Wonderwool!

I got up at 4.30am on Friday morning and I left here at 5.30am to catch the ferry.

First, I stopped in Lymington with Bridget to have a cuppa, breakfast baps (with freshly laid eggs!) and to meet her animals (sheep, piglets, horses and chickens). Bridget has also given me a lot of books for Alex's education.

I stayed with her until 9am and then I set off for Bath.

I arrived at Helen's around midday, we had a quick cuppa then we went to Elle's house to deliver my Ashford Joy to her as she is now the new owner. She was very restrained and made us a cuppa before opening the box!

She has been drop spinning for about a month and she took to the wheel like a duck to water!


Look at that big grin!!

We also went fabric shopping and I bought a nice amount of fabric - one of these days; I'll get around to playing with my sewing machine ;)

We went to bed reasonably early on Friday night as we had set our alarms for 6.30am Saturday morning.

I didn't sleep fabulously; it took me a while to get to sleep as I had left Isis at home and I'm used to her leaning on me! 6am came all to quickly.

But, we got up, drank our tea and got into my car and set off for Wales. It was my first trip to Wales and I was very excited! We passed over the Severn bridge and I took a lot of photos LOL. Then we drove through the beautiful countryside and off in the distance were the mountains!

The drive took nearly two and a half hours, but it was well worth it!

We arrived at 10.05am and there was already a queue, but it moved quite quickly and we were soon inside!

It was amazing! There were people and noise and colour and smells. I bumped into a lot of people that I had met before and met a lot of new people that I've 'seen' around Ravelry.

I bought this fantastic swift from Amber and Bob and Amber also gave me two bin bags, one full of Shetland fleece and one full of alpaca fleece. It's gorgeous! She's already cleaned them both, I've just got to spin it up!

I wondered around with Helen, we tried to be methodical and start at one end with the intention of walking up and down every aisle so that we'd see everything. But, then we'd bump into someone or see something - it was so easy to get distracted!

I bought loads, there's no easy way to say it. At first I felt a little guilty at the amount that I'd spent, but then I decided that I had been saving especially, no one had gone short while I saved and that was that. I was very good and I only spent the money I had on me (even though I took my cheque book) and I bought yarn for the shop (which I will be dyeing this week!)

I bought dyed fibre from Freyalyn, Sparkleduck, Sara, The Thylacine, Mandacrafts, DK Felt Studio UK and I bought fleece from various different people too! I bought angora/merino 70/30, BFL x Corriedale from Olwen Veevers, 3 shades of alpaca (Oscar, Bertie & Rosita) from Chrysalis, Black Corriedale lamb with a white throat flash also from Olwen, Ryeland, from The Deerfold Spinner, Cotton, silk hankies, angelina from Winghams and a support spindle from Mandacrafts.

Here are all the photos for you to drool (I'll try and put them in order I've listed above)

I also bought some bobbins and a flick carder from Hedgehog - they were supposed to have a plying kit but well......

I also got to try a Timbertops Chair wheel! Oh wow, it was fabulous. I've been trying to master unsupported longdraw spinning for a while, but I've been struggling! I sat down at this wheel and immediately spun longdraw with no problems whatsoever!

I shall upload and post some more pictures tomorrow, but I really need to find somewhere to put all this stuff so I can get some sleep...