Pattern Release | Floral Mandala Ring Cushion

Posted in Crochet, For Adult, Independent Design, Inspiration, Life, Pattern Release, Sale / Special Offer, Tah-Dah by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

So this May was a very special month for me as my best friend, of over 25 years, got married. I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to design her ring cushion for her special day – and now it’s all over she’s happy for me to release the design as a pattern for others to enjoy too.

What was really funny when I started thinking about designing this cushion, and a testament to how well we know each other after all these years, I knew she wanted purple to be her wedding colour so I picked up some purple yarn and the accent button when I happened to see them. But this was before she’d made the final choice for her wedding decor – but it all matched perfectly, I just knew what she’d like!

Introducing the Floral Mandala Ring Cushion…

If you’ve chosen to have a ring bearer on your wedding day and you’d love to include a handmade element in your day then this could be the perfect solution for you.

This sweet and simple textured cushion with it’s floral mandala motif is elegant enough on its own and lets the rings do the talking.

The colours can be adapted to match any wedding theme and it’s a relatively easy item to make. Perfect for a beginner that was looking to learn some new crochet techniques or an experienced crocheter as a quick project.

👰 Add the pattern to your favourites on Ravelry 🤵

The cushion is made with Scheepjes Cotton 8 (4ply / fingering weight) yarn but if you made it with Aran (worsted weight) yarn and a larger hook I think you would also have a fantastic cushion for your favourite chair!

If you hook up the Floral Mandala Ring Cushion please share your photos with me on social media (facebook, twitter or instagram) – I love to see what you make!

Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

28May2018

Dear Ewe | Launch Day News and Discount Coupon

Posted in Crochet, Dear Ewe, Designing, Inspiration, Life, Sale / Special Offer by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

FOLKS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! DEAR EWE IS A GO-GO!!!!

Through hard work, focus, learning, grit & persistence my business partner Becky and I have finally launched our new online shop for crafty folks – Dear Ewe – the NEW place to shop for craft inspired products.

At Dear Ewe our aim is to celebrate your crafty life with a range of quality products which have been inspired by the handmade and everything has been designed with crafty EWE in mind.

We’ve worked hard to try and create beautiful and functional products for crafters which includes mugs, bags, framed craft room decor, photo prop cards and greetings cards.

And for those of you that love to make things we have some crochet patterns too – all available as an instant digital download from the website. At the moment there are just two designs (available in UK or US crochet terminology) but I have big crochet plans so watch this space!

We’ve got a launch special offer for anyone that enjoys a bit of retail therapy in our store. Our prop cards are a must have for crafters or bloggers who want to spice up their social media feeds!

Buy two or more products from DearEwe.com from 28 May and you’ll receive two FREE lucky dip photo prop cards with your order.

We’ve chipped away at the dream for awhile now and it’s amazing to see all the hard work finally become reality. Personally the learning curve for me has been massive! But I feel very proud of what Becky and I have accomplished.

And of course I’ve got a little something for you my lovely KCACO.UK readers, just enter KCACOUK4EWE at the Dear Ewe checkout for 10% off your final order (valid until the end of June 2018) – happy shopping folks!

Until next time, keep calm and crochet on my friends x

11May2018

Dear Ewe | Behind the Scenes

Posted in Amigurumi, Crochet, Dear Ewe, Designing, Life by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

Squeek! The launch day for Dear Ewe is getting ever closer…only 16 days and 17 hours to go and probably even less by the time I’ve finished writing this up and posted it! I seriously feel that all of a sudden the days have started speeding forward to the deadline date and just where on earth did April go?!

If this is the first time you are hearing about Dear Ewe it’s the online company and shop that I have formed with my friend, and now business partner Becky, that’s launching at the end of this month on Monday 28th May. The shop will sell a variety of products including bone china mugs, bags, crochet patterns, prints and cards that all celebrate creativity and the world of handmade.

We know that there are shops out there (not including the small handmade product providers) that have products for crafters but it’s often either only a small part of what they do or it’s a cheap import that’s not that great. So we wanted to change that. Dear Ewe’s sole purpose is to create good quality products inspired by crafts designed exclusively for crafters.

