Bethnal Green Craftacular

The Craftacular at Bethnal Green yesterday was spectacularly well attended. I got there at midday, which was when it was due to open, and the mother of all queues was already in place.

That was just the bit that went round the corner. When you got round it there was a whole another bend to get round.

Has there ever been such a queue to get into a craftacular?

In any case, it was worth the wait, and the £2 entrance fee, as this is what awaited me.

Stand after stand of crafty goodness, plus cakes and drinks. They sold out of iced tea in an hour (20 gallons so I heard) and anyone making fans would have been minted as I must have been asked a dozen time where I'd bought mine. (Luckily I always carry one, as you do - so handy on the tube, and got my panda encrusted one from Artbox. Love that place and excellent online service.) Truly they could have done with some air conditioning.

You know how in the consumer craft world there are trends and then everyone is suddenly doing them? Here it was screenprinting and shapes cut out of acrylic.

Plus moustaches. The days when Erqsome was a lone moustachio'd warrior are no more, and in fact someone told me tattoo artists were now accustomed to people asking for them to be tattoo'd on their fingers, so they could assume a moustache at a moment's notice.

(Can someone please tell me how they will explain a tattoo'd finger to others in 10 years time? But then I guess some things never get old, and the grandkids are going to love it.)

There were also some highly inspirational things too:

Love those pillows, and the pincushions below likewise.

My actual purchases were modest and consisted of a little leather hairclip,

......a free copy of Bust magazine (feminist mag combining lady porn, music, films, interviews and etsy) who organised the whole shindig, a zine, a few greetings card and a snazzy pair of handmade pants.

I also gathered tonnes of business cards for when I am a bit more in the money. So pretty.

Special mention must be made of the cakes. Polka dot heart shaped lemon tarts anyone?

Or edible glitter covered rose water cupcakes?

Sadly a bit beyond my budget for the evening, so luckily I spied a branch of Percy Ingles near Whitechapel tube and made away with 9 of their best for my evening with friends.

Om nom nom nom.

SkipNorth Epic

Though I say so myself, I think this was a good one. It all went to plan, everyone seemed pretty happy and there was some good shopping for all. All criteria for success. Full photos are here but here are some selected highlights. 


Wicked treat on the drive up:

Haworth high street (it's actually the first time in all these visits I've ever seen this):

Just a hint of the epic yarn swap:

Now that truly was immense. I have never seen so much yarn outside of a shop. It looks like our combined donations (on behalf of what we all took from the swap) amounts to well over £300, all for p-hop. Hoorah for all of us!

My own personal gain from p-hop was firstly these amazing vintage embroidery cotton organisers. 

Aren't they gorgeous? I also got some random yarn and some other embroidery bits. 

I didn't buy anywhere near as much as I have in the past during the weekend, but I did do very nicely. One of my best purchases has to be the alpaca from County Alpacas, the farm owners who came to talk to us on saturday night. 

They told me the name of the alpaca it came from but I've completely forgotten - may have been Irene? Beautiful stuff and a tiny carbon footprint seeing how the furthest it travelled was to the other side of the county to be processed at the mill. I bought it for an interweave wrap that Knit theKnits modelled very nicely during the weekend. In fact there were many amazing FO's being modelled which were all inspiring, but I think it is the emerald beaded bracelet that I've seen queued most often since then. It was even more amazing in real life than it looks on ravelry.  


BTW - Ravelry would seem to no longer be 'beta' and has a nifty new homepage. Very nice!

Look at my pants!

I did the Knicker Making Workshop that Pooch got me for christmas today.....AWESOME! It was at the Make Lounge which I'd read about on Jane's blog but this was my first visit. My pants are, frankly, amazing. 

I also got to use an overlocker for the first time too. Now that is one mean machine. So useful for almost everything ever. I need an overlocker. No. No, I don;t need an overlocker. No. Don't. 

The teacher was brilliant and the course was very well organised. The range of fabrics to choose from were lovely, as wear the elastic and threads. Facilities were good - I'd definitely do another course there sometime. In fact the owner mentioned one on screenprinting coming up which sounds very tempting. 


I managed to come out of the shop with just one or two little things. Two of which were these lovely fabrics, which will fit very nicely into my dotty quilt. 

