Yarndale 2019 Haul

25th November 2019

At the end of September I attended my first yarn festival and that was Yarndale 2019.

Yarndale is a two day festival described as a 'creative festival celebrating all things woolly and wonderful' which happens annually at Skipton Auction Mart. There were over 180 exhibitors as well as various workshops. I chose to visit on the Sunday and unfortunately the weather was rather wet this year, so I was a bit worried we wouldn't be able to get to Skipton at all but the roads thankfully weren't too treacherous and we made it there before opening time. Doors open at 10am for ticket holders and 11am for pay on the day visitors so I had purchased our tickets in advance.

I did make a shopping list to make sure I wouldn't purchase anything without having a plan for how I would use it and I think that worked well, as there are so many exhibitors I think if you don't have some kind of plan you could easily get overwhelmed and end up spending all of your budget very quickly.

Now to show you everything I purchased!

The first stand I visited was Beehive Yarns, where I actually made the majority of my yarn purchases. The first hank of yarn I purchased was 'Take the A Train' which is 100% Superwash Extra Fine Merino DK. This was also the only DK yarn I purchased and I intend to use it for the Honey Cowl by Antonia Shankland. The other yarn I picked up from Beehive Yarns was 'Tapestry' which is 80% Superwash Merino and 20% Nylon, along with 'Fox Tales' which is 75% Superwash Merino and 25% Nylon. I'm planning to use these together for a Montana Mountain Cowl by Andrea Mowry.

I also returned to the Beehive Yarn stand before we left Yarndale and purchased a pack of 3 hanks, which are all 75% Superwash Merino and 25% Nylon. The colours included were 'Teal Appeal', 'Tapestry' and 'Raven Red', which I'll be using for a Free Your Fade shawl by Andrea Mowry. I had seen this pack of 3 when we first visited but had decided to look around the other stands first before purchasing to avoid spending too much of my budget before looking around properly.

The next stand I visited was Third Vault Yarns, where I purchased 3 hanks, the first of which was 'Mordor' which is 75% Superwash Bluefaced Leicester and 25% Nylon and is going to be used for a pair of socks. The other two skeins were 'Mount Doom' which is 75% Superwash Bluefaced Leicester and 25% Nylon and 'Rey' which is 100% Superwash Merino. I'll be using these two skeins together for a Red Moon Cowl by Born & Raised Knits.

After this we visited the stand for The Knitter magazine where they had a wheel you could spin to win something, I won a unicorn kit.

Following this we visited the Sincerely Louise Stand where I purchased a kit to knit a mini ram head which can be mounted on a wall, I've had my eye on these for a while so was glad to be able to get one but haven't yet decided where I'm going to put this in my house when it's done.

We then visited the TOFT stand where I purchased a kit to make Deborah the Kerry Hill Sheep. You basically get a drawstring bag with the yarn required and are then emailed the pattern the following day. Afterwards I realised I was going to need some stuffing and ended up purchasing some from their website.

We also visited the Woolly Originals stand, where I purchased a small Lava Landscape project bag, these project bags are inspired by the alpine plants and volcanic landscape in Iceland. They're really lovely quality and very well made so I already want to get another project bag.