Well, Wonderwool Wales was absolutely fantastic!
The organisation was amazing and the team of stewards managed to stay cheerful throughout the day whether directing traffic at 8am/6pm, helping man stalls so folk could go for a loo break if they were on their own or modelling items on the Sheepwalk. It really makes a difference when you know that if you need help with something, asking a person in a crocheted version of a hi-vis vest will actually get you the answer, or point you in the direction of someone else who will know! I hope that Chrissie and her team are taking a well-earned rest now.
It may seem strange to start by talking about the organisation and ‘backstage’ part of the show, but until I started exhibiting/vending at yarn shows (and then helping to run one myself!) I didn’t have any idea about what was involved. Getting 205 different companies set up in three large agricultural sheds for a weekend, when everyone has at least one vehicle they need to unload from and we all want to minimise the carrying/wheeling distance is no mean feat. The set-up time was from 12-8pm on Friday and although a lot of folk arrived at 12 or shortly after as we did, it was spread out over that time period. Not so the get-out. The show finished at 4.30pm on Sunday. Everyone packs down their stand and returns any hired tables and chairs to the show office or nearest steward (thanks Amy!) and goes to reclaim their furniture deposit. Then everyone wants to get their vehicle out of the exhibitors’ car park, load up and go home. It could have been chaos, but it wasn’t. A short wait in the queue to get out of the car park, told the steward which hall we were in and where we wanted to go to load up, and we were loaded and out of the show ground by 6pm!
So, what about the bit in between? The actual yarn show? It was amazing. I had to keep pinching myself that we were really there. After so many years as a visitor thinking “I’d love to do this”, now I actually am! I loved every bit of it – talking to visitors, explaining patterns and techniques, pulling my on-the-go brioche swatch out of my pocket for an impromptu brioche tutorial (many times!), modelling Meg March Shawl and Twisted moebius cowl on the sheepwalk (four times!) and helping folk choose which patterns or kits they’d like to buy.
The Sheepwalk was fun. When I first went to Wonderwool I saw the Sheepwalk listed in the brochure and thought it must be a livestock display. There are plenty of animals at the show after all – sheep in particular. But that’s not it at all – it’s a fashion show of items from different exhibitors, some modelled by the makers/designers themselves (as I did), some by stewards and volunteers from the audience and it happens twice each day.
I loved catching up with some of the other vendors too – though I didn’t have time to talk to everyone I would have liked to. I also completely failed to take any photos other than a few photos of our stand. Sue did get a pic of a customer’s Nevern Lap Blanket though. She had chosen to use just one of the charts with a whole range of colours of tapestry wool and omit the garter stitch borders, and it looks amazing. This is a photo of the photo on the customer’s phone.
Another knitter arrived wearing Tiffany, which literally made me gasp. I still find it a little surprising and a whole lot delightful when I see people wearing my designs that they have knitted. And someone else showed me her Forest Ferns Moebius in progress being made with two gorgeous yarns held double.
The only reason I was able to take part in the Sheepwalk was because Sue was with me at the show, and was able (and happy) to look after the stand and customers while I wasn’t there. She was an absolute trooper throughout the entire event. I am so proud of how much she is able to tell folk about the designs now and how many questions she is able to answer too! It’s quite a luxury to be able to do something you love with the person you love. Sue’s help also means I’ll be able to apply to lead workshops at more shows in the future, something I haven’t done as much before due to running the stand on my own.
There are a couple of things to learn from this year’s Wonderwool for the future. One is to bring more patterns and kits that tend to sell well. I brought 20 copies of each of Nevern Throw and Nevern Lap Blanket and by the end of Saturday we only had 2 copies of the Throw and 6 of the Lap Blanket left – and they were all gone by about 11.30am on Sunday! We also sold out of the large Twisted kits (partly thanks to the Sheepwalks I think!). Another is that when we’re staying somewhere with no lift that’s on the third floor to check we’ve got the soya milk out of the ‘under storage’ part of the car boot… There were 65 steps up from the ground to our apartment and we have bungalow legs! On both days we’d got to the top before realising something important had been left in the car… It was a lovely apartment though and I’d happily stay there again – even with all those steps!
There was lots of interest in Sugar Loaf Cardigan with its ‘Coming soon!’ sign and I’m hoping that will be ready to go up online and be printed out for Buxton Wool Gathering which is less than 3 weeks away!
I had taken a sock to knit during quiet times, but there weren’t really any. I did a little on it each evening and it can be my yarn show project for the next few months. The yarn is from Weku Yarns (they’ve stopped dying yarn now, which makes this skein even more special) and the pattern is my Bodelwyddan sock pattern. The colours in the yarn are creating some really interesting patterns – this is called pooling.
The past couple of days have been about checking stock levels, making sure the numbers add up correctly in the takings, analysing what sold (and what didn’t), reprinting some patterns and starting to plan new ideas. There are several – ideas for new knitting designs, about stand layout, whether to get another collapsible brochure display stand for my designs etc.
You may also have noticed that my website looks a little different. I kept getting a message that my website ‘theme’ was incompatible with ‘AMP’ (I’m still not sure what that is, but it seems important) and that I needed to change it, so I looked through the themes that were listed as being compatible, did a preview of this one, and changed to it. The computer seems to think this theme isn’t compatible with AMP either, but having just had to rebuild my homepage from scratch, I’m not changing it again just yet! What do you think of it?
Take care one and all, and I’ll tell you more about some of my future plans next time. K x
