Attic24

Yarndale and Beyond

As many of you already know, Yarndale is a festival of yarn and creativity which takes place each Autumn in Skipton, North Yorkshire. It was founded in 2012, with the first festival taking place a year later in September 2013. As one of the five original founders of Yarndale I've been involved in shaping and running the festival from the very beginning, and it's been a big part of my life for the past eight years.

Since Yarndale started, my life has inevitably changed as my children have grown and Attic24 has bloomed and expanded in ways I never anticipated. Attempting to juggle my family life with both Attic24 and Yarndale commitments has become increasingly difficult, especially since coming into my early fifties - for me personally this particular time of life is proving very challenging I have to say. With all this in mind, I've come to the conclusion that I really need to prioritise my health and well being and make some positive changes for myself.

So I want to let you know that last month I decided to step down from my position on the Yarndale team. As you can imagine, this was a difficult decision but I feel confident that it's the right thing for me. I'll be taking a complete break from Yarndale and won't be participating at this year's festival in September. I have loved being involved with Yarndale but I feel I really need to refocus my energies on my own endeavours and I'm very much looking forward to moving forward with a fresh outlook, working on new ideas and projects in 2020 and beyond. 

I realise that in the big scheme of things right now, we all have far more important things to think about and I really hope you are all doing OK out there and keeping safe. You know that this blog of mine has always been a place of honesty and it's important for me to be clear and upfront with you about where I'm at. I want to be able to give you my very best going forward, and being honest about how I'm feeling is a big part of that. I never, ever do well with keeping things to myself, I am most definitely a sharer! 

These are certainly troubling times, and I've never been more thankful for this online community that we are a part of. Being able to connect and share with so many lovely souls from the comfort of our own homes is such a blessing. So I shall continue to open my Attic window to share little snippets of  daily life and celebrate all the small joys and pleasures that continue to make me happy. And in doing so, I really, really hope to brighten up your days just a little. We could all do with a little unconditional brightness and simple everyday comfort I expect.

Sending love and positive thoughts out to you all, in abundance. Please look after yourselves and your loved ones.

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Yarndale After and Before

I spent most of the day alone in my studio today, something that hasn't happened in a long while. I bought fresh stems of sunflowers for my table, ordered up a latté and sat down with my lengthy email catch-up list and my laptop all set to Get Things Done. I figured that today was day four post Yarndale and I should be attempting to regain some normality, but the reality is that I am still in recovery and energy levels are pretty low. So I sat and admired my flowers and gazed at my tidy shelves, sipped my coffee and read through so many lovely messages written in my visitors book over the weekend, and allowed the gratitude to gently wash over me. It was a good, good day.

I've slept a lot these past few days, sometimes crawling into bed at odd times with all my clothes on just desperate for some immediate shuteye. It's been an intense and emotional week but oh my goodness, totally worth it. Yarndale was amazing! I was going to try and write up a big Yarndale post for you today, but I'm not quite there with my thoughts yet, so for now I'm going to share a few snippets of things from the days last week. 

I tidied up my studio at the start of last week in preparation for it being open to the public. 

My shelves are still a bit chaotic but I sorted out a massive pile of yarn to give away (felt so good!), cleared out a load of rubbish, cleaned my floors and dusty surfaces and generally regained a sense of cosy order which pleased me enormously. 

I adore my little studio room, it means the world to me and I enjoy sharing it when visitors come to town. It's a working room and not a showroom and as a result it's often a little bit on the messy side, but it has a really good vibe and I always feel inspired and uplifted after spending time there.

As you know, I put up all my lamp post wraps in the rain last week, a fairly big job which took around three and a half hours to complete.

I do quite enjoy it actually, it's quite physical work but not that hard. I climb up my step ladders and secure the wraps top and bottom with cable ties, then a long seam is stitched down the back to hold the wraps securely in place.

They look so good when they are done, and I know how much visitors and local residents enjoy them. I took them all down on Monday afternoon, they were very soggy so I gave them a wash in the machine and a low heat tumble dry and they are now all packed away until next year.

