My internet is still down, but I just had to post this shot of some lovely sock yarn I just found. Now I’m sat petting my new purchase in a lovely little tea shop. Hmmmm there is a lot to be said for this mobile blogging on your phone.
Mara @ Fantasiamusings and ramblings on crafting and life… |
Fibre East … (part 2)
Ok so it’s time to show and tell…… What did I buy at Fibre East?
Well I simply fell in love with these guys. I mean how SSSWWEEEEEEEEEETTTTT!!!!!!
I especially loved this guy. Look at those horns, just fabulous! There was a bit of a squee moment when I discovered that you could buy a kit to make them. They’re from Manfield Crafts and the wonderful ladies on the stall managed to contain their laughter at my reaction to these little fellas.
Yarn wise my main purchase was some beautiful silk from Copperfield Yarns. Unfortunately I can’t find a website for this yummy yarn but if anyone knows one then please point me in the right direction. I was drawn to the copper tones and colours. At the moment my hair is predominantly black but my natural colour is coppery blonde. Since I’m planning on going back to my natural colour this seemed the perfect yarn to make myself a shawl.
I also bought some more dpns for sock production. I normally use knit pros but the helpful lady at the Crossways Patch / Tall Yarns stand showed me the HiyaHiya ones. These were of great interest as I have quite a loose tension when knitting and so I’m always on smaller needles than my friends. The HiyaHiya’s actually go down to less than a millimetre which is much smaller than the smallest knit pros. In the end I bought 2 packs of 2mm’s (one Knit Pro and one HiyaHiya) and a pack of 3.25 Knit Pros for some DK socks.
Speaking of DK socks I also picked up a couple of balls of pure wool in a dk weight but without ball bands. I can’t tell you the stall as I didn’t clock their name. These aren’t really ‘me’ colours but the socks are destined for my mother and they are very much her colours. I have to say that I was delighted at how much faster dk socks knit up compared to sock weight yarn socks. I also had a little bit of yarn left over from these which I’ve used to make a sat nav pouch.
Then lastly I bought some buttons.
Yes, I know they will probably just sit in my sewing box but they were so pretty… and cute… and shiny… and I just had to have a few……
Fibre East… (Part 1)
This last weekend I went with friends to Fibre East. Due to other commitments we had decided upon the Sunday in advance and given the weather this seemed to be a good move.
So we duly met up and headed west, in fact we seemed to go a long way west for something with east in the title, but we had money in our pockets and a list of things we were hoping to find. We knew from Ravelry that it was likely to be muddy but hey what’s a little mud between friends when yarn is involved. This year we hoped would be bigger and better than the first event last year, we weren’t disappointed.
I had decided to take to try and take some shots of all the yumminess on offer. As is my custom I always tried to ask permission before snapping away and this was where I got my biggest surprise of the day. At places like Ally Pally I can pretty much guarantee that most stall holders will be very definitely against photography. Grumpily so. But here every single person I asked smiled and say yes. How wonderful. I’ve never understood the attitude you get at the big shows about this. I mean what exactly do these people think I’m going to do with the images?
Anyway here are some shots from the wonderful stall holders who were happy for me to use my camera. Oh and what did I buy? I’ll take some photos and blog about that later in the week. 
Squeeeeee………
Yesterday I went shopping with Maytheweed and we had a ‘squee’ moment. We popped into a reasonably local fabric shop that also stocks some yarn. Now this shop is not known for ‘high end’ or ‘luxury’ yarns, so imagine our surprise when we found some of this…
Six 100g lots of this gorgeous squishy kettle dyed merino, AND IT WAS REDUCED! Now I should point out that I don’t mean 5% or 50p off, I mean seriously reduced. No, I’m not going to tell you by how much because you’ll hate us as a result.
There were three lots of this stunning blue and three of a similar colour way but in purples. All were swiftly paid for and put into bags before we even considered looking round the rest of the shop (no way were they getting the chance to change their mind on the price).
It was interesting to note (which we did later over a cup of tea) that I instinctively went for the blues and she went immediately for the purples. There was no humming, debating or envious looks at the others skeins, just a quick grab and pay. That probably says something deep and revealing about our personalities but I’ve not had enough tea yet this morning to speculate, instead I’m going to admire my new yarn and dream of the yummy things I can make with it…
The Pretty Birdcage
This past week I took my mother away for a few nights in the new caravan. We decided upon a venue not to far away, so off we went to the very picturesque Framlingham in Suffolk. Then I remembered hearing about a new fabric and yarn shop in that area, a few texts later I had directions.