With launch date growing ever closer I thought it might be nice if I shared a little behind the scenes look at how we’ve been preparing for the big day and a bit more of a peep at some of the products that are going to be on offer – including some of my person favourites!

As you can imagine we’ve been planning and working incredibly hard behind the scenes to design and source our products. Sourcing our products close to home and supporting local business owners and our local community was something we were both very keen to do. We’re proud to live in Stoke-on-Trent, which is officially recognised as the World Capital of Ceramics, so it made sense that we should be able to find locally produced fine bone china – and we did with the fabulous and supportive Heraldic Pottery.

One of my favourite days so far was when we were invited to go behind the scenes at the factory to see some of our first mugs being created. You can watch a little video that we took here, but I’ll pop a couple of photos below too…

I can’t quite explain that feeling of having seen something that was 2-D for so long and then how it felt actually seeing it as a real product – it was so exciting!

Every single one of our mugs is hand decorated by skilled lithographers, and when we got the opportunity to watch them, well it’s unbelievable how skillful they are! I love the fact that our mugs have that ‘handmade’ touch because we’re all about celebrating that aren’t we!

Another of my favourite days so far was a fantastic photo shoot at the stunning venue of The Upper House with Clara Lou Photography. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, there were flowers everywhere, it was just such a lovely place to be – and it provided so many wonderful backdrops for some of our products shoots.

You can just see one of our bags in shot there. I LOVE our bags…shall I tell you a little secret…I’ve already bought several for myself (there’s definitely perks to being a business owner). But they are just so nice and handy and sturdy if you know what I mean!! I did a little bit of a yarn stash tidying exercise recently and oh my were the draw string bags great for that. But I digress…as well as (two different sizes) of draw string bags we also have our fabulous tote bags…

And I think I’m going to leave it there…that’s enough sneaky peeks for now, but I will just quickly mention again that as well as our mugs and bags in store we also have our fantastic photo prop postcards, some beautiful framed print designs for your craft space, greetings cards and of course a couple of exclusive crochet patterns (designed by moi).

Our official launch is 28 May 2018 but you can stay in the loop with details by signing up to our newsletter, or following us on social media (all links on the website).

Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

4May2018

Yarn Shop Day 2018 | Milo the Cat

Posted in Amigurumi, Crochet, Days Out, Designing, Free Patterns, From the Stash, Getting Crafty, Inspiration, Life, Pattern Release, Tah-Dah, Yarn by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

I have the most exciting news to share with you! Some of you may have already seen me mention it on Instagram but now I can tell you all properly.

Last year I was approached by the editor of Let’s Knit Magazine to see if I would like to design the mascot for Yarn Shop Day. Me!?! Design the mascot for Yarn Shop Day! I couldn’t believe it! What an honour to design the mascot for such a big day celebrated all over the United Kingdom! Of course I said yes and I quickly donned my (crocheted) designers cap and started planning.

If you aren’t familiar with Yarn Shop Day, it’s an annual annual event that celebrates bricks-and-mortar yarn shops. Part of the wider Love Your Yarn Shop campaign, this year’s event takes place on Saturday 12 May 2018. Each participating store will host its own special event, with all sorts of fun activities taking place.

I was asked to come up with a design for a cat and so in my excitement I drew about eleventy billion cat sketches and even tried playing with some designs to see what developed, but we finally settled on developing the cat sketch (below) using the Yarn Shop day colours.

I made him from bits of double knit yarn I had in my stash, that I had bought from various yarn store visits, and this is how he turned out…Meet Milo the Cat 🐱

And as I had to send that Milo away to the Let’s Knit Magazine team I’m currently making myself another little Milo in Scheepjes Catona yarn which I bought from Black Sheeps Wool last year – because he has to be made with shop bought yarn naturally.

