Spinning Fishwife

As promised, a list of what I bought at SkipNorth. This is not all of it because I bought a couple of things for presents and have already given them away, but it's most of it. Not as much in volume as previous years, have to say. I'm not sure whether this is because I was being more selective or that some individual items did take a biggish slice of the budget. Budget???I hear you ask? Yes, I do go with a budget. I make a point of clearing out unwanted stash from time to time on Ebay and the proceeds go back into the yarn fund. Plus my mum still gives me money for yarn, now and again, just like she gives the kids sweetie money!

First stop, Coldspring Mill.



Louisa Harding Sari Ribbon. There was just this one skein in this colourway but I love her stuff. I'm a real magpie at heart....show me a yarn with a bit of flash and I just can't resist.




Louisa Harding Coquette. The labels are off but it's the real stuff. They were selling this for 50p per ball, or a twenty ball pack for £7.99 so I bought a pack in this coral colour for a summer cardi. Several other SkipNorthers got packs too. There was a great turquoise and a coffee colour as well, but I liked the coral.



Four balls of Noro Silk Garden Lite. I've never used the Lite before so I was pleased to get these at half price. The two balls on the left are the same colourway and dyelot, would you belive? I think they will become some sort of scarf or shawlette, with the other two for hat and mitts.




Noro Kochoron. I bought three big skeins of this, a total of about 750 grams. It wasn't as cheap as the Coldspring Noro was last year but it was still a bargain. I just loved the colour....perfect for a certain little Miss Princess, don't you think?
I also bought a daypack at Coldspring. They have a camping and outdoor equipment warehouse upstairs from the yarn store, which is an interesting combination I think. Nice daypack with lots of pockets to store essentials in, including knitting. In fact now I think about it I suspect I saw a knitting bag first and a daypack second....

Next stop, RL & CM Bond, Haberdasherer extraordinaire....

It was a short stop and I was just so amazed at the place I hardly bought anything. Too busy marvelling at all the vintage haberdashery. The pink needles were for Princess again, plus I got some totally over the top bling pink and metallic brocade ribbon for her. 3 metres for 50p? You can't go wrong.

The Skep.

Surprisingly I didn't buy any yarn at The Skep, despite there being some very tempting offerings. No, I spent most of my time there rummaging through their bags of mill-end fabric offcuts, looking for nice patchwork pieces. The Skep stocks a lot of very nice patchwork and quilting fabrics by the yard and fat quarter, but they also sell non-standard pieces by weight at £10 per kilo. And belive me, you get a lot of patchwork fabric in a kilo. The smallest of these pieces is about 15" x 15".



The Knitting & Crochet Guild.



Vogue magazines from 1990 and 1998.

A great find dating from about 1998 as well. I remember looking at this in the shops at the time, but being too skint to buy it!



Sock yarn, of course. I got two batches of this, one being for a present.

100% synthetic goodness-knows-what-it's-for yarn, from the 1p per gram Yarn Mountain. I just loved the colours.

I also found a copy of a Ladybird childrens book called "Learn to Crochet", printed in the 70's. I bought this as a present for thereyougothen, confidently expecting her to fall about laughing at it given that she's amazingly good at crochet. Much to my amusement she actually loved it, because she's already got the companion knitting Ladybird from the same era. Was I pleased with myself or what?

Wingham Wool Work, nirvana for UK spinners.

Here I bought myself a long-desired tensioned Lazy Kate, specifically for use with the smaller bobbins some of my wheels use. Plus four extra bobbins for my early version Kromski Mazurka. To the best of my knowledge Wingham is the only place you can still get these bobbins. The modern Mazurka bobbins don't fit my old girl.

Blended merino and plain dyed tops. Plus some dyed silk carrier rods, because I loved the colours.

And my Wingham Swag Bag, free when you spend over £50. Perfect for carrying all your SkipNorth stash home.

I was also lucky enough to find a slightly sundamaged copy of "Vogue Knitting:Socks" in Wingham, a book which my knitting crony Gourdongirl has been seeking for ages. So I felt I had to phone her from Wingham and wake her up from her Sunday am snooze to tell her about it.....*grin*



Finally, some gifts from the ever-generous Wye Sue who was having a major destash. There were a lot of lucky people at SkipNorth that night!



HipKnits Silk Aran, in an amazing pink/orange colourway. I've already cast on the Forest Canopy Shawl in this.




Some truely scrumptious Giotto, also from Sue. You're too good to us all, Sue!

I also came back with a bag of dyed silk threads for spinning from Natalie, but I'm darned if I can find the photo on my PC and I've not got time or light to take another one at the moment. Belive me though, lovely colours.

And finally, some dyeing of my own. Base yarn is Trekking sock yarn and I dyed it myself in the SkipNorth Kool-Aid dyeing workshop.I'm very proud of it, have to say!



So that's all. Not as much as from
SkipNorth 2007 or SkipNorth 2006. Or is there?????

PS. Zippiknits, thanks for the comment you left on my last post, but I can assure you that the lady in the white sweater is not me. That's Heather...she's an American knitter living in the UK, is the mother of the baby on the right in the baby picture, is twenty years younger than me and has the sort of fabulous auburn hair I've always wanted. So while I would like to pretend to be her, sadly, it's not the case.