fibre east 2017 - the yarn
Aegean Sea from Betsy Makes, Broccoli Stitch Markers from Jibbyroosews on Etsy
I had decided that this year I would try to get to as many different fibre festivals as I could without either a. breaking the bank, or b. breaking the bank! There are so many yarn festivals around now, big ones and small ones, that you could pretty much go to one a month and blimey you would be terribly skint!
I had the pleasure of going on Sunday to Fibre East with my good friends Chrissie and Victoria, and meeting for the very first time my fellow yarn podcasters; the lovely Sandra from Cherry Heart and Sam from Betsy Makes. I heard about this festival last year and liked the timing of it, given that the other festivals I'm fond of are in February (Unravel) and September (Yarndale). I felt like this spaces things out evenly, I can budget for a three times a year yarn spend.
Once we got together, said our hellos and got over the oddness of meeting other people you see on screen once a week or so and therefore feel like you already know, we never stopped talking. I'm sure you can imagine. And boy did we ever laugh. And shop. Laughing and shopping is pretty much how we spent the day. It was ace.
Now, we agreed to have a sweep of the stands and yarn situations before commencing the buying but that pretty much fell by the wayside immediately with everyone, apart from me, buying some yarn straight away. I then got that "she's not buying any yarn" vibe about me and seriously could not see one skein of yarn I wanted. I mean, c'mon, out of the thousands of skeins available at the festival and I couldn't find ONE to buy! Despair!
I think this may have had something to do with the fact that I was looking for purples. And I don't really 'do' purples. Purple and me just don't really get along. I don't know why but I had decided that I wanted to get some for my stash so that I could use them together with the huge collection of pinks I have - I was thinking of making something faded, something fadey, y'know faded stuff.
l-r - Rosie's Moments Aubergine, Paper Stories Aunt Marge and Ripper, Easy Knits Dark Nebula
In the end, things were looking desperate so Chrissie grabbed my arm and dragged me to Rosie's Moments, she told me that she was certain I would find something there and indeed I did. I bought some of her 4ply fingering weight 70% merino, 20% yak, 10% nylon in the colour Aubergines. It is a beautiful skein of rich purples, aubergines and browns.
Once the seal was broken - which is a bit like going for your first wee on a big night out and then spending the rest of the night in the blimmin loo! - I quickly went on to purchase some lovely yarn from Paper Stories.
I love Paula's colours; her labels, her branding, the names, all of it made me very happy. Plus I had a bashful moment when she said she watches my podcast and how much her daughter enjoys it too - moments like that can make a girl's day you know. From Paula I bought the Aunt Maude and Ripper colourway which is quite difficult to adequately describe but really a purpley tinged taupe base with speckles of brown, green, rust and blue. I got it on her 75% superwash merino, 25% nylon sock base and couldn't be happier with the softness and squeeze of the yarn.
Lastly we visited the Easy Knits stand. I have never heard of Jon's yarn before but I loved his Dark Nebula colourway, a cool grey with splashes of purple, orange and green. I snapped up a skein on his sock base, 75% merino, 25% nylon and then spent ages cooing over his amazing knitting tattoo (you need to see this tattoo, it is awesome).
I also picked up a cute mini skein from Made by Jude because I loved her, she was very vibrant and chatty and lots of lovely minis on offer, I picked up Mint Choc Chip and cooed over her lovely logo. We also visited our friend and fellow podcaster Kathryn at Crafternoon Treats who was exhibiting and she let me pick a skein of her yarn to use as a prize for my up and coming CAL - more on this exciting news later - I chose her Summer Breeze colourway on her Fabulous Four base, I'm not quite sure how I'm going to give it away!
I'll be talking a bit more about my trip in the next podcast, until then enjoy the #yarnporn yo!