All my knitting this week has been on the wedding blanket and I've finished these two as well as the plain circles. This one is like a paper cut out lou and joe made for me and pooch one time showing the four of us lined. up.

The other one....can you see what it is?

In Codeine we trust

My back was better - loads better. I hobbled into the physio on tuesday and bounced out again, leaping about like a spring lamb. The at IKnit yesterday I happened to cuddle a baby and on giving it back to its mater something went boink and then continued to get worse and worse and worse and ... you get the picture. It climaxed about 11pm with me crying uncontrollably and writhing with pain on the bed. No position made it better. My right foot had pins and needles and the muscles in the rest of my leg were hyperventilating or whatever muscles do. The out of hours doctor faxed a prescription for codeine to tesco but they didn't open til 8 this morning. Fortunately after a few hours it had eased a bit and I fell asleep - but with the most awful dreams. Now, the painkillers have done the trick but I can see the muscles in my right calf pulse which is rather too much like a horror film to be comfortable.

The worst thing - worse than the pain - is that I've had to miss the second day of Iknit all together - including the workshops I'd paid about £50 to go to by Alice Starmore and Debbie New. The word we are looking for here is "bollocks".

The only thing cheering me up is that I did get to the Debbie New talk yesterday and have a good go at the market so I'm not empty handed. The talk was *brilliant*. Engrossing, fascinating, insightful, intriguing, inspiring and loads of other adjectives. Plus we got to look and feel the objects in her book.

The sunflower coat:

The swirl baby sweater - I love this.

This is genius. Cast on the neck and work down using miters. She used extra ones around the nexk to round it out.

Just beautiful - colour, pattern, shape, all perfect.

Beautiful oroubus.

I didn't take many pics of the market as I assumed I'd be back today but here's what I did snap. Beautiful diplay of natural dyeing from the vauxhall city farm.

I absolutely loved this scarf with the bobbled tassles.

The fluffiest alpaca ear muffs you ever saw. So tempted....

And then there was what I bought. Again - I managed to score some very nice things, and just as well since I thought I'd have another go today. First up, P/Hop patterns.

Organic natural dyed wool from Norwool.

Pattern books and an actual book from the Oxfam book shop round the corner.

Vintage polka dot buttons. (Red and white polka dot? They had to come home with me.)

And the good stuff - all dyed by our very own Liz and from the Woolly Workshop stand. This was where I made most of my purchases. The top two are for my Secret Pal.

Plus some beautiful sock from a new entrant to the yarn market. Sparkleduck.

And i did try to resist, but Gill was just too tempting.

Then there were Herdy xmas cards and Wibbo stitchmarkers.

Beautiful brooches (blue one for my Secret Pal) and felt buttons.

I couldn't resist the brooch with the dangly bits once I'd picked it up. This is why. Made me laugh.

And the piece de resistance.....

This last one is from Tilly Flop. I hadn't seen her things before but they are rather lovely.

Thought IKnit Weekender, the half day I managed, was brill and much kudos to Gerard and all. Just wish I could have been there for more of it. Meanwhile, let's just keep those painkillers coming.

Back from the Lakes, and from Woolfest, and from the in-laws, and...(Picturetastic)

So I finally made it to Woolfest. I've been trying to go since it started and I finally made it on its fifth birthday. And it was great! But something rather strange happened. There I was, almost knee deep in the good stuff, and yet I only came away with this...

The closest I got to yarn is sock blockers - which are absolutely beautiful.

They've got painted tops - so pretty! I also managed to stock up on buttons. I am getting really into buttons nowadays.

My favourite part of the day was the sheep auction. The auctioneer was the one who usually does the animal auctions there and was brilliant.

I bid on a number of things but struck lucky with these.

Aren't they amazing? I forget now who made them but I absolutely love them. More than £1000 was raised for the nominated charity and most people looked as if they were having as much fun as me. There were also some actual sheep. I couldn't resist taking a photo of this one - with a centre parting.

There were also lots with amazing horns.

As well as the usual amazing knitting on display...

....there were also traditional crafts....

...and traditional music and dancing.

Plus the most awesome ewe milk ice cream. Phew - that stuff was divine.

I think that's enough for today - I'm going to finish off my post tomorrow. Just to say - those signed up on Secret Pal the partners haven't gone out yet. Will be a little while longer but stay tunes to the blog for updates.