Tuesday 28 May 2013

Gardening & Dyeing

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http://willofibres.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/dying-wool-and-gardening/

Monday 20 May 2013

Tynedale Spinners Gathering

As I'm having problems with blogger, take the following link to my new blog


Monday 13 May 2013

At last something in the veg garden!!!!

On Saturday, when we were at Saltburn Farmer's Market, Pauline, who has the stall next to me, had brought in a load of her veg plants to sell. So I bought a courgette plant, 10 Russian Kale plants and 9 Tomatoe plants, 3 plum tomatoes, 3 beef tomatoes and 3 called "Les". because the seeds came from Pauline's late brother in law and the variety has been lost in the mists of time, so the plants are just known as Les. So we will have to see what fruits look like when they grow.
The courgette has been planted out in the garden, the kale plants moved on into bigger pots and the toms are in the greenhouse waiting to be planted out into grow bags.
We had a very quiet day at Saltburn on Saturday, which in someways I was glad about as, the fibre and wool  to replace what I sold at Wonderwool, only arrived in the middle of last week, and as it's the Spinners Gathering at the Tynedale Guild at Stockfield this coming Saturday, and I'm going to have all on to get everything packed up, priced and some of the fibre dyed in time. But it should be good fun and the lunch is always good.

Saturday 4 May 2013

Wonderwool Report

I left home on the Friday at 7.15am and arrived at the Royal Welsh Showground around 1.30. The drive over had not been too bad and I was able to park relatively close to one of the entrances near to where my stand was in row D.
Once checked in and unloaded, I set up my stall, but around 4pm I had had enough I was absolutely shattered and with only the fibre signs to put out, decided to call it a day and park up the campervan and enjoy a well deserved cup of tea.
The idea was that for tea we would go to the pub we visited last year for pie and chips, but discovered that it had been sold and was now a "student pub" and was only serving variations on burger and chips. Thankfully we found a very good fish and chip shop where we could eat in, so that was Friday's evening meal sorted.
Saturday morning, the Crepes stall was doing their usual bacon butties for the stallholders and whilst eating mine I took the opportunity to have a look round at the other stalls, not realising that the battery on my watch was fading, so I had less time than I thought and I was still setting labels out when the doors opened to the public, so hence I didn't get time to take a photo of my stall.
Saturday was a very busy day, so much so that I struggled to keep my stall topped up with fibre and knitting wool. I'd taken 34 yarn bowls, the ones with a cut out swirl, (would upload a photo but blogger won't let me at the moment) and 5 yarn bowls with a face one. By 2.30 on the Saturday all the "swirl" yarn bowls had all been sold and by lunch time on the Sunday, the other yarn bowls had also sold out. Needless to say some more have been ordered, another 50, so that should keep me going at Woolfest in June, hopefully. Most of Saturday was a blur with customers coming and going. In the evening some of the caterers continued to cook for the stallholders, so we could have a "bit of a get together" and just catch up with everyone at the show, in a way you can't during the day.
Sunday was much quieter, which to some extent was a relief, after the rush of the day before. But before we all knew it, it was 4.30 and time to pack everything up. As I was staying another night, I didn't really have to rush my packing up, and got help taking my stuff back to the trailer.
I left the showground at 9am on the Monday morning, for what I hoped would be a leisurely drive back home, it was to some extent, but at Chester the winds started to pick up and it was a bit of a "white knuckle ride" home in some places, with the trailer and campervan being buffeted by the wind. But I got home around 3pm and after a cup of tea and a bath, unloaded the campervan, but left unloading the trailer until Tuesday morning as I wanted to count how much fibre and wool I'd brought back, not a lot if would appear!!!!
So roll on Wonderwool 2014 where I will travel down on the Thursday as I'm able to stay at the Showground on the Thursday night.
All in all it was a brilliant event, let's hope Woolfest, Fibre East etc all follow suit.