Wonderwool was my first wool festival, and I had the best day ever! Of course! We met some angora rabbits, and learned that one rabbit produces about 400g of fibre each year. That's a lot of carrots per gram! The rabbits and their person were very charming anyway. These two are actually the same size, but one has recently had a haircut. Can you guess which?!
Mammar and I got excited about learning to use drop spindles
and Crochet Queen and I bought waaaay too much fibre!
There were exhibitors from all over wales, covering all possible variations on wool-based craft, and the quality of materials and presentation was very very high. Here's a little peek at my haul:
I mostly bought yarn and fibre for my upcoming adventures in Making Craft Pay, so watch this space for updates on that. The Norwegian wool batt and paper bag of loose alpaca I am hoping to spin, with some support from Crochet Queen! She can do anything, that girl. The big cone in the middle is 500g of double knit, knitted on the artifacts at the National Museum Wales, and was a present from Mammar. Because of this I am torn, between turning it into a jumper for Sausages, and just keeping it to look at because it's so precious! In fact, I wish I had seen their stall first because it was lovely and I would have bought much more of their yarn, but by the time I found it I had very little money left, and I was determined not to spend beyond the cash I had saved up for the purpose. In fact, I did come home with more than £3 in my pocket, which is a small miracle, really. I'm already saving up for my next wool festival. Fibre East, anyone? On the way home Mammar and I took an impulsive detour to Raglan Castle, which she loved as a young woman.
Sadly it was all locked up, and the cafe had just closed, but it looked pretty impressive all the same. My mother loves castles. Throughout my childhood we would spend whole days running around castles and hill forts pretending to be Bouddica or Llewelyn or Robin Hood or Granuaile, depending on where we were. Actually, I'm noting a bit of a bias there towards the native/celtic underdog. Not surprising at all, really. I hope someday soon I'll be running around castles with Sausages, firing imaginary arrows and looking out for foe. A trip to Claire Island is called for, I think. Do any of you have similar memories? Are any of you living them with your children now? I hope so. We're so lucky to have so much accessible history.
I hope you had a lovely weekend too
E
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