Edinburgh Yarn Festival

The Saturday before last I spent a fantastic day at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival with my mum. It was a brillant day, with so many lovely stands and vendors, and friendly fellow yarn lovers. In fact, I think the only thing wrong with the whole day was the fact the venue was a little too small for the number of people that turned up! It was the first year running, and the organisers and volunteers seemed rather surprised by the crowd - and it was definitely a crowd - everyone was packed in and at places you couldn't see the stalls themselves for the amount of people crowded round. That certainly didn't stop us from buying anything or enjoying ourselves.

I managed not to spend an absolute fortune (though only just - I could easily have spent a lot more than I did.)

First is this ridiculously cute Owl Ribbon from Avery Homestore:


Then it was to the Yarn Yard stand where I oohed and ahhed for ages before I ended up with:

Both are 4 ply, and a little brighter in reality. The green one is a 75% Wool/ 25% Nylon mix and the pink is Blue Face Leicester wool. Both are delightful to feel but I'm not sure what I'm going to knit with them yet.

I got a ball of JC Rennie 4ply (which is a new to me brand) from Wee County Yarns:

It's a silk mix and I went ooooh as soon as I saw it.

Then there was the Yarn Pony stand (who doesn't sell online at the moment *sob*)

Unfortunately these aren't for me. They are absolutely gorgeous and squishy, and they are going to make a gorgeous Ebbs Shawl for Mum's Christmas. (She picked them out when she was there with me so I can't even pretend they accidentally got lost). There should be enough of the blue left over to knit myself something though.

Last but not least was:

from Natural Born Dyers. It's going to be a Photosynthesis shawl, and it's going to be gorgeous. I can't wait to cast on.

It was only the fact that I was nearly ready to drop that managed to stop me buying anything from Textile Garden which had some absolutely stunning buttons at very reasonable prices.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the yarn festival is going to become a regular event.