Has it really been a whole year since my first post here in 2023?
Yes, yes it has! This year I returned to the bigger, better, but just as organised and enjoyable Cumbrian Wool Gathering, this time with my Mother in Law and we had an absolute blast on the Saturday and came home with so many fibre related goodies
Honestly, I would have been happy if it had been as good as last year, but it exceeded expectations in all quarters. The coach from the car park dropped us off outside the animal pens and what a brilliant start you got as you walked in the door.
We had a plan, do a walk round, look at everything cup of tea with cake and then go back to the exhibitors we liked and make purchases. Well that plan went south the moment we saw the Alpacas at the end of the first row of stalls. we were both in love! one of them kept singing. before we knew it, my poor husband was informed that we were buying a small holding and two alpacas… I mean everyone needs pipe dreams, right? Husband was not all that impressed and didn’t believe us in any case! (We did try hard to convince him, though by the time we informed him we were purchasing angora bunnies along with several Shetland sheep and growing flax and cotton our pipe dream may have got out of the believable range!) As it stands, we walked round twice with two tea breaks and after we had made our purchases it was 20 to closing and we had been there nearly 5 hours! If that isn’t a testament to the event, I don’t know what is!
It was great to see Emstead Leicester Longwool back again this year, along with Threshing Barn and Little Gem Felts. However, in an effort to try something new, This year I purchased my fibre from Adelaide Walker. I picked up 500g of Black Welsh Mountain Scoured and carded fleece along with 500g of Blue Faced Leicester both at very reasonable prices! They had all sorts of different breeds of fleece for you to touch and feel. Now, most people will tell you Marino fleece is soft and nice to work with. I cannot tell you how soft and bouncy the Blue Faced Leicester is! While not as soft as the Blue Faced Leicester, the Black Welsh Mountain fleece was also really soft and both were softer than the Marino!
So hugging two large skeins of soft fleece I spot their other fibres sections and…. uuh enthusiasm happened? Yes, we’ll call it enthusiasm. In no particular order two 50g skeins of Bamboo tops, a skein of cotton tops, Soyabean tops, Flax, Hemp and Mint Fiber found their way into my pile. No regrets and plans for possibly joining in the Tour de fleece this year. Win, win, right?
Another stand out business was Blotz, purveyors of Natural Dyes, Mordants and Equipment. Credit where it is due, I approached their stand with the full intention of buying some natural dyes as dying some fibre is another skill I would like to try my hand at. I cannot speak highly enough of them. The gentleman explained how to dye fleece using onion skins in a food safe way to try it out and advised me to try it before coming back to dive further into natural dying. As a result, I walked away without any dye products, but with an offer of advice to any questions I had, knowing I would absolutely be back if my initial experiments were successful!
It has quickly become apparent in my initial steps into spinning that winding a skein of finished yarn into a ball is not easy if you don’t have another person to help with both hands (cue memories of listening to my mum telling me how she hated having to sit there with the yarn around both hands while my gran would hand wind a ball and getting bored because it took so long). So this year, my bigger equipment purchase was a Table Swift from the Wonky Weaver an Emporium of Fibrecrafts in Wales. Watch this space to see me bumble my way through the first time using it. (Need to spin some more yarn now!)
Some honourable mentions: Shout out to Joes’s toes, who were selling some amazing slipper kits made of felt which came in sizes large enough for my husband! (At a size 12/13 that’s impressive!) We were bowled over at the way they used felted wool to create soles and bowls. Also Mamie and Florrie, who had some of the brightest yarns at the show!
Honestly, this year’s gathering was brilliant and enjoyable! 11/10 would highly recommend still. Really looking forward to it next year, especially if it continues to provide such a high-quality event. If you are near Kendal next June and haven’t made it to the last two, really do check it out, you will not be disappointed!
GeekySquidoo 