Woolfest. Or how I spent a day geeking out.

As you've probably gathered, I like knitting. I like wool. I like alpaca. I like silk, and merino, and cotton and all the other crazy fibres that people have made suitable for knitting.

So this weekend, I went back to Woolfest. And it was a lovely day out.

Jess made it here on Friday night, so we made risotto, watched TV and drank gin, prosecco and port and had a good catch-up.

Waking up early on Saturday was surprisingly pain-free given how tiddly I felt the night before, but we still didn't manage to leave on time. This wasn't exactly a disaster, and we made it to Cockermouth around about noon. Woolfest is held in the auction mart just outside Cockermouth, it's not the most glamorous location but given what the even is all about I think it's really quite apt.

There were perhaps a few too many faffy, artisan-y stalls this year. There were plenty of stalls selling felted things, or things to felt with, or fairly bizarre items of ready-made clothing, but I think it was perhaps lacking in stalls from indie spinners or dyers selling stuff to make your own items out of. In saying that, I did get some lovely, lovely 4ply silk/merino from Fyberspates in a beautiful gold colour (the colourway is actually called "Gold").
After the success of my Centrique shawl, I'm feeling brave enough to knit some more lace. I'm also entering a yellow phase in my stash-building. I've knitted pink, red, green, purple and shades of blue, so it's time for a new colour! I did spend a lot of time eyeing up some stunning teal wool, for some reason this is usually the first colour to catch my eye, but I own enough teal/blue clothes as it is, so yellow it is!

I'm also going to branch out into dyeing wool myself. I saw the loveliest cardi pattern in the new Knitty and it's in such a rich, warm yellow-orange that I felt a bit covetous of it.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any wool at Woolfest that was the right sort of shade, or was the right sort of price. So I did my usual and said "I'll do it myself!" (I'm pretty sure that this was a book I had as a kid, but my Google-fu is weak tonight). I bought two jars of golden-yellow dye from Easifix and 5 skeins of DK merino from Yarnundyed to turn the right shade!
Ironically, I'm not going to knit Leaflet using this wool. I had a bit of a fangirl moment when I met Susan Crawford, who takes vintage patterns, translates them into modern knitting terms and wools and makes them into multi-size patterns. I got her book, A Stitch in Time (and it's signed!) and I'm going to make this from it.
I'll probably get some more of the chonking great balls of Aran-weight Stylecraft Special Aran (it comes in 400g balls, so all you need is one for a whole jumper) to make Leaflet. I like having special knits in beautiful, delicate wools, but I also like having special knits in wool that can be flung into the washing machine without the need for histrionics.

I do love Woolfest. I hope I can go next year, it's such a funny day out and you get to meet all sorts of people and have all sorts of conversations. I suppose it's like anything where you have something in common with everyone else there, we all like making things from wool, whether it's with hooks or sticks!

On Saturday evening we went to see Green Lantern in 3D, which was well worth a watch. I think it was slightly better than Thor, and I'm very much looking forward to Captain America: The First Avenger next month and the Avengers film next year.

Jess left on Sunday morning and I spent much of the rest of the day in my pit! I had an early start today for an open shift at work, most of it was spent sweating and hiding in any air-conditioned area of the building!

I have an open tomorrow, a late close on Wednesday and then I'm donating a pint of the red stuff on Thursday. It's amazing how fast a week can rattle past, I'm going to need to start booking our holiday!