Yarndale 2022

Well here we are again, in the midst of October and slowly inching towards the October half term holidays…. Roll on Monday and no early alarm!

I hope October’s been kind to you thus far. I have some news for you coming soon, but before then, here’s my Postcard from September. It was a busy month, but blimey it feels like a long time ago already! Here goes…

End of summer

The beginning of the month fell in the last few days of the school summer holidays. A group of friends from Youngest’s old primary school got together for a final hurrah before they went their separate ways to their new secondary schools. The venue for the meet up was Manley Mere Country Park in Cheshire.

It’s a super place with a huge lake for water sports, and an adventure trail which we went to….

There were tunnels, woodland walks…

…bridges…

….and lots and lots of mud. Thankfully we were forewarned and Youngest was dressed in old clothes – just as well as he went swimming in a pool of mud!! I think I’ve just about got him clean now!

New season of football… or not

The football season got back into gear at the start of the month too with some pre-season friendlies and assessment matches but not for us. In his first week of school, Youngest managed to break a bone in his thumb whilst in goal playing football at school – not the most auspicious start to his secondary school career, although he was very proud of the fact he did save the goal in spite of the injury. No contact sport for 6 weeks meant no football of course. I’m pleased to say that the thumb is now healed and he has restarted PE and training at last.

Royal news

Of course last month was dominated by the news that HM Queen Elizabeth died, so it wasn’t your average September. When the Royal Proclamation was made in Manchester, I went along to witness history being made. I’m glad I was there.

Eldest off to Uni

September was also significant for us as Eldest flew the nest down south to University. I didn’t fancy my chances driving down to central London to drop him off, so we had to be packing ninjas and fit as much as we possibly could into suitcases ready for the train. I’m not sure how we did it but all bedding, pots and pans, food and clothes were squeezed in and we got him there! He got the keys to his accomodation on the evening before the Queen’s funeral – it was an auspicious time to be in London. I wrote a post about that time if you are interested in reading more, you can find it here.

*Moody skies over Westminster as the people queued to see the Queen lying in state.*

Once Eldest was safely ensconced in his lodgings I headed off for a walk to soak up a bit of the atmosphere and made it to Parliament Square in time for the National minutes silence. You could have heard a pin drop.

Spuds!

This was our second year in our ‘new’ home and the second year I have attempted to grown some food. I wasn’t quite as adventurous this time, just strawberries, cut and come again salad leaves and some potatoes. There’s a narrow strip of land behind our summer house and next to the back fence which isn’t really any use for anything. It doesn’t get much sun at all and is completely out of sight from the house. Last year I took a gamble and tried planting spuds there – it worked, although it wasn’t the largest of crops. I had another go this year and we enjoyed some lovely zero food miles potatoes with our dinner!

Happy birthday Yarndale!

I managed to get to Yarndale again this year in time for the festival’s 10th birthday and it was great fun. There was so much lovely yarn to squish and bucket loads of inspiration. It’s such a lovely festival. You can read all about my trip to Yarndale 2022 in this post.

One of the benefits of being out in the Yorkshire countryside while visiting Yarndale was that I was finally able to find the perfect spot to do a photo shoot with my latest Up the Garden Path dolls – Oakley the Acorn Tree Sprite and Agatha the Fly Agaric Mushroom. I may have had a few funny looks from passers-by but I don’t care! The light and location were perfect!

Podcast news

Making Stitches Podcast came back for a new series in September. The first episode featured my trip to Yarndale. You can listen to it here….

You can also access the episode show notes here.

And that’s just about it from me for this monthly Postcard, I will be back again soon with that news I promised. Thank you for stopping by!

Lindsay x

A view of the Skipton Auction Mart from the Yarn walk

The last weekend in September is Yarndale, and this year, the yarn festival celebrated its 10th birthday. A week ago today, I jumped into my car and headed across the Pennines to make my third visit to Yarndale and it didn’t disappoint. Here’s what I got up to….

As always, the front entrance to the festival was decorated with metres and metres of Yarndale bunting, made by crocheters around the world (including one by me!) and sent to Skipton back in the early days of the festival. Another annual tradition was the introduction of a new Yarndale sheep… this year’s new addition to the flock was Tristen to mark the tenth birthday – do you get it? TrisTEN….