The bears.....oh my heart ♥️ such an amazing, heart-warming project and a humongous success at the weekend. I took lots of photos so will share much more of those when I write up my Yarndale post proper next week. I'm awaiting the final total for the fundraising, but I know it went well and the lovely volunteers at Mercy Ships were blown away by the fabulousness of our crochet and knitting community. 

I realised today when I was looking through photos from September that I didn't show you my floral headband, how very slack of me?! I shared on Instagram, but not here on my blog, so thought you might like to see this quick little pre-Yarndale make.

I fancied making myself something fun and yarny to wear and after a bit of pondering I settled on a hair decoration. I've seen a few beautiful crocheted "Frida Crowns" in the interwebs (this one in particular caught my eye) but I didn't want mine to be quite so sticky-uppy if you get what I mean. Less of a crown and more of a headband I think. I happen to have a very small head, so bought a very inexpensive narrow child's alice band from a local shop (this kind of thing) and crocheted some little cotton flowers and leaves to decorate.

I used oddments of Ricorumi Cotton DK, and crocheted some May Roses, Teeny Tiny Flowers and leaves. I then took my chances in the Cupboard of Doom and managed to unearth the magic hot glue gun.....

...and a very quick and satisfying little make came together in an evening.

Ta-dah!! Not a very good photo I'm afraid (and gosh, I do look tired!) but you get the idea. Not sure if I'd be brave enough to wear it out and about in general public, but I did enjoy being appropriately yarny at Yarndale. 

I'll be sharing more Yarndale Tales with you next week - I need to sort out my hotch-potch collection of photos and attempt to describe the hugeness of being in a building with over 200 madly talented exhibitors and over 7000 madly excited visitors. It was pretty amazing I have to say. More soon!

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It's Yarndale Time

Helloooo!!!

Just popping by to say that I'm sorry I haven't been able to write a proper pre-yarndale post but I've been so flat out busy getting everything ready that time has escaped me.

I put up the lamp post wraps in the park - 28 of them in total - on Tuesday, in the slanting rain. It was so wet and dismal but I pulled my hood up and tried not to be bothered by it, and my goodness they do look good! In a way, they look even better in the dull grey weather as the colours truly shine out - so many folks stopped under their unbrellas to admire the crochet and tell me how much they enjoy seeing the yarn in the park when Yarndale comes to town. It made me really happy, even in my soaked-to-the-skin sogginess. I'll share more pics next week.

The past few days I've been working very hard with the Yarndale team up at the auction mart getting it all together. The bunting went up yesterday and looks as magnificent as ever - hard to believe this is it's 7th outing (you can read about it here).

I've spent all of today building the Creative Community display - that's the BEARS in case you missed it!

And just about half an hour ago I finished uploading the final photos to Pinterest.

All one thousand, eight hundred and seven of them. Yup - J and I have worked so hard on this, photographing every single bear and giving it a little ta-dah moment to credit the makers who joined in from 23 different countries around the world.

1807!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had to make 18 separate boards on Pinterest, with around 100 or so bears on each, if you want to take a look >>

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/yarndale/boards/

I am completely blown away by the respsonse. Thank you so so much if you made a charity bear and sent it to us for this project in support of Mercy Ships. Your bears will make so many children happy, and I am all emotional and heart-squeezy over it, and can't quite find the words to tell you what this means to me. But thank you.

I'll take a LOAD of photos and share more of it here next week. And for those of you who are coming to Yarndale, you will be able to see them for real and I hope you enjoy the incredible display.

Right, I am dead on my feet and am going to fall horizontal now. I'll be back next week once Yarndale 2019 has been and gone and I am recovered a little.

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Yarning for Yarndale

I know many of you already know all about **Yarndale but if you've somehow missed it, Yarndale is a creative yarn festival, "a celebration of all things woolly and wonderful." It takes place here in my home town in North Yorkshire at the end of September and this will be the 7th year. As one of the the five original organisers, I'm involved with all sorts of behind-the-scenes stuff throughout the year - Yarndale has become quite a large festival with more than 200 exhibitors and over 8,000 visitors, so there is always plenty to be done.

