It's in the bag - Perth Festival of Yarn 2018

When I saw an advert for the ultimate festival shopper I knew I needed this!

The ad was for a crochet workshop to make a clever stowaway bag - perfect for festival yarn shopping!  The workshop was to be held at Baa, a (relatively-local-to-me) yarn shop in Stonehaven which opened its doors to Aberdeenshire's fibre aficionados at the start of this year.  

I'm going to Perth Festival of Yarn shortly.  (I may have mentioned this already.)  I needed a(nother) shopping bag.  I signed up straight away.

So last Friday I spent a productive afternoon at Baa in the company of lovely ladies, including Dorothy, our patient tutor pictured here, who also designed the crochet clam shell bag.  It's no accident I'm positioned between the kettle and the cake!

Fortified by plentiful cups of tea, here's how my wee bag took shape.  I learned some new crochet stitches and construction techniques along the way.  It's always a pleasure to be creative in the company of others and chat with those who share your interests.

All the best workshops include home made cake.  Chocolate and pear sponge?  Don't mind if I do.

And look how much yarn will fit into my finished bag...  Lots!!

Thank you Baa for a great class, delightful company, new skills and a really useful finished project.  I see more of these in my future, possibly as gifts.

Earlier this summer I met Janice Anderson for the first time.  Janice is the owner of Baa.  'Owner' doesn't really convey the super-powers required to run a local yarn store as a successful small business - knitter extraordinaire, designer, teacher, yarn curator, events manager, accountant, hostess... I suspect the list goes on.  Janice will be taking a selection of her woolly wares to Perth Festival Of Yarn on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th September 2018 - including kits to make Dorothy's Clam Shell Shopper!  

Janice is also a tutor at the festival, teaching Brioche Basics on the Sunday afternoon.  

So look out for Janice at Perth - and me with my brand new shopper, stuffing it full of gorgeous goodies!

All about colour - Perth Festival of Yarn 2018

I love bright colours.  I love pastel colours.  I love neutrals.  I love ALL colours!

Especially when it comes to yarn.  And yarn festivals are a feast for the eyes - especially if you love colour.

But I can't carry colours in my head.  It turns out I'm not the only one as this scientific article explains -  how the brain remembers colour.

So when I bought this souvenir skein by Greta and the Fibres in Barcelona in April, I thought it'd be great with my mini skeins from My Mama Knits I purchased at last year's Perth Festival of Yarn.  But the pinks just don't complement each other.  Too peach.  Too blue. Too  wrong.

But help is at hand - I bought an Adventures in Yarn notebook from Emily at Popcorn and Crocodiles in January after seeing it featured on Instagram.  I've already personalised mine!

Specially designed for knitters, crocheters and fibre crafters, it has lots of space to make notes and plastic pockets to store patterns, business cards etc.  But the most thoughtful features as far as I'm concerned are these yarn loops on several pages allowing me to take my colours with me!

So I don't have to try to hold colours in my head!  Years ago, when I studied mapping, I had to learn colour theory.  It's a complex subject so I really like the inclusion of these colour wheels in the notebook.  So helpful when putting colours together.

I'll be taking my notebook with me to Perth Festival of Yarn next month and visiting the stalls of Greta and The Fibres and My Mama Knits who are both vending there, along with over 70 others. 

I've got some pretty colourful projects in mind for my future knitting such as this gorgeous wrap - Lead The Way by Megan Doherty (photo used with permission)

Find out who else I'll be visiting and what else I'm planning to do at Perth Festival of Yarn in my next post.

Looking forward and back - Perth Festival of Yarn 2018

I'm really looking forward to  Perth Festival of Yarn.

This year's event will be held at The Dewars Centre in Glover Street in Perth on Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th September 2018 from 10am to 5 pm each day.

 As if spending the day in the company of like-minded friends surrounded by yarn, yarn and more glorious yarn wasn't exciting enough - it's my first official outing as a blogger!  I wrote this post after last year's outing to  Perth Festival of Yarn.  Eva , the organiser and all round festival champion, kindly asked me back again this year so I can blether about it some more.

So I thought I'd start my personal festival build up with a little look back at my 2017 purchases - and what has become of them.

Let's begin with the turquoise skein...

I began knitting a replacement shawl for my sister with the turquoise skein from Kingfishersblue, a haberdashery and yarn store in Leith which was vending at Perth.  She loves turquoise!

(The tale of woe about the first shawl I knitted her, also turquoise, is detailed here.  I'm clearly NOT over this yet.)

I knitted another On The Edge Shawl for her by The Knitting Goddess.   One skein projects make great holiday knitting so I took it on holiday to Lisbon last October and presented the finished shawl in person to my sis when she came to visit me in November.  This is a lovely shawl pattern and you can see I'm wearing mine here too (and in my profile picture) as I love it so much!

My biggest purchase of the day, the beautiful 400g skein of Blue Moon Indigo Eclipse, dyed expertly by Lindsay Roberts aka The Border Tart, became my first finished object of  2018.  During January, I knitted the flecked sky blue double knitting wool into my second Peppered Top as I really like this pattern by Katya Frankel. 

I'm quite unable to behave seriously whilst taking a selfie!

My wee fabric pot from Wool-n-Wood was crafted in Malawi and sold in Scotland by community nurse, Lesley, to support artisan workers in that part of Africa.  It started off as a place to keep knitting notions but has found its true calling in the living room as home to our TV remotes!

I do use my pretty shawl pin from Couthie Designs to secure this shawl but have to admit I've yet to make my Dorset button decoration from the kit I bought from Tanya, TJ Frog.  Perhaps writing this blog post is just the nudge I need to get started!

Though I haven't made anything yet with this beautiful rainbow of mini-skeins from My Mama Knits, I have found a pattern I like for this wrap.  I need a self colour to go with my minis and am sure I'll find something suitable at this year's Perth Festival of Yarn as there are so many lovely yarn vendors attending.

So that's a round-up of all of my purchases from Perth Festival of Yarn in 2017.

Now I need to focus on what I wish to buy this year - and that'll be the subject of my next blog post!