Yarndale 2015

I’m very sorry for the radio silence over the summer but my workload was very high and something had to give. Unfortunately for you guys, it was the blog. I’m going to try and get back into the groove of blogging. I want to try and blog weekly like I’ve done for the past few years but have a feeling that it may not happen as often as I like.

I’ve done lots of knitting and even a bit of crochet. The camera has been out lots and I’ve been sharing a few bits on Instagram. I’m @hardybarn on there and please follow me, if you’d like to.

I meant to do this blog last week but there was a bit of procastinating going on. Some friends and I hired a cottage near Skipton for Yarndale weekend. I must say it was rather fab having a knitting weekend.

Yarndale was as good as ever. The sun was shining and I’ve been saving up all year, so I had plenty of pennies to spend.

There was too much fun and chatting going on for me to remember to take photos, but here’s my haul.

I bought Coopknits Socks Volume 2 and the latest Pom Pom magazine.

I bought 2 project bags, one from Jem Weston (who does some great workshops at A Good Yarn, as well as a talented designer) and a Coopknits one.

I topped up on needles and bought some tags that were cute, to add to finished knitting gifts.

There was a ridiculous amount of buttons from Textile Garden and I’m not talking about that one!

I bought some mini skeins from Knitting Goddess and some sock yarn from easyknits to make Otis from the Coopknits sock book.

There’s a lovely cone of cobalt blue Lithuanian linen from Midwinter Yarns, which is destined for a large shawl.

The rest of the yarn was from Triskelion Yarns. The colours in this brand really appeal to my taste and I could honestly have bought the entire lot.

The grey is Dylan 4 ply which is 50% de-haired yak and 50% silk. It’s heavenly soft and is destined for a shawl of my own design that I’m working on for my City and Guilds Level 3 course.

On the Sunday, we had a trip to Clapham and Beckside Yarns to see the lovely Sandra. I might have bought more yarn….

She stocks Kauni, which is something I’ve seen a lot of but never seen it stocked in a bricks and mortar shop. So a couple of skeins of that came home with me.

Beckside Yarn is in a beautiful place and we were lucky enough to be able to sit outside in the sunshine with a coffee.

Yarndale Mug

After making this mug for when I'm at ceramics and enjoying it so much; I thought I'd make another for when I'm at A Good Yarn. We all had a lovely trip to Yarndale, so I've used the wonderful sheep logo as my inspiration.

There's a sheep on both sides. The biggest challenge was to try and match the colours because they are different before they are fired, compared to the finished result. Not exact but I'm very happy with it.

Of course, I have how I like my coffee on the mug. Here it is, just in case you want to make me a coffee!

A little "funny" that I made this week, my version of a heavily sealed envelope.

#yarndale

Yarndale....wow! I had a fantastic day. A bus load of us from A Good Yarn went on Sunday and it was amazing. First of all, I booked to do a workshop with Amy Singer, aka the editor of Knitty. The workshop was Making the Next Monkey and for anyone who is a designer or a fledgling like me, then it is fantastic. I learnt lots and lots, plus Amy was wonderful. My head was buzzing with ideas all the way home.

Even though, most of my time there was taken up by the workshop, I did managed a bit of time to supplement my stash. I bought Ply magazine, which had some gorgeous patterns in. Haven't got around to reading it yet, but looking forward to it.

There must be tons of photos of the bunting at Yarndale going around, but there were hundreds of them and the effect en masse was just incredible. Far more incredible in real life, compared to the photos.

Mostly, I bought Garnstudio Drops, 4 balls of Alpaca (in 2 shades of green and 2 balls of cream) and 2 balls of Delight. The top skein is sock yarn from The Knitting Goddess, and I loved the name - "Where There's Muck There's Brass". Mr's favourite colour combination is black/dark grey with burnt orange, so they should be perfect for a pair of socks for him. The grey yarn was the bargain of the day, it was £3 from Artisan Yarns; it was in a bargain bin with no label but it's definitely laceweight and most likely BFL.

I did make one non knitting purchase, which was a Yarndale Sheep kit from Hooked By Design. There was another kit that was stunning, this Reindeer Stocking but I just got one to see how I fair with it, as I've never done any latch hook rugs before. One of the lovely ladies from the knitting group at A Good Yarn, had done the Yarndale Sheep and made it into a bag, which looked so amazing, that it seems to have inspired several of us from A Good Yarn to give it a go ourselves. Here's my progress so far.

My first attempt, so perhaps not quite right but I'm enjoying it. Not sure what I'm going to do with the finished rug. Mr suggested turning it into a beanbag footstool. The rest would be made of leather (which we have plenty of). I like the idea but wonder about the logistics of putting it all together.