One of my main "jobs" for Yarndale is to head up all of the creative stuff, so today I thought I'd share a few of the projects I've been working on this summer.

Every year I come up with a small pattern for the brochure. It's not always easy to think up something pretty that will photograph well and be a small enough pattern to fit on the brochure page. But my Creative Mind likes a challenge and always seems to deliver something appropriate when I need it - so far I've designed a jar cover, a birdie brooch, a small stuffed owl, a heart key ring, a felted bowl and a flower garland. I have to say I do really like the little decorative things that come forth from my imagination, they make me smile! 

This year I settled on a bag charm and I have absolutely no idea why or how this came to me, I just snagged the idea directly from my Creative Mind as I could see it so clearly. I could envisage little crochet balls and tassels (I thought about adding beads but didn't have any to hand at the time) in bright colours and a bit boho gypsyish in style? Not sure that makes sense, but I kind of knew what I meant at the time!

I went to Amazon to find the clasp, it's called a "Lobster Swivel Clasp" if you are searching online for it. I chose the pretty coppery colour, but you can get this clasp in silver, gold and some other metallic colours as well, click on the link below ::

{37mm Lobster Swivel Clasps on Amazon UK}

The clasps come in packs of ten, so they are great things to have for making small gifts, you could dangle all sorts of little crochet things from them and clip to a bag or keyring.

I bought this cute straw bag a while ago, again from Amazon {{here}}. I wanted a neat little bag to take to the park and on holidays, something I could use to carry a drink and books/mags and a little bit of crochet perhaps if I was off for a picnic or a bit of relaxing-on-a-blanket time. The description on Amazon really made me laugh.... "Special Design: This straw handbag is hand-crafted by our local Artisans, unique, delicate, and fashionable. Perfect for any occasion: beach, party, shopping, camping, and dating, it shows your special personal character" ...HA!! Love that!

You can see how the bag charm just clips straight onto the bag, I do really love the effect of the bright colours against the straw.

Making the tassels was sooo easy and super-addictive. I used cotton yarn (Ricorumi DK), wrapping a length around my four fingers (I wrapped 12 times I think). You then slip a length of yarn between the yarn-wrap and your fingers and ease it up to the top, then tie a tight knot to secure the strands.

Then use a second length of yarn to tie another secure knot about 1 cm down to form a little bobbly bit at the top of the tassel. Use a needle to thread the yarn ends down through the centre of your tassel after you've tied both knots, but leave one long end at the top that you can use to secure your tassel onto your clasp. And finally, give the tassel a neat trim across the bottom. Easy Peasy! 

The pattern for the little crochet balls will be in the Yarndale brochure and like the tassels they are very easy and addictive to make. I love the finished look I have to say.

You might remember me talking a little while ago about some stripy crochet I've been doing? During Yarndale week these long thin panels will be wrapped around the lamp posts which line the pedestrian path through the park. I've LOVED making them, the colourful stripes have really ticked all my therapeutic-happy-crochet boxes. I already showed you the YARNDALE stripes above, and I think I also showed you the beginnings of my sunflower wrap in progress.....

I made a bright sunny flower using chunky yarn and following a free pattern I found online ((here)).

The leaves were a made-up pattern (and I'm sorry I didn't write anything down for these so can't share how I made them). I think perhaps they are a bit small for sunflower leaves, but honestly I don't suppose it matters too much.

I couldn't resist adding a little flying critter too, using scraps of 4 ply wool yarn and a 3 mm hook. This is such a faffy little thing to make but it is totally worth the effort - you can find the Bumble Bee pattern on my blog ((here))

What do you think? 

I'm so happy with it! I hope all the folks who see it wrapped around a lamp post next month will stop and smile :)

For the third wrap I crocheted up a whole load of green stripes to accommodate a flock of woolly sheep, as you do. The idea sprang into my mind one afternoon and would not go away, I was powerless to resist. So I set about designing a sheep pattern to bring my idea to reality, and I'm really delighted with it.

