags of fibre, in colourways named after the wives of Henry VIII.  So I'm currently spinning Anne Boleyn, and Catherine of Aragon is in my stash.

Spin City UK - she sells some lovely fibre, but what I was interested in here was her drop spindles.  I'd never spend this much on any other drop spindle, but these are works of art, and I had to have one!  I started spinning Anne Boleyn on mine before we'd even left Yarndale:

The Knitting Goddess - more yummy gradient yarns, this time in a set of 7 mini-skeins dyed all the colours of a blackened rainbow.  She had so much else available that I loved, but I managed to come away with just the gradient skeins, oh, and a cute little lapel badge that said "BFL is a gateway substance".  Since my affinity for yarn and fibre has been called an addiction before, I thought it was appropriate!

Sparkleduck - always beautiful, and always so much choice of fibre content, as well as colour.  I genuinely couldn't afford to buy anything by the time we reached these guys, but they are going to be at Bakewell Wool Gathering on the 18th and 19th of this month, so I knew I'd have another chance.  Which is good, because I have my eye on a particular dark purple and black colourway that I think will work perfectly as Celestarum (that's an epic shawl pattern, and if I buy this yarn in a few weeks, I'll tell you about the pattern then).

Batat hand dyed yarns - I absolutely had never heard of these guys before, and their stall was tiny, but this one skein of purples with bright pops of lime green in it drew me towards it.  When I picked it up and felt how soft it was I started to really fall in love, and when I turned the tag over and saw it was called "Herman Munster" that sealed the deal!

Fivemoons - another one that I couldn't afford to buy from this year, but really wish I could have.  Her yarns are beautiful, and they have amazing names!  Just so you can see how beautiful, here's a hat that I made from some I bought last year:

Woodland turnery - Although I didn't buy anything from these guys, I can't possibly forget them because my friend Krissy has recently begun learning to weave, and apparently these are THE guys to go to for weaving accessories.  I confess that I know next to nothing about weaving, but the things they were talking about all made sense.  Everything they make is tested by an actual weaver, who then makes suggestions for alterations.  The end result is that everything is practical and useful.  Krissy was waxing lyrical about their shuttles, which include a smooth bevelled edge that can be used for beating the weft into place, and have a distinctive decoration that makes identifying different sizes of shuttle much easier.

Lucy the Tudor - my final mention, and for slightly unusual reasons I guess.  I've had connections to our local medieval re-enactment group for many years now, but most people get involved so they can learn how to fight in the medieval style.  That's not really for me, but I am interested in the fibre crafting from back then.  Having done some research into 15th century spinning, I'd found that many re-enactors use a modern drop spindle, when all of the evidence suggests that this wasn't the case.  Lucy the Tudor, and her Tudor fellow, were selling a number of fibre-craft items from many different eras, but among them were spindles much more similar to those depicted in medieval paintings of people spinning.  So I bought one of those.

Here is a photo of my complete haul for the day:

You may notice something in there that I've not mentioned, and that's because items of that type are not normally something I'd be looking for at a yarn faire.  Little felted toys are not normally interesting to me.  But this one is a penguin!  And from the same stall I got a little canvas bag with a penguin on it too!  Look at him!!!

Penguins, especially Adelie penguins, are the pinnacle of evolution on this planet, and we humans are an infestation that encroaches on their territory.  Nothing you can say will ever alter my opinion of this!

Next time I update, I might actually get around to talking about knitting, but that's it for now.

Sweet dreams my darlings.