A week ago (is it already a week??) I had my first stand at a yarn festival. Yarndale is in its third year and is held in Skipton auction mart in the Yorkshire Dales. It is a beautiful location and I have enjoyed being a punter for the past 2 years, but with An Elven Reckoning being released I thought it was time to brave having a stand.
An Elven Reckoning
The wonderful thing about Yarndale is the closeness of the independent designers and creators of beautiful yarn. I did not get to look around much this year but what I did see was a rainbow of yarns and hundreds of amazing designs that I want to make all mixed together with rare breed sheep, alpacas and angora bunnies.
The fantastic team!
I was sharing a stand with my friend Gwen Wagner-Adair of Petitchoufleur Knits who is also my tech editor and my friend Sharon who was a fantastic help all weekend. We made a great team!
Maethor and Nôrui
I loved being able to show off the garments from An Elven Reckoning and have the book in pride of place for people to look through. Thank you to everyone for the lovely comments about the pattern and book and to everyone who purchased it - you made my day!
Aldersign Buttons
My buttons were really popular and I will be updating my website shop with more once I get some photos of the new ones. There are two new sizes of buttons and lots of different designs, all of which are £1.50 a packet.
I was also very lucky to showcase some of my friend Alison's beautiful needle craft. She had knitted and liberty fabric pincushions, needle books, rolled needle cases and scissor and tape cases. Her work is amazingly neat and pretty so check out her blog: Stitches of time.
I also released a new crochet kit - the Yorkshire White Rose. Like all my kits it contains everything you need to make the Yorkshire White Rose corsage and includes instructions for beginners. The new kit can also be found in CraftyPraxis in Huddersfield Byram Arcade and will be updated to the website soon.
The other wonderful thing about Yarndale, and what I look forward to each year, is the beautiful display they have knitters and crocheters all over the world contribute to for charity. This year it was flowers for memories, raising money Alzheimer's Society. The display was a beautiful rainbow of colour and raised £1811.80 which is just fantastic.
Overall it was a fantastic festival and I had a really great time. I'm already making plans for next year!