Olympia

Went to Olympia on Friday afternoon - turned out that it was really a cross-stitch show, rather than anything else, but I've never been to any of the big shows before, so useful pactice for Ally Pally, if I ever get there -


I met - in real life, not blogland! - Yvonne (pictured above in her Olympic Yoga Wrap), Ruth, Kerrie, Mary & Claire and a number of other knitters. I demonstrated Loopas to lots of nice ladies at the Knit & Relax stand, while Yvonne was off having a coffee, did a bit of knitting and chatting (more chatting than knitting, actually), and spent (not too much!) money on a few bits and pieces at:

- Silkwood (a skein of some pretty hand-dyed 4-ply wool, and a bag of combed wool tops for dyeing and felting)





- Hipknits (a Kool-Aid dyeing kit), where I met Kerrie & Ruth





- Black Sheep (a number of balls of Sirday Illusion, which I got to try out on the Knit & Relax stand)





- and a lady selling Colinette (which I'm not usually very keen on, but one colourway in Giotto in a gorgeous red orange yellow sang out at me)




then I entered the green Steek Boa in the Simply Knitting scarf competition. And then back home, hiding my purchases between my armchair and the bookshelf, as I went (and judging by some of the conversations I had on Friday, I am not alone in this behaviour ...)

In answer to a question from The Crafty Otter, my loopy boa took me about 4 hours to make, but I think that this was because I used a large number of yarns from stash, so it was quite heavy to work with as the length increased - used as intended by Sirdar with some of their very bulky yarns, eg. Sirdar Wow!, the time would be cut considerably due to the lightness of the yarn in use. Also, talking to Mary & Yvonne on Friday, the reckoning is that a short boa (ie 1 ball of Sirdar Wow! and 1 of Sirdar Vegas, or similar, for a length of about 3 foot) could be completed in about an hour, and to judge from Yvonne's description of her lengthy 'stay' at Glasgow Airport (snowbound)the other week, she completed (and sold!) vast numbers of the things in a period of 9 hours ...!

Yesterday I had a last fling on eBay before Stashalong begins, and bought lots of gorgeous Filatura di Crosa mohair yarns (no - no idea what for, but they were an absolute bargain, and gorgeous colours to boot, and I'm sure they'll tell me what they want to be eventually - some of the yarn in my stash has spent 20 years making up it's mind though), and today I'm being good-ish and making lots of stitch-markers for possible sale on eBay, when I get my act together ...