Wonderful Wonder Wool!

Well I've not been terribly successful at keeping up with my blog lately - too many other bits to be getting on with I suppose!What better way to get back in the flow of things by giving a review of the wonderful weekend that's just finished namely Wonder Wool Wales down in Builth Wells. And it really was great fun - so much to see, so much to buy and so many people to catch up with and meet! As always we didn't mange to meet everyone, some like 'Remote Knitter' we've been trying to meet with for years now and still failing miserably - must try harder I think!!

It was a real riot of colour which always gets me excited and inspired - 'Oliver Twists' stand was like shopping in a rainbow and was just so stunning it made you want to buy it all! The fantastic Prudence Mapstone was there again and as well as being so lovely her work makes me want to grab a crochet hook and yarn right away and start freeforming something!

I could go on all day telling you about all the lovely things there were on show and the stands too - highlights included 'Artists Palette's stall which was a wonderful show of colour with her fibres and yarns (including some stunning silk yarn which I'd have loved to rehome!) and also

 Spindlefrog's stand which as well as being a blaze of colour had the lovely Helix who I was so pleased to catch up with as she's so nice!

There were so many people I bumped into, some old friends, some new and I'll try my best to remember names! First off was No1AliCat, followed by Wye Sue, AmberMoggie (and Mr Mog of course!!), Laal Bear,the lovely Freyalyn and Sarah (YarnSpider), bloggless lurker Katie (who was surrounded at one point by three of her bloggers she was looking for without realising it!), CraftyMandy, the aforementioned Helix, Toffees Mum, Bluefaced Andy and Fybrespates Jenny as well as members of my spinning guild and Mum's spinning guild. I could go on and I'm afraid my brain is failing me - I knew I should have written down who I'd met! Sorry if I haven't mentioned anyones name it really is down to my shoddy memory!

There were some livestock on show as well which is always lovely to see but not as much as in WoolFest, mind you more sheep will have been shorn by then and I'm sure that would make the animals more comfortable in the show - the Wenselydale and Teeswater all looked rather warm! Compared with last years purchases I have come home with less but this year it's quality rather than quantity - plus they were more expensive buys! Main buy was a fantastic new Majacraft Suzi Pro which I am loving every second of and in no way regretting buying! And of course to go with it I needed a new (competition!) lazy kate and 2 more bobbins. That blew most of my budget so the rest didn't last long after buying a Corriedale/Ryland cross fleece from Olwen Veevers called 'Polka' (lovely knowing the name of the sheep your fleece came from!), some alpaca rovings from UK Alpaca (chocolate, coffee and white!) and some dyed kid mohair from Freyalyn. Feels like there should be more with the amount I spent but there you go! No pictures of my goodies - I'll sort that out later!

As with last year I'd run out of money by the time I got to the MidWales Mouthful section which is a real shame as there was some great looking food on show including some highly tempting Scotch eggs! And I had to take a picture of Dr Who's 'house' (as DD says) on top of the BBC Cymru building to amuse DD.

All in all it's a long weekend with all the driving but the atmosphere, colour and most importantly the people more than make up for being stuck in traffic getting there! Plus I'm going to have to keep an eye open for when Google Street Map updates as I was caught on the road between Newtown and Llandridnod Wells - permanent proof of my drive to Wonder Wool Wales! Maybe I'll have to get a screen shot of it (even if I do know what my car looks like!)

I'll be back (hopefully with less of a gap than before) with an update of all my knitting, spinning, etc as soon as I can stop playing with my new wheel!!

Update - some of you may ahve seen someone elses pictures instead of my Wonderwool ones - not sure what happened there but I've now replaced them with ones that shouldn't dissapear!