That was a week and a half!

Well, a week and one and a half days to be totally truthful. And I'm pooped!

Woolfest was F.A.B. Fab.



We took a leisurely trip up to Cockermouth on Thursday, stopping for a tasty lunch at The Highwayman at Burrow . One of the Ribble Valley Inns, it concentrates on local food. We can heartily recommend the food and the ambience. When you order your food they explain to you that it will be at least 20 minutes. So they can cook it! I had a Lancashire Hotpot absolutely stuffed with lamb/mutton. Scrummy! ra went for a duck cassoulet. The one criticism was the car park. Too small and full of Lexuses (or should that be Lexii?) but it will be bigger once all the building work's finished.


Then it was all points north to Cockermouth. With a quick detour to Priests Mill in Caldbeck for a look around the WoolClip and a cup of coffee at the cafe.



Unfortunately ra had forgotten the directions to get to the B&B and the name of the landlady. But apart from that....

Anyway, she phoned work and got some helpful Sumanoid to look on the interweb. The directions weren't brilliant but we did get the phone number - so that was helpful. Anyway, we were within spitting distance when we called only to discover we were just around the corner.

Our room at Byresteads was lovely. The place was a very tranquil barn conversion even though it was stuffed to the gills with visitors and exhibitors for Woolfest!

We had anticipated only spending the Friday at Woolfest and take the Saturday to do 'other things'. Didn't quite work out that way. We were very organised in our approach this year, starting with the animals and working our way back to the entrance. First purchase was a shetland sheepskin. I got a moorit (a lovely caramel colour) last year to go over the back of one of the sofas in my living room. I liked it so much I wanted to get another one. This year's purchase is a fawn katmoget. That's basically white with a fawn under-belly. Very pretty and oh so soft.

It was the evening's spin-in that did it. We weren't going to go back on the saturday. I was a bit disappointed not to have spent more money than I did. Then we spotted someone spinning silk caps. £2.25 each. What a bargain. How could we resist? I now have two silk caps and am trying to draught one of them in preparation for spinning. The spin-in was great fun. Not just spinners but people knitting, crocheting, just chatting, checking out different types of wheel and basically having a good time. I managed to spin up quite a bit of Jacob in preparation for (another) felted bag. It's going to take me years to use up all this fleece!

Day two was much more successful. I went a bit mad on fleece. I now have a HUGE herdwick fleece that I intend to make into a rug for my hall and some mohair that I just got cos it was interesting. This is in addition to the Lovely lustrous leicester longwool fleece I persuaded ra to go halvesies with me on the day before. And sock wool. It's a well-known fact that you can never ever ever have too much sock wool. And some naturally dyed alpaca (logwood and alum?). And three cakes of Lopi to make a felted bag. And a lovely scarf as a thank you to annie for looking after the devil cat that is Gracie. And a duffel bag pattern from Sheepfold.

Oh, and I managed to find a potential wedding dress for my mate Jane who's getting married next year. She WILL go up the aisle in knitwear if it's only a pair of kid mohair knickers! Under her wedding dress of course!