I used scraps of Stylecraft Special DK in white, black (yes I do possess black yarn) and grey.

Oh, and pink yarn too! Baaaaaa!!!!

Love love love how this came out, I had such fun making the sheep and stitching them in place to graze on those green stripes.

Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Super happy with these, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them bring some happy vibes to the park in September.

Many of you have asked for the sheep pattern, so I did the decent thing and made a whole tutorial for you. I've just been proof reading it, and do you know what I realised??? 

Can you see what's missing???

This poor little sheep has no tail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So I added a quick pattern edit to tell you about making the tail, but it's night time now and I don't have the time or energy to make a tail and re-photograph the sheep. You'll just have to imagine her with a cute little sheep tail waggling from her behind.

You can find the pattern and tutorial by clicking on the link below >>

🐑🐑 SHEEP PATTERN 🐑🐑

I've named the pattern "Sheep Appliqué" if you need to find it in my list of patterns in the sidebar of my blog.

One of my biggest jobs for Yarndale each year is to organise and co-ordinate the large scale creative display which raises money and awareness for a charity. This has become an all-consuming part of my summers in recent years and although at times it's a pretty huge undertaking I do really enjoy it. The large scale creative displays are an amazing way of bringing together our fantastic worldwide yarn community and it's something I feel passionate about celebrating. I love the idea of us all connecting together through knitting, crochet and a love of yarn (and colour!) - I'm lucky enough to experience this sense of belonging and friendship every day through my blog and social media and Yarndale is a beautiful real-life extension of our online community.

This year, the project is all about BEARS!! Aren't they lovely??

These crochet bears are very simple to make and were inspired by the old fashioned traditional knitted bears that have been around for decades. There are many different charitable organisations around the world who collect and distribute knitted bears to give comfort and hope to children in need. My job was to create a crochet pattern which matched the knitted pattern. Sounds easy eh? It took me three attempts to get the proportions right (bear number one had veeeeery long legs, bear number two had veeeeeery long arms and a body that was too short, bear number three had a head that was too small). It's difficult to tell what the different parts of the bear will look like during the crocheting process as the whole thing is constructed as a flat piece. But eventually I got it about right, and I loved the whole process of making it work. 

The construction is ever so clever - the legs, body and head are worked as one long continuous piece. It's then folded in half and the head/ears are stitched and created. Finally the arms are worked into the ends of the body rows so that there is no need to sew on limbs. This makes a strong, safe toy suitable for children.

As with all critters, it's always so much harder than you'd think to get the face looking friendly/charming/cute, especially when you aren't able to use pre-made plastic toy eyes. A length of black yarn, a needle and some simple stitching and off you go...hoping you don't create an evil monster!

Awww, I do so love the old fashioned simplicity of these bears, I think they are completely charming.

I made a whole tutorial to help with the pattern and I named it "Charity Bear" if you are looking for it in my sidebar. Click on the link below to find it >>

🐻🐻CHARITY BEAR TUTORIAL🐻🐻

 

I also made a written pattern PDF which you can download and print if you don't need all the step-by-step photos.

Click on the link below to find it >>

CHARITY BEAR PATTERN

As I mentioned earlier, this isn't just about me making a few bears to sit on my sofa - this is all part of the Creative Community project for Yarndale 2019. The display of teddies at the festival will be in support of a fantastic charity called Mercy Ships (https://www.mercyships.org.uk), and you can read more about the Bear project on the Yarndale website ((here))

As in previous years, I was able to put the call out on social media to get the project rolling and during the past month or so, bears have been arriving into the Attic from all over the world. At first there was a neat little well behaved group......

....then more began to arrive and a bear party began!

To date, almost 400 bears are hanging out with me here in the Attic, it's a riot! There is still time to join in with this project if you would like to, in fact I would be delighted! The more bears we receive, the more children will be given a very precious woolly hug in a time of need.

