My first stop of the day was to see Lilith at the Old Maiden Aunt stall. I've been reading her blog ever since she assassinated me in Sock Wars in 2006. To show there were no hard feelings I took along some chocolate which appeared to be very welcome.
I attended the Toft Alpaca felting workshop with with Helen, Kate, and Sarah which was good fun and full of interesting alpaca facts.
We made some knitted beads for felting and then used needle felting to embellish some pre-felted beads. I'm now very keen on the idea of felted baubles for Christmas.
In the afternoon I sat with Ruth, Clare, Katie and FB (resplendent in duck trousers) for Meg Swanson's talk. She read two extracts from The Opinionated Knitter, did a bit of a Q&A and then showed us some classic examples of EZ knitting including a baby surprise pullover - so cute.
Jared Flood introducing Meg Swanson
Meg Swanson in EZ rib warmer
Between the workshop and talk I shopped and talked to the vendors and exhibitors - I had a lovely chat with Rachel of Rachel John Extreme textiles who knits and crochets rugs, carpets and throws using 26mm (and larger) needles and hooks using multiple strands of yarn. There was a wonderful inch thick 2m square piece knit using brown carpet wool and a beautiful throw knit at a much looser gauge using many stands of blue mohair with one strand of red and one of gold thrown in.
Want to see what I bought?
I wasn't planning to buy commercial (rather than indie) yarn but I just love Louet Gems and I couldnt' resist these colours.
100% Shetland combed top in Moody from Old Maiden Aunt
Superwash merino sock yarn in Gothic from Old Maiden Aunt
I also bought 500g of grey Shetland as I'm really keen to make a non-sock garment from handspun. I was going to go for the black but then decided that I wanted to do cables and thought that they'd show up much better in the grey.
The only thing now is to decide what to start playing with first.
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