The shop is called The Pretty Birdcage (I have no idea why) and it’s down a little alley off the Market Square. They stock yummy fabric and squishy yarn. What more could a girl ask for? Ah yes… a chair for my mother to sit on while I decided what to spend my money on. Chairs for elderly mothers are always a good idea hehe…
First up were the fabrics. Their range isn’t as large as some other fabric shops around the county, but since they’ve only been open a few months what do you expect. That said there was plenty for my mother to choose from as she fancies another craft roll similar to the other one I made.
We weren’t rushed and after a little while (and many bolts of fabric being taken to the chair for inspection) she settled on these.
The top fabric is much prettier in real life and will form the outside of the roll. The plain blue is for the lining.
In fact this pattern was available in a few colours and I much preferred the green version but since it isn’t for me I kept quiet.
Next up was the yarn. I mean you didn’t really expect me to go into a yarn shop and not buy any did you?
3 balls of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino leaped off the shelves and demanded I bring them home. I recently discovered that a friend had not only got married, but become a father and ‘forgot’ to tell me! Am I hurt about this? Yes. However it’s not the baby’s fault (it’s his idiot fathers) and so I’m thinking a knitted squishy bear or something.
The choice of colours was a difficult one. This bear will be emigrating to Quatar once finished and I have no idea if it’s blue for boys over there. That said should I even pick blue just because he’s a boy? These were questions I didn’t think I could answer stood in the shop, so decided to pick colours I liked and felt would ‘hold the muck’ well. Now where did I put that bear patter……?
A Mention on Folksy
Hi all… Just a quick little blog to say that my Ariel Sock ‘Polly’ has been used as part of an article on the Folksy blog. How very very nice of them…
You can visit ‘Polly’ at our Folsky shop and many of my other yummy yarns that have all been dyed using only natural dyes.
Fibreholics…
I’ve been looking forward to writing this blog for some time. I’m joining Fibreholics as a contributor.
You can find out about them on their website. It’s a way for people to sample many independent dyers at the same time, you simply buy a sample bag of fibre or yarn. Each bag contains lots of different samples.
The bags become available every 2 months and often sell out fast. The next round is due out the beginning of April and will contain some Fantasia Yarn. Or at least it will provided the post man gets them there in time!
These are some of the sample skeins they’re all Ariel sock yarn which is 100% Blue Faced Leicester. I’ve become rather attached to these little fellows and have taken to referring to them as my baby pet skeins…. Happy to go to new homes, don’t require much in the way of feeding or walkies, just the occasional fondle hehe…
Taking advantage of modern technology
Given my recent problems with my phone line it’s brought back to life all my anxieties of loosing data in the digital world. All those precious photos lost in computer crashes and failures. Photos of loved ones I’ll never see again…
So fuelled by all these fears I’ve been doing some digging online for possible solutions. My main concern is photos as these are what I get most upset about when lost. I’ve tried various solutions in the past but none have really been able to quieten down that nagging little voice that sits on your shoulder whispering horrible things in your ear.
Part of that solution (which I’m currently trialling, but fairly sure I’m going to stump up the cash for it) is called Smugmug. This is an online site aimed primarily at photographers to store and display their work. Thing is they allow unlimited storage and unlike some sites, will also store the full size image and allow you to download it again later. As such you can use it as backup storage as well.
Of course you need a user name and given I have Fantasia Yarns I decided to go for Fantasia Photos. So I shall be spending quite a bit of my near future sorting through images and uploading them. This will include quite a lot of photos of yarn! (See I can make this craft related if I try).
If you’d like to check out the site you can find it here. Or if you’d like to check out my photos you can find them here they’re not all yarn related but an increasing number of them will be over the coming days…
Blocked Branching Out
I don’t know if you remember me mentioning a scarf I was knitting out of a blue silk? We’ll it’s now finished and blocked!
I’d never done spray blocking before but it went smoothly (if you don’t count having to chase animals off while it dried) and relatively quickly.
In fact I’m rather pleased with it, especially given I’ve been so exhausted this week after going back to work.
But what better way to cheer yourself up than by adding another scarf to your wardrobe. What could be better for keeping your throat warm? Of course given this weather I need a scarf ALL the time hehe…
I’m also planning on updating the Folksy shop later this evening (if I can find the energy from somewhere). But here’s a sneak preview….
Right I now need a cup of tea or a nap – possibly both……
A Place on the Web
After a lot of encouragement (and a bit of arm twisting), Fantasia Yarns now has it’s own website.
I’ve also uploaded some new yarns to the Folksy shop. However, since I’m uncomfortable with self promotion, I’m going to end this post with some photos of a few yarns in the shop update before my cheeks go completely red, and simply ask you all to forgive me the shameless plugging….
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