Milo the Cat and Dixie the Llama are the crocheted and knitted mascots for 2018 and are exclusively available (for free) in participating stores, along with specially produced knitted and crocheted blanket patterns. If you’re a keen crocheter or knitter, be sure to pop down to your local yarn shop for a day of fibre-tastic fun. Click on the banner below to find participating stores near you.

I never need an excuse to visit a yarn shop and this year I hope to pop down to Abakhan in Hanley to join in the fun. I hope you will be out too supporting your local yarn shop! I feel it’s so important to be an advocate for any small shop owner, they are often the people who are experts in their field, love what they do and are just trying to live their dream.

And if you hook up Milo the Cat, I hope you will share your project on your favourite social media sites, Facebook page or Facebookgroup, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram as I love to see your finished work! Also if you are featured in my newsletter, as the customer spotlight, you could win a pattern of your choice – so don’t forget to tag me when you share.

Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

28Mar2018

Dear Ewe | Inspired Products for Crafty People

Posted in Crochet, Dear Ewe, Getting Crafty, Life by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

Hey lovelies, I have some extremely exciting news! I’m thrilled to announce my new business venture, Dear Ewe, a online shop full of craft inspired products for creative folks.

I founded Dear Ewe, with my good friend Becky (of Keepsakes by Rebecca) because we felt there was a gap in the market for high quality, contemporary and functional gifts for crafters. We’ve been working hard in stealth for many months to combine our passions of stitching and graphics to develop a range of products that we think creative folks will really like.

Although the range of our products are for various crafts it made sense, as I’m a crochet addict, that some of our first ranges were exclusively for all the lovely crocheters in the world.

I love these mugs!! There’s 3 wonderful mug ranges to choose from: the beautiful crochet chart range (as shown), the gorgeous character range featuring our own lovable Ewe, and the fantastic crafts pattern range ➰ And the fabulous thing is that each of these mugs are hand decorated on English made fine bone china mugs – crafted by crafters for crafters!

As well as lovely mugs, we also have a range of fab textiles, patterns, art and cards – all celebrating creativity and the world of handmade. I know I am biased, as this is my new business, but I love everything we’ve got! You won’t find anything in Dear Ewe that we don’t want to own ourselves and everything has been inspired by you (or ewe) that love handicrafts.

More details about Dear Ewe will be following soon. Our official launch is 28 May 2018 but you can stay in the loop with details by signing up to our newsletter, or following us on social media (or go crazy sign up and follow us on them all!)

Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

23Feb2018

My visit to The Crochet Sanctuary

Posted in Crochet, Days Out, Life, Outings by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

Sooo today I want to tell you about the wonderful weekend I had at The Crochet Sanctuary What’s this I hear you cry! What on earth is a Crochet Sanctuary? Is it a sacred place for humans to crochet all day long? Well yes – that’s EXACTLY what it is. The Crochet Sanctuary is a place for like minded people to congregate in a state of pure relaxation and enjoy crochet aplenty.

You may remember that the lovely Mr. KCACO-UK bought me a day pass last year as a treat for a weekend in February. So last weekend hooks in hand and in a wild state of anticipation I made my way to the beautiful Cranage Hall in Crewe.

The Crochet Sanctuary is the brainchild of the very lovely Lisa from The Wee House of Crochet and Lynda-Rose of Lyndas Craftroom. It runs from Friday evening at 5pm until Sunday afternoon with day passes, like mine, on a Saturday from 10am until 6pm. All snacks, drinks and lunch are included along with unlimited yarn (!!!), and there is also workshops and guest designers. Too much awesomeness right?!?

Anyway back to my day…I got to the sanctuary and I was shown the way into a side room (with crochet bunting adorning the door) and once inside I was initially rather taken a back to find a room full of people all ready and eager to crochet. I don’t know why I was so surprised, that is after all what the day was about, but it was just a completely new crochet scenario I suppose as I usually crochet alone (boo hoo).

I think there was about 25 of us in total and as the day was about to start I quickly made myself at home on a sofa that, like all the other chairs in the room, were made up with crochet blankets and comfy cushions. We were encouraged to bring slippers before hand which I thought was lovely and many people did.

We went straight into our first workshop, which was to choose a wonderful TOFT Edwards Menagerie amigurumi kit, and then it was hooks a-go-go. I didn’t really mind what animal I ended up with, though I thought it would be nice to make something I haven’t already made (Hippo and Parrot), and in the end I ended up with the extremely cute Simon the Sheep.

So the rest of the morning was taken up with working on our respective amigurumi projects – or if that wasn’t something you were really interested in there was yarn and other pattern books available so you could work on something different.

There were breaks for tea and coffee and snacks and lemonade / pink lemonade to quench our thirst and a fabulous pick and mix cart full of sweets of which we could help ourselves too. Our hosts really had tried to think of everything to make us happy and then some!

We were all given a gift of an electronic row counter and the cutest gummy bear stitch marker to use on our projects. This unfortunately I promptly lost whilst I was there, it certainly didn’t make it home with me – it’s quite possibly down the sofa I was sitting on if anyone wants to check.

I so so enjoyed chatting with everyone around me – it’s so refreshing to speak to people who don’t glaze over when you are talking about crochet or yarn and enjoy talking about it as much as you. And then it was 1pm and lunchtime! The morning went sooooooo fast!

We enjoyed a delicious lunch and then it was back to a new workshop with the lovely Coastal Crochet who I’d been looking forward to meet. We went back into the room which had been transformed by a most wonderful display of pebbles and yarn as Eleanora brought a bit of the seaside with her – and she’d also created a playlist to accompany the afternoon with seaside themed songs.

Our workshop was to crochet around pebbles which I have had ago at before and enjoyed and as I have a bit of a pebble obsession was really pleased to try again. Eleanora had created five exclusive patterns for the workshop, and much to my delight, we were working with Scheepjes Catona which is one of my favourite yarns to work with.

I made two of the most delightful pebble cosies (is that I thing – can I claim that?) and they are now adorning my desk at home and work as paperweights.

There was a little bit of time left after that for chatting and working on whatever project we wanted to and then before I knew it (and way before I was ready to leave even though my time was up) Mr. KCACO-UK was outside ready to take me home.

Goodbye’s were said to all and with a goodie bag from the lovely Lisa and Lynda-Rose in hand I had to bid The Crochet Sanctuary a fond farewell. All in all a thoroughly wonderful day which I was lucky enough to share with the most wonderful group of people!

Just in case you were wondering what happened to Simon the Sheep – I finished him off when I got home and he turned out SUPER cute!

So if you are looking for a weekend of yarn, crochet, relaxation and just pure wonderfulness I can heartily recommend a visit to The Crochet Sanctuary. All the new dates for 2018 have now been added to the website here.

AND now I’m going to share my ultra exciting news!! If you’ve ever fancied finding out a bit more about the person behind these blog posts well now you can. The September Crochet Sanctuary 2018 will feature a workshop by ME! That’s right, I’m stepping into my presenting (crocheted?) shoes to deliver an interactive workshop with a brand new crochet design made especially for the day. And I for one cannot wait wait to go back to The Crochet Sanctuary.

Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

12Jan2018

2017 in a Nutshell + Giveaway Advanced Notice

Posted in Crochet, Designing, Giveaways, In A Nutshell, Life by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

I umm’d and ahh’d about doing an end of year review but I decided that I quite like looking back at the year in this way.

2017 for me was the year I had my tenth wedding anniversary and when I watched my youngest daughter take her first wobbly steps, when she finally said ‘Mama’ for the first time (and then never stopped saying it) and when my eldest daughter won first prize in a talent show that she’d entered herself into – so much pride for my family this year!

And 2017 has been quite a crochet year for me! Not only did I immortalise myself in crochet when I reviewed the Edwards Doll Emporium book but it’s the year where I made the very scary choice of trying to see how far I could really go on my crochet design journey. And it turned out to be further than I ever thought it would be! I got to work with some fabulous magazines both in the UK and the US and I’ve had the chance to collaborate with some awesome people and companies.

Sometimes I have to remind myself (and pinch myself) that it’s only since January this year that I started working with Let’s Get Crafting magazine as I’ve had such fun collaborating with them now for several fun designs.

I can’t even try to explain to you the overwhelming joy I felt when my first ever design with them appeared on the front cover – I’d never even contemplated the fact that it was a possibility. And what made it really great was the folks of the magazine saved the surprise so I didn’t know about until issue 88 was released.

Using set yarns amounts, colours and hooks for each project has really developed the way I look at things as a designer. I would have never thought it but I’ve found that I really quite enjoy the challenge of ‘making it work’ under, what others might see as, these types of constraint.

And I love how bright and colourful all the designs have been. I thought I’d do a little collage of all my makes that have featured in Let’s Get Crafting issues from January to December 2017 (Issues 88 to 97).

And I also got to work with Simply Crochet Magazine twice this year and, as you will remember from my last post, I got to have the Crochet Edits supplement all to myself – again there really are no words to describe how it felt to see that for the first time.

I feel so lucky that both Let’s Get Crafting and Simply Crochet Magazine have been so supportive and have believed in me enough to publish my work!

And I was feeling the love from across the pond too as I worked with both Happily Hooked magazine…

and I Like Crochet magazine again.

I’ve also had the delight of seeing two of my designs turned into crochet kits with CraftStore UK

and I’ve also done a fair bit of yarny visiting with trips to the Knitting and Stitching Show in London, the Scheepjes day at Black Sheep Yarns, the Nottingham Yarn Expo and also some how found the time to visit the first Wool@Jct13 Yarn Festival!

and I also managed to crochet some things from other peoples patterns…

and designed a few more things…

And entered a design competition – (and I’m working on getting these patterns tested behind the scenes for folks that asked about them)…

And in a nutshell, that was 2017! It does makes my heart happy to see all my crochet projects together. But blooming heck! When you add it all together it seems like sooooo much! I’ve just worked out that I completed 68 projects altogether in 2017 which is a bit crazy… I go to work, I have a social life and I enjoy time with my family, I’m not actually sure how I’ve fitted all that in?!

But’s it time to look forward to 2018 – and I AM really looking forward to 2018! I’ve already got some exciting things in store AND in a couple of weeks I’m going to be holding a BIG giveaway to celebrate the fact that I’ve been blogging for FOUR whole years now.

AND there are going to be some AMAZING prizes in the giveaway kindly donated by lots of the lovely people who I’ve worked with in 2017 including:

A set of ‘Big, Bold, Loud and Proud Mega Hooks’ from Wulla Yarns
Winners choice of 2017 Hook and a Book Subscription box (excludes Dec Mega Box)
Three most regent copies of Let’s Get Crafting Knitting and Crochet Magazine
A years digital subscription to US Happily Hooked magazine
Rainbow Set of Yarns from Medieval Colours
Plus a specially curated ‘Beat the January Blues’ Yarny Goodie Box from ME!

It’s going to awesome!!! It’s all starting from 31 January (which is my blog’s birthday) so make sure you are subscribed (if you aren’t already) so you don’t miss any of the details.

Until next time, keep calm and crochet on my friends x

27Dec2017

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Posted in Crochet, Family, Life by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

Howdy folks, how are you all? Are you alright? Have you had a nice Christmas break?

It’s been a bit odd at the KCACO.UK house as on the first day of the holiday break we were woken up by my six year old running in to tell us that she was going to be sick…and then her promptly being sick all over the floor! That certainly wakes you up quickly! Since then we just haven’t been able to shake this sick bug but I hear there’s a lot of it going around. Either the baby or, more so, the big one has been sick (usually at 3.30am – what’s with that!) so it’s been a bit of a subdued Christmas and we’ve had to cancel quite a few of our plans which is a shame. Even I haven’t been feeling great – the only one with immunity seems to be my husband, which I’m very thankful for because it would be even more horrendous if all of us were ill at the same time.

That said even though we may not have got dressed on Christmas day, Santa came and brought LOADS of presents for the little ones and some nice stuff for us grown ups and we did manage to have a semi nice day. And luckily we happen to handily have lots of crochet blankets around for snuggling under and some new Christmas movies to watch so we’ve taken some time to rest and try to recuperate.

Looking on the positive side of things I got some FABULOUS yarny gifts! Anyone would think I like crochet or something…

Firstly I got this absolutely gorgeous Scheepjes mango wood yarn bowl which is just sooooo lovely. I absolutely adore wooden things and really wanted a wooden yarn bowl so I was very pleased with this. It’s so smooth and tactile and just super yummy! I love it and I’ve already been using it.

I also got the new Scheepjes Yarn Bookazine ‘Dutch Masters‘ which is also gorgeous (I need more adjectives for gorgeous don’t I; splendid, sublime, delightful – they all work!).

I shall have to do a review of these bookazines for you at some point because after I had my first one from the lovely people at Black Sheep Yarns (the Tropical edition) I had to have them aaaallllll! Glorious patterns, stunning photography and really interesting articles – what’s not to love! So I was really pleased to add the Dutch Masters edition to my collection which came out in October this year.

My other yarn related gifts were some really useful retractable snips, a Stylecraft Batik Swirl in colourway Poppyfields, which is super pretty and not something I’ve used before, a James C Brett Fairy Cake, in colourway FC03 which is lots of blues, very fluffy, and again something I’ve never used before. I was also lucky enough to get the Beetles, Bugs and Butterflies book from Lalylala which I reallllllyyy had wanted so I was super happy to find that under the tree – so look out for reviews of all these once I get round to using them.

And finally I got a joint present for my wedding anniversary and Christmas present; a days pass to visit the Crochet Sanctuary in Cheshire (not that far away from me) in February which I can’t WAIT for! A day off to relax, unwind and crochet – hooray!!! Haven’t I been a very lucky girl!

I have been crocheting off and on throughout the holidays but I can’t show you any of my finished objects as they are Christmas presents still waiting to be given in the main. Though I can share these… I had this idea that I really wanted to make a special amigurumi for both children using the TOFT DK yarn I bought at TOFTfest. If you remember when I went to TOFTfest then you’ll know I started these amigurumi’s back in 2016 so it’s rather disgraceful that it’s taken me this long to finish them but I actually kicked myself into gear and finished them off for Christmas. I made Little G Jack the Macaw from Edward’s Menagerie: Birds and I made Little Miss; Georgina the Hippo from the original Edward’s Menagerie with a tutu accompaniment pattern I got at TOFTfest.

I love how they came out and both children loved their special present from Mummy. I’ll try and do a review of both of the TOFT books in the new year too for those of you that are thinking you might like to make either some animals or birds (or both) of your own.

I’m already busy working on some secret commissions for 2018 – there’s some really exciting projects coming up in the new year that I can’t wait to share with you all.

Until then I’d like to wish those of you that celebrate it…

A Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

15Dec2017

My visit to the Nottingham Yarn Expo 2017

Posted in Crochet, Days Out, Life, Outings, Yarn Show by Keep Calm and Crochet On UK

Oooo I’ve just realised I’ve not told you all about my visit to the Nottingham Yarn Expo yet have I?

So my story starts back in June when Mr. KCACO.UK and I celebrated our 10th Wedding anniversary. The boy did good and along with a beautiful stamped tin heart necklace he surprised me with tickets to the inaugural Nottingham Yarn Expo which this year was held on the 11-12 November. How he found out about it I don’t know as I hadn’t come across it before so I was super surprised! And it turned out there was a mountain bike trail not far away from the expo too which was handy…

My family actually herald from Nottinghamshire, though we moved away when I was twelve, and I have fond memories of catching the number 90 bus with my Nana to go to the cinema in the Victoria Centre. Although alot has obviously changed since my childhood when hubby dropped me off to head for the trails I was able to find the expo easily enough. Held over two floors in the Nottingham Conference Centre at Nottingham Trent University it’s about a 2 minutes walk from the Old Market Square (located in the heart of the City Centre).