With his brightly coloured mandala body he was a colourful addition to the flock! I think they will need to look for a bigger display area for the sheep soon as they will run out of space to display them all!

Tristen and friends weren’t the only woolly creatures at Yarndale this year, as usual, a number of ‘live’ woolly critters had come along to charm the visitors!

Yarndale can be a little bit overwhelming at times, there is so much to see and do and buy. I followed my plan for last years visit which was to do a full circuit of all the stands first before getting my purse out. On my initial wander I was fascinated to see this amazing yarny Shrek and pals created by the Hawes Yarnbombers. Isn’t it fabulous? So many hours of work must’ve gone into creating that – just brilliant! The stall was collecting donations for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance which was one of the charities being supported by Yarndale this year.

There was lots of bright crocheted and knitted bunting decorating the auction mart this year too and it certainly gave the place a lift.

Now to the yarn, well what can I say? There was so much of it, and it was gorgeous…

There was inspiration at every turn. The Cuddlebums hand dyed yarn was a riot of colour. I can’t resist a rainbow so a couple of skeins may have fallen into my bag (paid for of course!) to come home with me…

The highlight of my time at Yarndale this year has to be getting to hear Eleonora Tully from Coastal Crochet speak about her journey as a crochet designer as well as to meet her ‘in real life’. For those who don’t know Eleonora, she lives on the south coast of England and is inspired by her coastal surroundings – which is abundantly clear in her beautiful work.

It was lovely to be able to hear the way Eleonora goes from an idea, to choosing yarn colours and techniques to ending up with a new blanket design. It’s been a thrill to be able to watch Eleonora’s designs develop over the years and I clearly remember the day when she launched her first ever CAL (Crochet-ALong). It was her Seaside Stashbuster Blanket, and although I had about a gazillion other WIPs on the go at the time, I found myself digging into my stash to join in with it. That blanket became my Sandy Bay Blanket which I blogged about at the time – named after Sandy Bay in Gibraltar.

Later on came the Changing Tides blanket, another design inspired by Eleonora’s coastal surroundings. I thought it was time another blanket was added to my collection, so I had a go at that one too, but chose the colours to represent Catalan Bay in Gibraltar. That blanket became my Catalan Bay Blanket.

Although I’m no longer in Gibraltar, I will always have my Sandy Bay & Catalan Bay blankets to snuggle up in when it’s cold up north and I’m missing the Gibraltar heat! It also means that I feel linked to Eleonora and her crochet journey too as I was part of the community around the world which took part in the CALs – and it really was a special experience.

It was a real treat to meet Eleonora face to face at last!

I genuinely never thought the day would come when our paths would cross. Back when we first began our blogs about 7 years ago, with me in Gibraltar and Eleonora on the south coast of England, but thanks to Yarndale it happened!

Before I knew it it, it was time to head home. The Auction Mart was looking decidedly empty and I thought I had better head off before I was thrown out!

Outside the Auction Mart were a few yarn bombs on the grass. I have to say that this woolly representation of country fields is my favourite!

Standing at the top of the Yarn Walk steps and looking out across the valley. It really is in a beautiful spot. No wonder there is so much yarny inspiration in theses parts!

I remember on my first visit to Yarndale back in 2016, I set off along the Yarn Walk on the way into the venue and was blown away by the yarny lamppost covers. There don’t seem to be many of the original covers left from back then, but the new ones are equally as cheery!

The path through Aireville Park leads down to the Leeds to Liverpool canal, and that is where the Yarn Walk comes to an end.

I crossed over the canal on the bunting adorned footbridge and back into the Skipton town centre.

Thank you Yarndale, and thank you Skipton! It was fun. Goodbye until next time…

Thanks so much for joining me for my trip, if you would like to hear a bit of the atmosphere, you can listen to my latest episode of Making Stitches Podcast which features 10 chats I had with exhibitors at Yarndale, including a lovely conversation I had with Eleonora from Coastal Crochet. You can listen to it via this link or by searching for Making Stitches Podcast on your favourite podcast app.

Until next time, thanks for stopping by!

Lindsay x