With J's help, we've made a start photographing each and every bear and adding them to Pinterest so that everyone who has contributed is credited. It's such a lovely, fun gallery of images, I adore it! Currently there are four separate boards (100 bears on each board), and I've got a massive stack of parcels in my hallway waiting to be opened still.

You can see all the bears ((here)) and I'll be adding more over the next few days as I try and catch up with the parcel mountain currently blockading my hallway!

I love that these bears will be seen and loved at Yarndale, but that they will then be going on a very special onward voyage. It means that every single bear that is sent in will eventually be given a forever home with a child undergoing surgery or treatment on board the floating hospital ship currently off the coast of Senegal, isn't that something?

If you are interested in making and contributing a bear, all the details for sending etc can be found on the Yarndale website ((here)). 

Thank you for reading all the way to the end of this post, gosh my posts always end up waaaay longer than I anticipate, I can't seem to do concise writing, and I'm sorry about that. Well kind of. I don't know how to write any other way, so I guess it's not something I should be sorry about really. But thank you anyways. 

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Here are some links all in one place for you ::

💗 SHEEP APPLIQUE PATTERN

 

💗CHARITY BEAR PATTERN

 

💗 YARNDALE CREATIVE COMMUNITY INFO (includes address for posting, plus important bear making details)

 

💗 YARNDALE BEAR GALLERIES ON PINTEREST

 

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** Yarndale is a for-profit organisation and I am one of the five organisers. Yarndale is not a charity. You can read more about Yarndale on the website ((here)). I know you know all this already, but I do need to be clear and honest about my involvement with Yarndale. I'm so proud of our festival and hope you've enjoyed a little bit of insight into some of the things that I've been up to. xx

 

 

 

 

 

Attitude of Gratitude

I've been struggling with my days of late, feeling a little on the low side and experiencing a rush of Overwhelm which quite predictably for this time of year has come speeding in like a freight train. I am really just plain exhausted to be honest, and in dire need of a rest and a bit of a break.

However, I am not one to wallow and I do try very hard to practice a daily Attitude of Gratitude towards my life. I know how very lucky I am, and trust me I do thank my lucky stars each and every day for everything that makes up my daily life. I am truly grateful for all of it. I keep reminding myself that tiredness isn't illness and this Overwhelm phase will pass over soon enough. Just got to keep on keeping on for the time being.

I'm really enjoying my little potted dahliettas in the back yard, even though I am waging a constant battle with slugs and snails. I had to resort to liberally sprinkling some pellets down (the kind that are deemed safe for the environment), and that has stopped the nightly feasting for the time being.

This one is especially charming I have to say, and I find myself sitting and simply gazing in awe at those delicious raspberry ripple petals. I've never seen anything quite like it, and for £2 I feel like I've gotten the bargain of the century.

I've had very few still, quiet moments of late, and very little time to sit and think. It's all been go-go-go, and work-work-work. Lots of time at my desk which makes me a little grouchy it has to be said. I try and remind myself to go and sit outside for a short while in the early evening once the dinner has been made and devoured and the kitchen cleared and cleaned down. It's a brief spell before I return to my desk when I make a small fresh coffee and treat myself to a dark chocolate rice cake which is just the nicest thing. I never would have guessed that a daily rice cake would make me so happy. As it's been very warm and humid this week, I've started drinking my coffee on the cool side which is bizarrely satisfying. Instead of heating my milk, I pour it cold into one of my favourite melamine cups and add in a shot of decaff espresso. Finish with a dusting of chocolate powder, inhale and enjoy. 

