WoolFest2009

I figured out on the drive over that this was my 4th WoolFest in a row. It doesn't seem 3 years since I first went but there you go. Time flies. This time I took my Mum along with me to share the love. Most of the usual stands were there with lots of yummy fibre, although I was a little bit disappointed there were more stalls selling balls of yarn. There seemed to be a lot more felting stalls this year.

After admiring the fantastic handmade baskets the last few years I finally gave in and bought one to tidy all my knitting mess into in the living room. As well as being quite simple in design and therefore looking great, the wood has a really good smell. It was made by Phil Bradley.

I didn't buy an awful lot else. I got some lovely fibre from Felt Studio. The first is a 50/50 baby camel/silk blend, which is extremely soft.

And the second is this BFL/Alpaca/Bamboo blend, which is also quite soft and in a larger quantity (100g).

I got the obligatory buttons from The Button Lady, a set of DPNs to make up my depleted ones, and some rather dirty to feel, bargin bin, black yarn to felt with (£2/500g).

I really enjoyed going again this year, although I must say it felt like hard work lugging my overweight self around. I look forward to being more mobile next year.

A long week

It's felt like I long week here, because I've spent most of it at home with a stomach bug. Not really much to tell, so I'll mention a couple of other things I managed to get done last weekend.

I finally finished my maternity sweater, which I was proudly at the bus stop on Tuesday morning, before I decided it might be better to come home. Here is it.

I made some curtains for the nursery. They could probably do with some weights for the bottoms, but I haven't been out all week to be able to get any.

I managed to do a bit of spinning on Friday night/Saturday morning and here is the result. It's blue faced leicester (BFL) humbug, from Wingham Wool Work. This is the first spinning I've done in ages. I span the first single back in March and only just got round to spinning another. I'm not sure what to spin next. I'm thinking I should probably try and use some of my handspun in projects before spinning anything new.

I'm hoping I'll be able to get back to normal this week before WoolFest on Friday, but it's taking me way longer than I expected. I'm not a very good patient.

Quilt

During the last 3 weeks I've been making panels for an activity quilt for the baby. I decided to do it after seeing one a friend had bought and wondering if I could make something just as (if not more) interesting. It's also a good excuse to use up odds and ends and make silly patterns and shapes. Plus it was really hot at the time and knitting in wool wasn't filling me with enthusiasm. Here is the nearly finished article.

I've never really quilted much beyond cushions before. I have done the piecing together for larger items but never the actual quilting. In the blue square I want to add some chewable rings or a mirror or something. I thought I'd have a look around and see what was available.

The flowers, mushrooms and snail have bells inside. The ladybirds are on elastic connectors (wrapped in ribbon). The quilted leaves lift up, but I still need to paint some insects underneath them. The light blue fabric with stars makes a crinkly noise when it is touched. If you click on the flickr photo you can go to that site and see the notes I've put on it.

Anyway, this has kept me entertained for a few weeks and I'm quite pleased with the results. I think if I did another one I could make it much neater and improve on some bits, but you live and learn. I'm sure the baby won't be inspecting my stiching. It will be a while before it gets used anyway.

Whitby

This weekend my Mum celebrated her 60th birthday. We had a long weekend in Whitby, on the North Yorkshire coast. The weather wasn't as good as it has been, but it could have been worse. We didn't really get caught in the rain at all on Saturday and Sunday was even a bit sunny. We had a walk to Sandsend and back.

We had a lovely fish supper in the Magpie, and I bought some Gansey wool in Bobbins Wool Crafts and Antiques, which is in the old town. I'm intending to knit the Whitby pattern, although when I'll get round to it I don't know. It feels like something I should do at some point.

We went to Whitby for our Summer holiday several times when my brother and I were quite young, so it was interesting to visit it again. It hasn't changed that much.

I made my mum a birthday cake. I thought it should be something special, but I've not got much experience of this type of thing. It took me a few evenings last week. I don't think it's bad for a first attempt, although it is at risk of looking a bit like a colour-blindness test. The ladies in Cake Classes and Cutters in Brunton Park were really helpful.

Wedding Number 3

This weekend saw us attending our third and final wedding of the year, unless someone is going to surprise us at the last minute. Despite planning to be there in plenty of time, we managed to totally miss the ceremony and spent the time sat on the M1 instead, which then closed, due to an accident. After an interesting, map-less detour we eventually managed to get back on track and arrived at the reception just before the rest of the guests. This was the scene that greeted us.

This later became our supper.

The weather was amazing. We had a relaxed Pimms reception in a garden, overlooking Rutland Water. The weather was possibly the best of any wedding I've been too. It was great to see many of my Leicester friends again.

Jonny and Emma both looked very happy, although as usual I completely failed to take any decent photos of them. This was the only one I managed, and unfortunately the back of someone else's head features almost as highly.

The nice thing about this wedding was that there was plenty of everything to go round and many of the guests really appreciated the ample supply of wine, however unfortunately I was not able to be one of them. There was a fantastic cheesy disco with a live band. Sadly jumping up and down with a bump turned out not to be very sensible so I only danced a couple.

Thanks to Emma and Jonny and their families for their wonderful hospitality.