Knit Nation 2011 Part 1

I spent this past Saturday at Knit Nation at Imperial College, London and I had an amazing time. I was a bit nervous beforehand as I was going alone. My mum was meant to come with me, but due to an op to remove a cataract the day before, she couldn't be there (it all went fine though, and now she has amazing eyesight!). But I needn't have worried. Knitters are truly such kind and friendly people that I didn't feel lonely at any point during my day. Most of my time was taken up with the Knitting with Color class I took by Susanna Hansson. It was fantastic and I will talk more about that in my second blog post. What I wanted to share today were my purchases at Knit Nation. There were so many beautiful yarns and accessories to see!

My first purchase was some laceweight by Juno Fibre Arts . Earlier in my day, I had seen a lady wearing a beautiful lace shawl made from a pink yarn with a lovely shimmery thread running through it. I decided I wanted something similar and then came across this - perfect. The yarn is called Sirius Lace and is in the colourway Envy.

My second purchase was some more laceweight (because you can never have too much!) from Old Maiden Aunt. This is a lovely soft hand dyed yarn - alpaca, merino, silk mix. I also adore the colour as I'm having a bit of a green thing at the moment. The colourway is called Bitter Bug.

Next, I visited the stall shared by Made by Loumms and Sweet Clement. I follow the Loumms blog and I am friendly with erqsome on Ravelry, so I had coveted one of their beautiful handmade project bags for a while. I chose a wrister bag, an ingenious project bag which allows you to knit on the go. I really loved all their whimsical and fun fabrics, but this one was my favourite.

I had not heard of Sweet Clement before, but I loved the vibrant colours and so chose some lovely red 4 ply Superwash Blue Faced Leicester. It is called Beloved and is in the colourway Scarlet.

Last, but by no means least, there was a lovely stall from a place called Well Manor Farm. This company was new to me, but they were very friendly telling me all about their farm and the sheep. They raise and shear the sheep themselves, then dye the yarn. I chose some yarn from their Gotland sheep, which I hadn't heard of before, but they had some lovely samples which showed that it knits up beautifully. I bought the Gotland Lambswool in a DK weight, but they had yarn in everything from a 2 ply laceweight up to an Aran weight. All the colours were either undyed or dyed using natural dyes, resulting in a stall full of wonderful earthy colours. I have one undyed skein and three in a rusty red colour.

And that's about it. Needless to say, I shall not be buying any more yarn for a while. Now I need to just get knitting it all!

PS. I'm still plodding along on the Princess Shawl. I'm on to the second chart of the large border. Progress is slow, but I'm not giving up!