unravel

Yesterday I went to a knitting and yarn festival, held at the lovely Farnham Maltings. I managed to combine it with lunch with a dear friend, and had a whale of a time. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home, so there are no photos, and I haven't had time to photograph my bag full of lovelies that I came home with!

I have recently become more aware in the miles that go into production of fibre. I like to use eco and ethical yarns where feasible and practical, but haven't always been that aware of the provenance of my yarn. Which seems odd, as I'm pretty ethically minded when it comes to our household purchases - I am currently boycotting Tesco, trying to buy locally and have discovered the joys of our local Morrisons. I am aware that my slight internet shopping addiction is probably contributing to global warming and a fairly large carbon footprint, but I have made a pact that from now on, where possible, I am going to buy handmade. So this week I have purchased a gorgeous peg rail for Bea's bedroom from Folksy It's super cute and will go really well in her bedroom (which is mainly white with red - so I bought the white rail with red birds). I think that hand made and home crafted items are so much nicer and meaningful.

At unravel I was able to indulge myself completely - it helped that the children with with my husband and I had my large Orla Keily trolley with me. It was pretty empty on the train there, but I was packed like a cart horse on the way home. I managed to purchase several skeins of amazing yarn - some hand dyed from Skein Queen, some bamboo from her too, a couple of skeins of sari silk and some banana silk. I have ideas for all of them, but will keep my plans under my hat for now! My big purchase was a yarn swift - so many of the luxury yarns now come as skeins, and my husband is fed up of holding his arms out while I wind the skeins into balls, so I'd been toying with the idea of a swift for a while. So I bought one! My husband is happy, so it's a toy for both of us. I also managed to buy a drop spindle and a bunch of undyed natural fibre from UK raised sheep - some Blue Faced Leicester, some merino and some Wensleydale. I'm really excited about the prospect of spinning my own yarn and then dyeing it. So of course my final purchase of the day was a bunch of dyes for use at home from Tall Yanrs. I hope to showcase a selection of my creations over the next few weeks (if I ever get 5 minutes to myself - half term has a lot ot answer for!), so watch this space....

Happy crafting!