Woolfestival - St Abbs

At the weekend my friend Louise hosted a Woolfestival in St.Abbs. As I am sure you are all aware she runs the wonderful Woolfish shop based at St. Abbs Head. A real Aladdin's cave. The festival is held in the local village hall, formerly the school and is wonderful.

This time there were stalls from Woolfish, Yarn Yard, The Border Tart and the gorgeous Cairndinnis Alpacas. I didn't get chance to go out and spend time with the alpaca like I did last time - they are so sweet.

I came away with a smal stash of lovely yarn. This is some hand-spun from The Border Tart:


I bought three skeins of Caber from The Yarn Yard in the most gorgeous metal-toned colours:



I also got some gorgeous hand-dyed yarn with a matching plain small skein to make contrasting heel and toes on socks:



So two days before the festival I contacted Natalie from The Yarn Yard and asked if she wanted a hand on the stall. I turned up at just before 10 and sat down, I think four hours later, having never stopped talking and selling on her lovely stall. It was an absolute dream. In the afternoon it was a little quieter and we had the chance to get to know each other a little (we have never met before) and Natalie taught me how to spin on a drop spindle.

Well - I loved it - and here are some pictures of it all. Please bear in mind this is the first time I have ever spun and I am thrilled with the results - even if it does look a little uneven.

This is the first yarn I made - it is hand spun on a drop spindle from a mixture of merino silk and shetland roving and plied together using Andean plying:





This is what I have on my spindle at the moment - this is the merino silk roving which is wonderfully smooth. 80% merino wool and 20% silk.



I absolutely love working with this fibre and have another 100g in one of the other colourways to also spin. This is available from the Yarn Yard in five colours and is gorgeous - I may have to get some of the other colourways too..