You can't go to a yarn and knitting festival without a little something coming home with you, and that's just how it should be. The only time I get to see great hand dyed yarn in the flesh is at shows, and I may as well support the vendors if I can. And I bought a little more than usual at Pomfest, as there were some new to me dyers there!
I'd not come across Rauwerk before, and they had some amazing eco and ethical yarns and there was no way I could not bring something home with me. Interestingly, through the Friday I found myself drawn to these muted pinks and had to keep myself in check.
Being woollen spun, it's a lofty yarn with some seriously good yardage - in the skein it looks more like a worsted or aran, yet the label tells you it's a DK. My skein is a 100% organic single farm yarn, hand dyed with natural dyes.
I've been eyeing The Wool Kitchen's greys with colour yarns over on Instagram but not being a huge fan of speckles, I was mighty glad to see a grey with bright solids. It's still a little out of my comfort zone but I don't doubt it'll make a seriously fun Hat!
Qing is another new to me dyer, and I was rather taken with the top skein, which is essentially the same colour as my henna dyed hair, with splashes of black through it. It's going to make a gorgeous Hat.
The 2nd skein is a single ply DK in a pretty busy colourway.... I don't normally lean towards single plies as there's always a chance of ripping and reknitting when designing, and the plied yarns stand up to that much better. I do think though that design wise, this 2nd skein wants a simple Hat, and it may be my sanity knitting that becomes a free Hat pattern this summer.
I really struggled to get the colours right in these two with my phone.
I knew of Julie Asselin's yarns, but this was the first time I saw them in the flesh. And that green is stunning! (again, tricky to capture on my phone with the light today... hindsight tells me it may have been better to pick a white background....)
The Hektos is a luscious blend of high twist merino, cashmere and silk in worsted weight. This will definitely become a Hat! (I'm just not promising when)
La Bien Aimee is another dyer I'm familiar with online, but hadn't yet had the chance to see up close. Not being a fan of speckles I thought I'd push myself a little and see what I could do with this one... it's kinda greys and lilacs and there's no white bits, which always helps.
And there was non-yarn swag!
The little cat tape measure from Pink Hazel was not going to not come home with me. As well as her usual array of gorgeous hand sewn needle cases and knitting cases, she stocks a range of Fair Trade extras, including hand crocheted animal tape measures. Win-win.
And after spying a gorgeous hand knit cardigan being worn at the show, I bought a copy of Pompom. Part of me kinda thinks that maybe I'd got a little carried away with show shopping, as I'm now having doubts about this, but I'll sit on it for a bit. I'm not very good at buying lots of stuff and always find that there's one item that's loved less when I do have a half decent spend (mostly I think 'cos I'm a frugal old sort and well, I don't like having a lot of stuff). It's a nice cardy and I just need to decide if it'll suit me... I have the hand-dyed black DK yarn already.
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I'm at Fibre East in 2 weeks time with Babylonglegs and if I'm not careful, I'll end up with too much yarn! (yes, that is a thing; remember that storage space isn't in endless supply in my world)
And now I'm starting to feel buyers regret, dammit.