I was upstairs dealing with the mountain of laundry earlier, sorting, folding, stacking. Like you do. I tend to do a big heap of washing at the weekend (4 or 5 loads usually) and for about 22.5 minutes the laundry basket is joyously, miraculously, completely and utterly empty on a Sunday afternoon. It blows my mind!!! Of course this isn't the end of laundry duty and probably every alternate day during the week I'm at one stage or another with a load of clothes, bedding or towels in transit. I actually don't mind it to be honest. I added a clean pair of hand knit socks to the top of my pile this afternoon and stood for a while just looking at that beautiful pile of colourful stripes. I'm mostly gadding about in sandals or flip flops at the moment (even when it rains) but I often find that I get cold feet in the evenings and there is nothing nicer than pulling a pair of hand knit socks over chilly toes. I love them so much, and I am grateful for the simple pleasure of them.

I've been despairing at the state of our house of late, wondering if there will ever come a time when we aren't too busy or too weary to deal with it all. We've lived here for eleven years and honestly, the place is falling apart. Our bed is broken, the bathroom light has started doing weird flickery on-off things, the carpet has worn out holes in it (actual holes), the fridge has a broken shelf and a door that won't shut properly, the stair banisters are broken, the toilet seat has cracked, there are holes in the walls, wallpaper falling off the walls, a glass light fitting that is smashed (J and Little B and a Nerf Gun fight, seriously) and on and on. Every single bit of every single room needs attention, and I just don't know where to start. I keep looking at it, and thinking that right now, in the run up to the long summer holidays which will be filled with the usual work-Mum juggle, it's just not do-able. House Overwhelm I tell you - another carriage on the freight train.

But still I am grateful for this old shabby house which is such a good home for us, for the way in which it has made me feel so content and secure after a lifetime of moving around and never feeling settled.

J and I walked in the Yorkshire Dales on Monday, a still, hot and humid day. We tramped over the hills that rise above the picturesque village of Grassington, making our way down through Grass Wood to eventually reach the riverside.

It's such a lovely spot right by the river where there are huge, flat stones to sit on and take a breather.

We had a picnic lunch and a flask of fresh coffee each, and honestly it was just so pleasurable. I really love my flask by the way (it's this one on Amazon if you're interested?!). It has a really cute little cup to sip out of and I'm sure coffee tastes better when drunk out of a flask cup. I am easily pleased.

So yeah....Yarndale. I'm working hard for it right now, that's for sure. The above was a little project that I designed and made last week for the brochure. It's harder than you'd think to come up with something new that can be written as a very short, simple pattern to fit an A4 page. I'm not all that good with the 'short' part, being the long-winded, gazillion-photo type of pattern writer. I'll show you more of this project next week I think, I took photos for a little tassel-making lesson which was really satisfying.

I'm still working on the lamp post wraps as and when I find time to actually sit and crochet, which is usually at the cafe. I haven't finished the sunflower yet, but I decided to start on another idea. I made a whole length of green stripes and now I'm crocheting a flock of sheep to fill it. I designed the sheep pattern myself and am quite proud of it actually. They look like sheep and don't look evil, which is always a bonus when doing animal faces.

Speaking of faces.....

......here's a little sneaky peek of something else I've been working on for quite a long time behind the scenes. 

It's a delightful project - Yarndale is teaming up with a fantastic charity this year, and I'll be sharing the Yarndale Creative Community project with you all next week. I very much hope you'll feel inspired to join in, it's for such a good cause.

So that's us all caught up for now. I'm sorry for the slight whiny tone carrying through this post - I really had intended to come here and be upbeat and overflowing with gratitude. But maybe I'm just a bit too tired this evening, so you've been delivered the honest version of the right here and now at the tail end of a long, busy day. 

I hope your days are ticking along nicely, let me know what's making you happy this week? I bet it's not rice cakes?!

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Yarny Stripes

Ever since I completed my Dune blanket back in April I've been itching to start another blanket. There is something about crocheting stripes which soothes my soul and makes me insanely happy and I experience definite withdrawal symptoms if I don't have anything stripy on the go. The struggle is real!

Consequently, I've been fighting the huge urge to start a summer blanket due to the fact that I really don't have the actual time to squeeze in a big project. I've got a gathering number of things that need my urgent attention at this time of year, so I've staged a Blanket Resistance Campaign and well, so far so good. No more blankets until my CAL design starts to call to me. I can do it. I can, I can!

