Wet and Windy Weekend

I'm not going to lie, it is difficult to write a blog post every week. Reading other blogs out there makes it look so easy. They talk about what they get up to, new things they've seen, but each one always seems to have a theme. I struggle with this as I have so many ideas in my head and my head generally works quicker than my fingers can so the thought about what to write next has already passed me by by the time I get to it. This is a problem... normally!!! I don't think I'll have that problem with this one... i have notes... and lots of them!!!

We were lucky this week to have our days off together over the weekend which meant that we could do some different things for a change. We kicked it all off with a trip over to Banbury (about a 45min drive) to visit our favourite hair salon, Dennis Michael Hairdressing, to have our hair done. We were both looking for something a little different and have both come away with brand new looks! I love my new do and I Pete always looks good with short hair!

We took a leisurely drive home sporting our new haircuts to a job that we were not looking forward to. With all of the bad weather we have had recently and the three storms that have hit the UK, one of our fence posts in our garden had finally given in and toppled. We were not looking forward to this day as replacing a fence post can be a difficult job, especially when it keeps raining!! On this occasion though, Pete's brother suggested something that we hadn't heard of before, PostBuddy! Post Buddy is such a simple thing to repair fence posts, essentially two pieces of metal that you drive in between the fence post and the concrete and screws to the post. We thought this was great and ordered them straight away. When they came I thought to myself that this would take ages to get this hunks of metal into the concrete. Boy was I wrong!! They went in so smooth and once in were sturdy as a rock. We straightened up the fence post and put screws through the holes and all done. Took us 20 minutes if that. I was so impressed and had to shout out about it before we moved on to the fun yarn stuff!!!!

Unravel

On Sunday we woke to our alarm clocks at 6am to start getting ready for the most exciting day that we have been looking forward to. Pete and I have never attended a yarn show of any description before and we were eager to attend our first one to see and meet new people, look at all the different yarn and discover new crafts that we never thought possible. This show ticked all of the boxes! As we were only going down for the one day we hadn't booked any classes or talks and it meant that we could just wander around the show and look at everything and take it all in.

We set off from home at 07:30 and drove across Rugby to pick up my sister, a fellow yarn enthusiast. Then we were off, down the M1 and on our way. None of us had been to Farnham before and found the location really easily with the SatNav in the car.

Parking in Farnham is plentiful and although the car park at the venue is small, there are others nearby and only a short walk away. We were lucky to be there early enough and managed to get parked in the car park at the venue which on the Sunday was free for the day.

The venue itself is like a rabbit warren, load of different rooms all full to the brim with different companies selling their wares. Luckily, the first thing they give you when you go in is a program with map to help you navigate the building. There are two places on site to get drinks and snacks and we found this vital when spending a day there.

We started in the great hall and were not disappointed. As we made out way round the different stands we saw companies that we have seen time and time again on Instagram and it was so nice to finally see their products in the flesh. DustyDimples, Countess Ablaze, Qing Fibre, Debonnaire to name a few. The colours and texture just can't be seen in a picture and I am a very feel based knitter and the texture has to be right!

As we moved through the rooms, more and more names that we recognised popped up. Spectrum Fibre, Toft, Uppingham Yarns, Stitchers Tees, Baa Ram Ewe, West Green Loft Yarns, Black Elephant, and of course, A Yarn Story. If you are up to date with our blog, Pete and I visited A Yarn Story a few weeks back and it was great to see Carmen again and her new bags from Hide and Hammer.

Now there was one room that I was really excited about going into which was the Long Kiln Room. This room housed the Indie maker market which is a selection of smaller companies all with amazing products. I am a big believer in supporting small local businesses where possible and when it comes to yarn, I think it is really important. (Don't get me wrong, I love the bigger companies too, but if I can find a yarn I love from a small business, I will bite their hand off to get it!!)

In this room, I finally got to meet Ted from TedKnitsUK. I met Ted through Instagram a few weeks back purely by accident and absolutely fell in love with his yarn. He has been dying yarn for only 10 months now and within that short space of time he has achieved some colourways that I have not seen anywhere else.

He made a couple of exclusive colours for Unravel and I was gutted that by the Sunday morning, he had already sold out of them. That of course did not stop me from buying other yarn from him ready for my next project that I am proud to say has already made its way onto my needles!!!

With all of our purchases in hand and happy that we had gotten what we came for, we started to head home. Another long drive back up to the midlands and we were home chilling out on the sofa.

So that wraps it up for another week. I have been planning some future blog posts and I have some exciting ones coming up so subscribe for the updates below so you don't miss out!!

Seb x