Monday 28 April 2014

Wonderwool 2014

AKA, the one where I bought All The Yarn.

Yes, Wonderwool has been and gone again, already. We stayed in the same bunkhouse, I slept in the same bed, we had dessert for breakfast on Sunday again, it rained again, I bought too much yarn....again.


It's always so obvious what my favourite colour is at times like this.

Clockwise from the top left - with intended project, because I realised this weekend how much I enjoy coming back and looking at what I had in mind years later when the yarn has become something else entirely:

  • Roving - 400g; I intend to make some thrummed slippers with the final leftovers of the Debbie Bliss Maya
  • Huge cone of purple 8 ply cotton - I intend to make a hexapetal t-shirt from it, I think
  • Blue C4 linen (one of two cones) and coral C4 linen from Texere - after my success with the cone of pink last year I decided I would partake of their bulk discount. There are lots of suitable  patterns in the spring Knitscene for this year and I think an Oud Tank might be nice worked in blue with coral detailing, if I can convert the pattern from worsted to 4-ply. 
  • Louise Harding Colline, five skeins - No idea. It's a cotton/alpaca blend. I said I wanted worsted weight in jumper quantities - here 'tis. I found this on a sale table right after we arrived on Sunday morning. Sunday was a much better day for me - way quieter. 
  • fivemoons Nanna Not Sock - BFL and silk blend that I just kept coming back to and so had to buy when it was still there on the Sunday at luncthime. A nice shawl from Victorian Lace Today, I think - possibly for Mother Hand.
  • Freyalyn blue tweed sock yarn - I love this colour. Yarn Garden had almost this exact shade in a worsted tweed and I reeeeeally wanted it but it was a bit spendy to buy a jumper's worth, even for me. I'll settle for the socks for this year. 
  • Artesano BFL DK, eleven skeins - another bargain that I found on Sunday morning and then came back for. Love this navy. I am thinking some kind of v-neck with maybe some subtle cabling on the ribbing. 
  • Laalbear Naturals in cream, ten skeins - to go with the leftover brown from last year. I am tempted to knit a Telluride in it and then use the leftovers to attempt a jumper based on an Escher picture I have been thinking about for years. 
  • fivemoons Luna Merino DK, five skeins - I saw this on my first pass on Saturday morning but refused to allow myself to buy - it was my biggest splurge by a long way. Time ticked on. I visited it again - it was still all there. By 1pm I was making my way back and feeling very nervous at the prospect of some of it having been sold, so I bit the bullet and went for it. The chap remembered me the next day when I came back for the Nanna Not Sock - "Didn't you buy a load yesterday?" he queried. I should have said I'd knitted it all up already. I want it to be a glorious jumper of soft lusciousness. Worthy pattern not yet found. 
  • Knitwitches Seriously Gorgeous BFL/Silk/Cashmere, four skeins - enough for a Milou sweater. A sale bin purchase within ten minutes of the show opening. 
  • Knitwitches aran silk - another sale bin purchase, handed to me by Jenny. It was meant to replace the skein I bought last year and lost on the ski trip. It will probably become a cowl with the three abalone buttons that you can see below.

In that replacing-the-lost vein, I also bought a new Karbonz sock circular to replace the one I lost. So, it was sod's law that when I checked my email on the Saturday night, the other school had emailed to let me know they had my knitting bag in their lost property. Hurrah! But if I'd known that was all it took to get it to turn up I would have ordered the new needle two weeks ago.

What else? A copy of the new Interweave, and a full set of Chiaogoo Twist Red Lace Interchangables that I have been coveting for months. Mr Z said he would fund them for me for my birthday. I quite like that, because he bought me my Knitpicks Harmony set for Christmas a few years ago when I started getting into knitting; so it feels fitting that he should buy the next set. Purlescence had a Wonderwool special - three extra sets of tips - so it was deifnitely worth it.

And the buttons, of course! There are always buttons. I was relatively restrained this time, though.


I only just realised that I might have had a bit of a thing for squares this year.

Definitely my biggest haul by a long way; perusing stashes from previous shows makes me realise that I pushed the boat a LONG way out this year. I think I was over-excited about the fact that I have knitted up almost everything from last year and that encouraged me to buy what I liked. And I liked a lot of things.

I left exhausted and excited to get home and gloat over all my new things, and so wasn't really thinking when I drove FORWARD out of my car parking space instead of reversing, and consequently got stuck in the mud. Poor Claire, who was sharing my car, had to help me push the Gingemobile out of its ruts and even got sprayed with mud when I tried to rev it free. In the end we resorted to brute strength and shoving, sliding in the mud, in the driving rain, until it was free. Eventful. Remind me to reverse next year.

No comments: