Soooo Yarndale 2015…I know it was last year but I decided you still need to know about it because it was such an incredible experience. If you like yarn and crafts then this is defiantly the festival for you. 
Why are we only just hearing about last years event now I hear you ask…well when I visited Yarndale last year I was actually suffering from terrible morning sickness. As that then developed into a challenging pregnancy where, as I mentioned before, I ended up hardly doing anything unless I had to it has become this very tardy blog post!
Anyway back onto Yarndale. If you haven’t heard of Yarndale before it’s described as a “creative festival celebrating all things woolly and wonderful”. Held over two days in the quaint market town of Skipton, North Yorkshire, Yarndale brings together hundreds of talented exhibitors with a passion for all things woollen.
It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday morning in September when I went to Yarndale and once I arrived I just couldn’t believe my eyes – this festival is seriously HUGE!
So much to see at Yarndale!
The festival is held in Skipton Auction Mart with exhibitor stalls set up in the pens where rams, sheep and cows would be held pre-sale. Everywhere you look there is lovely yarny goodness!
Many of the stalls were just amazing!
Wonderful stall photo taken with kind permission and no filtering of the colours has been made! It was this amazingly colourful!
Everywhere you looked there were little treasures. Like the main entrance for instance which was bedecked with beautiful crochet bunting...
The bunting, contributed by lots of people from all around the world, was made for the first year of Yarndale (which is now in its 4th year).
This sort of collective crochet has fast become a symbol of Yarndale with new projects collated (to raise money for different charities) each year. In 2014 hundreds of mandalas were donated…aren’t they glorious!
The 2015 project was called Flowers for Memories and it involved people making flowers to raise money for Alzheimer’s…the finished display was just amazing! Just check this out…
I’ll talk a bit about the 2016 crochet project in a moment…
As well as the stalls there are several crafty workshops that you can book. As I really wanted to immerce myself in the spirit of the whole festival I signed myself up for Making a Project Journal by Messengers Cottage Workshops which was great fun, working with paper and leather which we then hand stitched to make a little journal at the end.
I also signed myself up for an Advanced Crochet workshop; I’ve never been to any sort of crochet class so I was quite looking forward to what this would be like. The project was to make the Yarndale Sundial Purse, designed by Maureen Mcilwraith, with Drops Nepal yarn which is a lovely, chunky and luxurious yarn (65% Wool and 35% Alpaca) that I had never used before. As you can see the final lined purse was a fun make…
I was so busy at Yarndale with workshops and looking at all the stalls that I forgot to take loads of photos and by 5 pm my feet were seriously tired from all the walking round – my mind was also in a bit of a whirl from all the creativity congregated into one place. I really did enjoy my day at Yarndale and definitely hope to go again in the future. And of course I couldn’t leave without picking up some wonderful goodies for myself!
Roving, Knit blockers, giant crochet hook and Bert the Sheep pin and bag! Such awesome goodies to play with and use!!!
And finally I must tell you about this years collective crochet project. I was too late in the game to join in with the previous years projects and I can’t make it to Yarndale this year but I really wanted to take part in adding to whatever this years collective. For Yarndale 2016 the theme is little Woolly Sheep in honour of the auction market where the festival is held. “Little Woolly Sheep” is a crochet pattern designed by Lucy of Attic24.
You can find a full picture tutorial as well as a PDF pattern to download on Lucy’s blog HERE and more details on the Yarndale site HERE. Closing date for sheep to arrive is FRIDAY 9th SEPTEMBER.
May I introduce to you my little Baa-bara (see what I did there…)
My little amigurumi sheep, made up from scraps of double knit I had in my stash, is winging its way over to the Yarndale peeps now. There is just something so fun in adding to something on a grand scale and I can’t wait to see some finished pictures of the finished flock. I’m sure it will be an awesome sight!
Hope you have enjoyed hearing about my adventure at Yarndale. Until next time; keep calm and crochet on my friends xx
