Yarndale!

Last weekend at Yarndale was great fun and I had a lovely time hanging out on the RiverKnits stand with Becci and Markus (and Bryn). I was very lucky that, as well as it being the launch of Agnes and Tiffany (the two new shawls), they had also invited me to bring some of my other patterns and samples with me – so I had half a table and a long clothes rail to display my stuff on.

This is the fab video that Becci took of the stand just before everything got going on Day 1 – clicking play will take you to Instagram to see the video, but that’s ok – I’ll wait for you to come back!

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It was the first two-day event I’ve been at for the whole time, and folk are right – that concrete floor gets mightily cold! However, the marching band that came around regularly on the Saturday helped warm us up and get the blood moving as you couldn’t help but dance to the beat.

There was no band on Sunday, but instead some rather large sheep did the rounds – pursued by a very friendly sheepdog! Unfortunately, my pic of the sheepdog is rather out of focus as I was laughing so much when I took it – the dog kept pausing to wag its tail!

It was wonderful to talk to people about yarn all weekend – and so lovely to see reactions to Agnes and Tiffany as people came towards the stand. I certainly got a big boost from hearing all the comments and from talking to people about their plans for knitting them.

Another bonus was being able to look round the rest of the show, especially on Sunday morning shortly before opening. Getting a chance to chat to some of the other vendors (including some who had been at Yarn Gathering the weekend before – hello Tanya from The Woolly Tangle and Lyn from Gwennol Designs!!) was great too.

So, Yarndale is done, and Agnes and Tiffany are launched. What’s next?

There will be a “Cast-on/Cast-off; Beginning and Ending Well” workshop at Yarn O’clock on October 18th, 6.30-9pm. There are only going to be 4 spaces, so book early! (I know there have been some requests for another brioche workshop and that will be coming, but not until at least November).

I’ll be teaching three workshops at The Knit-Tea Retreat in Cardiff on October 22nd-23rd: Moebius Knitting, Stacked Stitches (learning to use the techniques used so spectacularly by Xandy Peters in their designs), and Cast-on/Cast-off. I’ll also have a stand at their marketplace on the Sunday afternoon.

I’m working on plans for the next MKAL with Yarn O’clock (you’re not getting any clues as to what it’ll be yet!) that we’re aiming to run in January. In fact, swatching for this is taking place this week!

AND, there will be a third RiverKnits shawl joining Agnes and Tiffany! I got to choose the yarn and discuss ideas for it at the weekend. Here’s a real teaser in the form of a black and white photo so you can’t even tell what the yarn colours are:

Phew! I think I’m going to have to make the spaces bigger in my forward planning section of my next bullet journal as the pace of things is definitely picking up.

What are you up to at the moment? What are you working on or planning to make next?

I heard a wonderful quote this morning, apparently from Albert Einstein:

“Creativity is intelligence having fun”.

Albert Einstein

And we all need all the fun we can get, right? It’s been shown (not sure where, so I can’t give you the citation) that even forty minutes of making/crafting is truly beneficial to your brain chemicals. So, go make something. And take care out there, K x