The conference centre is a fabulously big and airy modern venue and on the Sunday when I visited we were greeted by the delicate sounds of a harpist…which is exactly what you want! Nothing like wafting dreamily around yarn stalls eyeing up wonderful yarn accompanied by the angelic sounds of the harp! Such a great idea! And I heard on the Saturday they had a string quartet entertaining the crowds.

And oh my! Wasn’t there just a fabulous array of yarn!

And the expo, for the most part, was filled with gorgeous artisan and hand-dyed yarn…

…okay stop drooling! I understand though, the gorgeousness of these yarns was something for the eye to behold!

And amongst the exhibitors I got to meet Caz fromWulla Yarn who was showcasing her wonderful meta yarn at the show. Although we’ve spoken by email, when we collaborated on the Wulla Wreath, we’d never actually met in person so it was great to put a face to the name.

And she’d made a Wulla Wreath to display on the stall, you can just see it in the background there, I may have squeaked a little to see it, it’s always so fun to see a design you’ve created made by someone else.

Caz was super lovely and kindly gave me an impromptu spinning lesson as she had her spinning wheel with her. I really enjoyed having a go at spinning but found getting my hands and the feet moving in sync akin to trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. So in my case definitely more practice is required!

I also got to meet with designer Marie Wallin (whose book I reviewed here on the blog: Winter Crochet).

There are times where I wish knitting were my thing as her beautiful colour-work designs are seriously gorgeous! Even though I don’t knit I could certainly appreciate the mastery behind the designs and I really enjoyed chatting with her.

Over both days at the Expo there were some inspirational lectures from designers and artisans and also some skills workshops. I was so busy looking at everything that I forgot to actually look at my watch so I missed the talk I’d fancied going to and although I did look at the workshops to book before hand they seemed predominately targeted at knitters rather than hookers. I have seen recently though in the Expo Ravelry group that they are investigating suggestions for more crochet and advanced crochet classes for the 2018 Expo.

So what did I think of the Nottingham Yarn Expo? Well if you like luxury yarn then this is definitely the show for you!

Lots of choice of hand dyed loveliness to choose from but there were only a few other stalls selling other things, there were some stalls for felters, and only one I could see for buttons or beads (which I was looking for on this occasions) so it would might have been nice to see a bit more diversity in craft products.

I actually ended up spending my money not on yarn but stationery! The fab Stationery Geek was exhibiting and all their crochet themed stationery is awesome! It’s so nice to see crochet represented! Sometimes it feels as if crocheters are knitters lesser-known cousin!

I LOVE their crochet bible, which I have already started using for charted designs as it comes with handy squared graph paper, and I also ordered their Bloggers Bible which arrived yesterday – it’s going to help me be super organised in 2018 and it has stickers too!!

But back to the show. What I also really liked is that they had plenty of places to ‘sit & knit’ (or hook) in break-out areas which was a great idea (and there should be more of this at all yarn shows!). I also loved the inclusion of the live music. One thing that I hope will be included for future years is a floor plan of exhibitors and a little map of where the talks / workshops are being held.

And what did I get? Well you know me! I find it almost impossible to go to any sort of craft event and not buy something! Well I was fairly restrained (as it wasn’t that long since I’d spent a small fortune at the Knitting and Stitching Show).

Well aside from the stationery and for saying it was a yarn show I actually didn’t buy any yarn at all (I can only say I was sickening for something) but I did get the beads that I needed for projects which I found in a little basket underneath some yarn, a new 2.75mm hook (as the hook monster has eaten my previous one), some new Clover yarn needles (possibly the sofa monster has eaten my others), a notions case, a fun crochet themed card, a cute little stitch marker and a fab new crochet project bag.

For me the show was again about the people I got to meet rather than my purchases but I will say if you get the chance to go to the Nottingham Yarn Expo in 2018 I think you’ll have a great day out.

Until next time folks! Happy hooking, keep calm and crochet on my friends xx