Tuesday 19 April 2011

Shear Maaadness


On Thursday, I went to the Stitch and Creative Crafts Show at the King's Hall, Belfast, with Maura from Irish Bounty. While she was interested in all things card making, I was looking for lots and lots of woolly delights. Just when I told Maura wisely, that I was keeping a tight budget and would not engage in spontaneous shopping, but in fact would look at all the stalls before making a decision to purchase, something caught my eye. It was bright and it was woolly! I zoomed towards it like a pin to a magnet.

Fleece!

Dyed fleece!

Dyed in colours of the rainbow!

MINE!!!

Greedily, I claimed possession of this beautiful fleece shaped like a feather boa..., and its neighbour, too. When the lady at the stall of the  Ulster Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers told me that she had more, my eyes were gleeming with fleecy gluttony.


I ended up with a rucksack full of three large dyed fleeces plus one roving, and I felt as if I was carrying half a sheep on my back.


So we went on and looked at many things, and I bought a few bits of stationary and some card making material, had a coffee with Maura's family before they all went home, and met an interesting French lady who told me her a fascinating life story, which had some weird coincidental parallels to my family history.

I went on to look at more stalls, but my feet started to ache. There were also not enough wool stalls for my liking, although I loved to look at all things crafty, sore feet or not.

Still, there comes a time when one wants to go home, put the feet up and admire one's purchases. There was this tenner left in my purse that I should have saved for food or new business cards. But I hadn't bought any yarn at all...! And there was one fleece still left at the Spinners and Dyers...yes, I had not totally cleared them out yet.



Needless to say, that lonely fleece went also home with me, plus another roving. My fibre trunk is now bursting at the seams, and I probably have fibre and fleece for years to come, while I don't even have a wheel, just two Turkish drop spindles and a Mother Marian. Those fleeces are pretty though, like works of art, and I am very tempted to just hang them up in my studio for the time being until they are spun...

They will be spun!

Watch this space for updates on spinning these fleeces!

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful colours you got there! I've never seen a stall selling pure wool and yarn!
    Must be wonderful! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh Chiara, it is! Nothing like the real thing :)

    ReplyDelete

Come and spin some yarn!