Woolfest 2010

Last week I attended this fantastic fibre event in the English Lake District with a couple of friends from the Huddersfield Knit Night group. As always, it was utterly wonderful with the animal pens (it is held in a livestock centre) bursting with all kinds of woolly goodness (and alpaca, silk, angora, qivuit…). I met lots of folk, many of them old friends now, and made some new friends too.

A lovely lady stopped me to ask where I got my ‘Ravelry pin’ because she and her husband were looking for the Ravelry meet-up point. I asked what her Rav ID is, thinking I might know her. It turned out that she is Donna Druchunas, author of many knitting books including the inspirational ‘Arctic Lace’. She is one of my fellow tutors at Knit Camp this summer, so we had a good gas about our various itineries for this summer.

And, of course, we took pics of each other for ‘blog fodder’! Here Donna is with her hubby:

Among other folk I went to visit Natalie at The Yarn Yard to show her Northanger, the gloves I made with her yarn (see recent posts). Whilst there a few folks tried on the gloves, and one lady also tried on Lórien:

Of course, I went to visit spinning friends too, fellow members of Bradford Guild who had stalls. Carol and Pete Leonard, ‘Spindlers 2’, are spinning tutors who specialize in spindle spinning and sell a marvellous range of spindles and fibres from well-known makers (e.g. ‘Bosworth’ and ‘Bonkers’):

And finally, here is my friend Freyalyn, who was there selling her fabulous hand-dyed yarns and fibres. She too is a spinning expert (a S.O.A.R. scholarship winner, no less!), and I’m going to be having some tuition with her soon in long-draw spinning technique in order to help me prepare for the Sheep to Sweater challenge I’m participating in at UK Ravelry Weekend in Stirling this August.