Woolfest 2015

A couple of weeks ago I went to Woolfest.  For those not in the know, Woolfest is a Wool Festival, where lots of people who buy wools and yarns go and meet wool and yarn sellers - and their sheep / llamas / bunnies etc...

Personally I tend not to buy wool unless I know it is responsibly sourced.  A few wools - Merino and Angora for example, are well documented to be very cruel towards the animal in their production.  At least at Woolfest a lot of the sellers are small businesses who treat their animals very well and you can chat to them and find out exactly what you need to know to help you make that purchasing decision.

And now for some photos...... please excuse the slightly blurred pictures as I dropped my camera and broke the zoom, so now it doesn't focus properly.  Time for a new one.

How about this for a ball of yarn?  It's a whopper!  I didn't buy it, but I did buy the needles that would have been used to knit it with  :)

We watched some fabulous Quaker tapestry going on, those little blackberries with 3D and made to sparkle with tiny beads added.

As a footnote, I found this most excellent blog on Love Knitting about Angora wools.

http://blog.loveknitting.com/angora-wool-is-it-cruel/

Woolfest 2013

Have you ever been to Woolfest?

It is held in an auction mart in Cockermouth, Cumbria.  Right there, in the animal pens.

The bars of the pens end up dripping with an array of bright colours and textures.  Everything NEEDS to be touched and fondled.  But some of the stall holders do not like photographs being taken, so these ones I am going to show you are not so great as a sneakily took them with my phone.

Everything a knitter, or a crocheter, or a weaver, or a spinner, or a felter could possible need/want will be under the corrugated roof of the auction mart when Woolfest is happening.  From fleeces straight off the sheep, to dyed and treated merino tops in a vast rainbow of colours, ready to do with what you choose.

There is a lot of pushing and shoving, not many manners within buyers/browsers (of course the stall holders are great) but be prepared for a nudge from a sharp elbow if you happen to be in the way of what someone else wants to see.

You can even talk to the animals.

I must apologise again for the really rubbishy photos, I didn't realise quite how bad they were until I uploaded them, and obviously I cannot go and retake them, so they will have to do  :)  Still, it gives you an idea of what it was like I guess - or you can go and have a look in the Woolfest gallery...

http://www.woolfest.co.uk/gallery/

I made a few sneaky purchases, ones that you will no doubt see popping up on the blog at some future point.
I bought some batting and some coloured norwegian felting wool to make some more needlefelted animals.  A few spare needles, and some wool that I bought 7 balls of a while ago in a shop (7 was all they had left), so I was delighted to find the same yarn on a stall at Woolfest - I think a jumper might be in the pipeline.

I also signed up and paid for the first part of a distance learning Diploma in Crochet!  (more on that soon)

Did you go?  What did you buy?

Needlefelted Flopsy Bunnies

On Thursday my friend, Lezley, and I took a course at Higham Hall with Joss Wrigg.

The course was to make Flopsy style bunnies from sheeps fleece using the Needlefelting method.

It was held in conjunction with Woolfest that happens once a year - more on that in a later post.

You may remember last year I took a Needlefelting course with Sue Allan from Sewsister, we made Fantasy Birds, which was loads of fun.

This time we were using fleece, straight from a sheep, a native Lake District Herdwick sheep no less, and although it had been cleaned and washed there was still the odd bit of 'natural history' hidden amongst the fluff  :)

Using a batting we formed a basic shape as a starting point.  

No rude comments about the shape now!

When we had a basic shape we added Herdwick Sheep fleece, trying to arrange the shades of the fleece to be where limbs and bulges might be.  Not being much of an artist I found it difficult to place limbs at first, but with the help of Joss's own big bunny (below) I worked it out.....kinda!

Isn't he a beauty?

I decided on a moon-gazing hare, so pointed his little head to the stars. (No, it's NOT a duck!)

Adding some darker fleece as detail for the muzzle and eyes made him (I decided it would be a him) come to life.

Looking up at ya!

And gazing at that big fat moon (or even the fluorescent strip light in the studio!)

He's called Colin  :)