Yarndale - And My Spin City Stall!

All ready at Yarndale!

What a weekend! What a show! I have just got back to my lovely sunny Cambridge house after a crazy fabulous weekend away in Yorkshire for Yarndale!  

Me and Mum in matching outfits on our stall.  

 Mum (the beautiful Karen Player) and I set off on Friday morning bright and early and headed north with our trailer in tow stuffed to the roof with all my colourful hand carded batts, spindles and hand spun yarns - as well as my trusty vintage dresser, birdcage, shelves and fabric walls!

After many a traffic jam and jam sandwiches we arrived about five hours later, and quickly set about erecting fabric walls and putting everything in place. I love seeing everything come together. Putting together a show stand for me is like owning a little shop for a couple of days, which is a dream of mine! The icing on the cake of me is putting up our polka dot bunting as I think it makes our stall look so festive.

I made quite a few new batts for this show, with bright colours in! They didn't last long. :-D
The most popular batt was "E Numbers" made from merino, faux cashmere and silk in a neon rainbow!  I also made a series of batts inspired by the planets. At the top of the picture below is "Saturn." I was so surprised to see a few friends from instagram meet me first thing on Saturday - saying they had to get to my stall quickly before my batts sold out!

Colourful batts on my stall

 I also brought with me my selection of drop spindles with pressed flowers, glitter, lace and pretty pictures trapped inside. Here's my spindle table all set up in my teapot collection!

Drop spindles in my teapot collection

 Mum and I are always happy to teach newbies how to spin. In fact - it is a total joy for me to teach people, because I love spinning so much and I love passing that on to others! I was bitten by the spinning bug about six years ago now, and I don't think a day goes by without my picking up a spindle. It's totally addictive and rewarding.
One of the best things about Yarndale for me this year was teaching people how to spin - and then those people coming back to me a couple of hours later or even the next day to show me how far they had come along! They had gone from complete beginner- some not even knowing what a drop spindle was- to fully fledged spinstars in just a few hours! I've even had an email from a textiles student with pictures of her newly spun yarn on the knitting machine on her first day back at Uni. I felt very proud of her. :-)

I think I might have a glitter addiction!

 The first day at Yarndale was my most successful show day ever. Thank you to everyone who came along and supported me, I feel so blessed. :-) We were pretty rushed off our feet the whole day - although we did manage to sneak in a couple of chocolate bars and tea breaks.

 After we closed on the Saturday we drove to our gorgeous Air BnB cottage in Barnnoldswick a few miles down the road and kicked off our shoes and settled down to eat nice healthy meal and watched "Midnight's Children" by Salman Rushdie. Then I was up bright and early again on Sunday to straighten our stall out again for day two of Yarndale!

Blended rovings all stacked up

My handspun yarns

 When we got to our stall on the Sunday morning we were greeted by a herd of massive Swalesdale sheep!  They had the most gorgeous lacey fleeces and made such pretty sheep noises. I wonder who the breeder was? ;-)

Swaledale sheep at Yarndale

Herded by a friendly sheepdog!

We packed down at 4.30 when the show closed and headed back to our cottage for another night of film watching. I was so tired I went to bed before 10 - but I was woken up at 3 am by Mum excitedly because the Lunar eclipse was in full swing. We sat up and watched it together from the attic room with skylights flung open- a magical way to finish our weekend away.
I can't wait to go back next year.

Here's a little video of the show by the blogger +Helpful Mum  which features my spindles. Enjoy!