The Great British Wool Weekend

Hello people!

Here (belatedly … the purple anarchic lace is taking up a LOT of my time!) is a special blog about a lovely event that I went to last Saturday.
It was The Great British Wool Weekend and it was at the Great Yorkshire Show Ground, near Harrogate in North Yorks (lots of ‘greats’ there – but it really was!) As the name suggests, this was an event that celebrated all aspects of the wool industry in the Uk – from fleece to felt, from shearing to spinning, and knitting, crochet, weaving, hand-dyeing … everything!
The event was not huge – there were some workshops available, but I didn’t make it to any of these. It was just lovely to wander around the various stalls and soak in all the talent and creativity on display.

Here are some of my photos, showing some of my personal highlights from the event:

There was a demonstration of sheep shearing, and a really interesting talk. It was fascinating to hear about all the different types of wool and what it’s used for. The sheep featured here are Lenny: a Lincoln Longwool and Dougal: a Scottish Blackface. There were other breeds of sheep featuring in the show, but these two interested me the most – Lenny because of his fabulous coat, and Dougal because he actually seemed to want to pose to have his photo taken!

In addition to the sheep there were (of course) so, so many stalls selling speciality yarns, patterns and a whole load of other woolcraft related goodies. There was so much to choose from, and I just felt obliged to make a purchase – it would have been rude not to. I bought 600g of variegated lamb’s wool, similar to the strands in the picture here, but in different colourings. Watch this space for it featuring in a future blog, when I have turned it into something cosy to wear.

There were also tons of lovely things that people had made. So much to see, I came away with masses of inspiration, and thoroughly enthused!

There were special interest groups, such as this one devoted to Shetland sheep – and again, showing what can be done with a bit of yarn and talent!

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I also discovered some great new shops that I can’t wait to check out – there was Native Yarns, a lovely, colourful new business based in Suffolk, and specialising in beautiful hand-dyed yarns of loveliness, and Texere, from whom I bought my yarn, and about whom I’m doubly excited as it turns out they’re based quite near to me in West Yorkshire! This could get expensive!

And as if that wasn’t enough, there was a whole load going on about spinning:

More of which in future blogs … as I hope to have some exciting news in that regard shortly.

Hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this event. The next one I’m going to will be Yarndale, at the end of this month. Very excited about that one!

In the meantime – anarchic purple lace is calling me!

Thanks for visiting!