For those folk who don't know about Woolfest, it's a 2-day sheep and fibre festival held in the large modern auction mart at Cockermouth in the north-western Lake District. It has stalls galore, demonstrations and lectures, fibre-bearing animals, classes on a wide variety of different crafts, an evening meal of good Cumbrian food (Tatie Pot this year, which is a bit like a Lancashire Hot Pot, but with the addition of black pudding to the lamb, vegetables and potatoes layered on the top) and then a Spin-In, during which you'd find loads of folk all working away at their chosen crafts, from knitting and crocheting through spinning to small scale weaving! It's an amazing place to meet wonderful, like-minded folk.
I was quite restrained in the purchasing department (stop that laughing at the back), but did splash out on the legendary book Unexpected Knitting by Debbie New. I had heard much of this book, and I have to say, the reality has just blown me away. Let me just say two words to you: Knitted Coracle. Yep, that's right. Debbie New has knitted a coracle, and it floats. It's a perfectly usable boat! A BOAT - made out of knitting... She has also made knitted cups and saucers, fabulous artworks, some of the most innovatively constructed garments I've ever seen... well. It's not a cheap book, but it's a must if you are interested in really extraordinary ways of creating things out of yarn. It's not really thinking out of the box - for her, there IS no box to think outside of in the first place. She's like a turbo-charged Elizabeth Zimmermann! I don't think that a reading through of this book will help me understand the things in it - satisfyingly, the only way to understand is to knit - a lot. Oh what a shame.
Alas, I did resist the temptation to buy a pair of knitting needles that lit up at the tips - but I did increase my collection of Brittany needles (the most lovely needles), and I also bought some roving, a blend of Merino and silk, very tactile. I also purchased the most ENORMOUS inkle loom, a potentially very useful piece of equipment acquired for a bargainous price. It is large, though, and I'm sure you can imagine how pleased Mr Foz was that it has been moved into the house.
But I have to say, the thing that did make it for me was the sheep auction. I pretend to be an uncompetitive person, because I am easily disappointed, but actually I like competing as much as the next woman. The textile sheep auction which had been organised at Woolfest this year was to raise money for Farm Africa, and I was all for that. Of course, what with one thing and another, I just didn't get on with making the blooming thing, and all the careful experimentation I'd wanted to do was just not going to happen - as you know from the previous post, I did rather mess up in the timing department. I was still frantically needle felting the dyed fleece onto the body of this sheep (my dad, observing this latest brand of madness from his daughter, thought that the whole thing looked very vicious!) on Friday morning. But it was worth it - here's a picture of the finished sheep, in the caravan:
I dropped him off with the rest of the candidates, and spent some time admiring them (there were some amazingly clever ones, including a pair of funkily well dressed Herdwicks in cable sweaters!!) before trundling off round the stalls. I hadn't realised prior to dropping him off that, in line with what happens in a real sheep sale, the lots were to be judged before the auction, and knitted rosettes awarded to the winners. Imagine my delight, the following day, when I returned to find this:
(I think he looks quite smug in the above picture, and no wonder.)
I'm glad to report that the auction was great fun - the auctioneer really entered into the spirit of things - and my sheep made £55 of the total raised, which was over £1100. Now that's what I call a good day's work at Woolfest.
