SSS&W Winter Wool Fair

Today was the annual Winter Wool Fair hosted by the Sutherland Shire Spinners and Weavers at Sutherland Uniting Church. I'm not a member, however, I'm a huge fan of the fair. Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos of the fair itself. I personally think the Winter Wool Fair is better than the Sydney Craft and Quilt Show at Darling Harbour for yarnies.

There was amazing work done by the members in the form of woven scarves, crocheted items, knitted items and handspun. Quite a few of the works on display had won ribbons in various shows. Then there's the yummy supplies like commercial yarn, handspun yarn, fibre, various spinning based shops like Glenora Weaving and Virginia Woolworks. There were books, KnitPro accessories, hand dyed yarn. A yarn & fibre lover's paradise really.

I also saw a new exhibitor, Frank Williams who sells spindles on Etsy. He is a retired carpenter who just started making spindles in January this year. He said he'd had customers all over the world buying from him. I played with some of the spindles and fell in love with a Tibetan. It wasn't as pretty as the others in terms of not having a big whorl with a decorative design on it. However, It was simple and made beautifully and it felt like a dream when spun.

So here it is along with the rest of my haul:

The pinky is handdyed 4ply merino yarn from Glenora Weaving. The middle is a 3ply silk from Virginia Woolworks, The right is what I believe is First Edition Fibre roving "Magic Merino" from Glenora Weaving. And the Tibetan spindle in the middle. Below is my first spin to test it out. Ooh pretty!

I haven't done much long draw spinning before. I have only one other attempt on my Ashford Traditional wheel. It hadn't fully clicked yet. I think I'm getting the hang of it now.

So the other half of the reason why I go to the fair, is the yummy Devonshire Tea home made by the ladies there. The scones were delicious. Can't wait to go again next year.

Twin Moretons

My dear little twin second cousins Clarice and Cassandra turned one this weekend. For their birthday I crocheted two little tunic dresses. The pattern is Moreton. It is crocheted with Bendigo Woollen Mills Cotton. I had the buttons custom made by the talented Jess at AppleSpice. Jess turned her creativity loose to come up with these:

Which turned into these:

I love the final result. They were gifted along with white long sleeve tees and leggings. You can see more photos on my project pages: Sky Moreton and Blush Moreton.

Jess also sells lip balms and baby bum balms. I tried out a lip balm and it's really yummy. I also bought the baby bum balm and another lip balm for my visit tomorrow to a friend with a new baby. Hope she likes them too.

Epic Viajante

For those who've browsed Ravelry patterns recently, you may have noticed that Martina Behm's Viajante Shawl has featured quite heavily. I had the opportunity to knit this shawl recently as a Will-Work-for-Yarn job for the lovely jenigma. Jenigma provided the yarn which was Wollmeise Lacegarn in the colourway "Verhext und verratzt". It's a beautiful colour. I love purples. Link to the Ravelry project page. It came out like this:

As you can see, it's a pretty huge shawl. I used up almost the entire 300g skein with only 3.5g leftover. It took about a month of speedy knitting to finish. My knitting friend, Lorna, describes this shawl as a giant sleeve! My payment yarn was Wollmeise lacegarn in Schwarz (i.e. black).

I am planning to use this as a highlight for a Veera Välimäki's Plain and Simple Pullover with another skein of Wollmeise Lacegarn in a Nobody's Perfect skein of Poison Nr 5. I bought this skein while on holiday in Germany, at the Wollmeise shop!