Wonderwool Wales

What an absolutely lovely day my husband and I had on Saturday. We went to Wonderwool Wales which was an extravaganza of beautiful colours, lovely friendly people and bucketloads of inspiration. I don't know where to start as I have so much to say about it, so I think I'll begin with Sarah at Bigwigs Angora. This was one of the first stalls I came to and I was immediately attracted to the stunning shawl you can see on the left. It was beautifully knitted and looked so soft, and even at the end was one of my favourite sights of the day, even though I'm not usually a "neutral" person.


Unfortunately you can't see it very well from this photo so you'll have to wait until I've knitted it. Also, Bigwigs Angora doesn't yet have a website, which is a shame.

I spoke to this lovely lady from Woolcraft who told us about spinning yarn from onion skins and about the craft workshops she runs at her farm in Carmarthen. You learn all about the fibre, from watching the sheep being sheared to the wool being...I don't actually know the names of any of the processes but basically you go all the way to making your own "thing".


I've been inspired by all the spinning information online and had been meaning to give it a go, so I bought a starter kit with a spindle and some, is it called roving? Fibre? I have much to learn! Unfortunately thats packed away tidily so no photo but here is some other beautiful fibre to look at.



Talking of spinning, I met Megan who blog is "I saw her stranding there". She gave me some good advice on spinning and was lovely and friendly. Nice to meet you Megan :)
There were also lots of fibrey animals around, such as sheep, angora rabbits and llamas.



What a funny guy!

There was a feltmaker, Jenny Pepper, who Marno bought a pot from. I suppose you'd call it a pot. It goes very well with his collection of caramic pots anyway, and is in nice juxtaposition.




Jenny Pepper's stand.

And I just loved this stand. There were lots of neutrals and naturals around which I do really like, even though, as I said before, I'm very much a colour person.

I thought this just captured so well the textural interest you can achieve by creating different surfaces with the yarn and putting all those neutral hues together.
I feel the need to elaborate some more about what I said about being a "colour person". Colour is really important to me. I'm actually really interested in colour theory and how colours affect people. I also love contrast and how colours are affected by each other. At the same time, I don't like loads and loads of colours together, a la Kaffe Fassett (I do like his work but sometimes it's a bit too much). I'm more a fan of perhaps one or two strong colours together, not as many as you can thing of. I suppose a good illustration would be thinking about hippy style clothes. I don't like the kind of crazy use of loads of colours, whereas I like a garment in a strong colour with perhaps a self pattern or interesting fabric surface. There, I hope that clarified the situation! :)

x Sam