Unravel 2013

Saturday morning saw me waking up at an entirely unreasonable-for-a-weekend time of 8am, to head down to Farnham for this year's Unravel. Checking my phone, I discovered I was actually the lazy one, as Sarah had already been tweeting with excitement almost an hour earlier!

Some of the wonderful items on show around and outside the venue.

As expected, we saw an overwhelming selection of wonderful yarns. I'm glad I took a shopping list with me, otherwise I would have bought far too many skeins I have no need for!

I ran into Sarah outside, as we queued to get in. After a leisurely wander round to orientate ourselves and take a first glance over the stalls, we headed over to Danielle's stall to meet up with fellow Ravellers. Along the way we picked up Nat and Gilly. It was great to finally meet folks in the flesh after sharing our lives with each other for so long online.

Some selected yarn porn from the day. Top row (L-R): A Stash Addict and Indigodragonfly (sold by Aragon Yarns)
Bottom Row (L-R): Sparkleduck, Skein Queen and Natural Dye Studio

I was very excited to discover a UK stockist of Indigodragonfly yarn. Keri has long inspired me to want to buy and knit with this yarn, as everything I've seen her knit using it is fabulous. I resisted buying any this time, but now I know where I can find it, I will definitely consider it next time I am looking for the perfect yarn for a project.

So what did I buy? Last year I came away with one solitary Zauberball (which has just been knit into a Lazy Katy). This year, I went armed with a list, and managed to come away with only one extra skein of yarn.

My purchases

First up on my list was a skein of fingering weight yarn in red, which I will be casting on immediately as I join in Eskimimi's Mrs Tumnus KAL. I squished quite a few skeins from various stalls before settling on this lovely Skein Queen Blush.

It's 80% Merino, 20% Cashmere so it feels very luxurious. I really enjoyed knitting up my Skein Queen Squash (100% merino) so I'm sure I willl enjoy this one too. It's listed as a sport weight, so I will swatch carefully to ensure I hit gauge, but I'm sure the yardage will be ok.

I'd promised myself a skein of Dark Arts from A Stash Addict; I've wanted one ever since she first started dyeing them, but couldn't really justify it until now. But now that I've been converted to sock knitting, I wanted to treat myself. This skein jumped out at me as soon as I got to Danielle's stall. The colourway is Poison and I just love the bright pink/purple against the black. I have to say, having seen all her photos on Instagram this past week of just how hard she worked to get ready for Unravel at such short notice, Danielle did an amazing job. Her stall looked fantastic. I couldn't resist buying more than one skein!

It's another Dark Arts, this time the Dark Arts Sparkle, which has silk content as well as the sparkly fibre. Colourway is Night Caller, and it's a much softer lilac purple than my other skein. While the first is destined to be socks, I can't bear the thought of hiding these beautiful sparkles in my shoes, so this one will become a scarf/shawl. Not sure what yet, as all the Rock + Purl patterns I fell in love with at their stall are laceweight!

I also picked up this ball of Jawoll Magic Degrade. On my list was "another Zauberball in bright colours?" but I didn't see any of those, so when I found this I knew it had to be bought. Again, it will become a shawl, probably a Wingspan, after nosing through the finished projects and finding this one in the same colourway. Isn't it fab!

As you can see in the pic of my purchases above, I also picked up some funky wooden buttons from Danielle, and a teeny tiny crochet hook for better attaching of beads to my Light of Earendil shrug.

All in all, it was a great way to spend five hours of my Saturday (although I was amazed when I got back to the car and realised it had been five hours, as it really didn't feel like it while we were wandering around and nattering away). Hopefully it won't be another full year before we all get together though, as it would be great to meet up with folks inbetween now and next year's Unravel!