A couple weeks ago, I had the brilliant idea of combining my stripe addiction with Yarndale needs and began working on some new lamp post wraps. We currently have around 25 wraps which we install in the park  - they have been enjoyed for six years now and to be honest some of them are looking a little past their best. Time for a few new additions, and oh, I have been enjoying these easy, colourful stripes!

For my first wrap, I chose some really vibrant rainbow brights for the stripes. Each wrap measures around 28 x 100 cm, and I've worked the stripes in simple UK treble crochet. Four rows for each stripe, twenty five stripes in total. It's easy, pleasurable, joyful, therapeutic crochet and I've loved every hooking minute.

I decided to use the absolutely fabulous Moogly Crochet Alphabet to spell out the word Y-A-R-N-D-A-L-E, making up the letters in white yarn so that they stand out against the bright background.

I find the simplest way to add the letters is to tack/baste them in place using contrast yarn, then neatly stitch around the outside edge of each letter. Basting takes a little more time than simply pinning but is well worth the effort to keep the letters straight and in the correct place. Wonky words just won't do.

Ta-dah!!!!!!!!!!!! What do you think? 

The wrap will be secured around the lamp post with cable ties at the top and bottom, then an invisible seam will be stitched up the back so that the wrap looks good from all directions and stays intact. 

You can see the effect in the photo below...............

The 25 wraps stay in the park for around a week in the run up to Yarndale, then I carefully un pick the stitched seams and take them all back down again. They get washed and stored away ready for next year, so this isn't a throw-away kind of project, or something that will get left to weather the elements for any length of time.

I made the granny stripe wrap in the photo above for the first ever Yarndale in 2013 and it's still in pretty good shape.

As soon as the first wrap was finished I started on a second one. I'm using left over scraps of Stylecraft Special DK and a 4.5mm hook, and it's been fun thinking up colour and design ideas. The rows work up very quickly too - each row of trebles has 48 stitches and I can really whizz along fast once I get into The Zone.

↑↑↑ This was me on Sunday, sitting outside on a warm sunny morning waiting for my breakfast to arrive. I was lucky enough to spend the weekend on a jolly in Manchester with my very good friends Christine and Emma. Oh, we did have fun! Lots of eating and drinking, a little bit of retail therapy, a fair amount of pootling and wandering and a huge amount of chatter and laughter.

↑↑↑ There they are look, check out those happy smiley faces! We were sat out on the terrace at the back of a gorgeous eatery in the heart of Manchester's Northern Quarter. Coffee (oh so good!) along with a very tasty brunch and a bit of a leisurely crochet/knit along......what's not to love?! 

I really adore the various shades of blue that Stylecraft have created in their Special DK range. From the deep teal and rich blue tones, right through to the pale sky blues, this is a gorgeous section of the overall colour range.

I finished up the background stripes on Monday, ready to add a little floral something......

Oh, helloooooo beautiful sunflower!!!!!

I made the sunflower using Stylecraft Special Chunky yarn and a 6mm hook, following a fabulous free pattern by Cindy Hopper. You might recognise the design as I made the same flower in 4ply wool yarn for my Autumn Wreath. 

You can see how lovely the flower looks against the blue stripes, and I hope it'll be very striking when it's in situ in the park.

I made the leaves yesterday afternoon when I was at my Creative Coopers get together at the cafe. I had a quick look online to see what sunflower leaves actually look like, then made up a shape which seemed about right. I'm planning to edge the leaves in a darker green and add some stitched detail, then crochet a tall stem to bring it all together. 

I'll show you once it's all finished......I love love love exercising my Creative Mind in this way and am already forming some plans for wrap number three. I'm thinking something sheepish might be in order......!

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Celebrating Yarndale 2018

It's just over a week since we packed all of our Yarndale paraphernalia back into storage for another year, and I am slowly starting to feel the return of my inner bounce which is something of a relief! It's a funny thing because when I think back over this year's festival, it already feels so far behind us and almost a bit unreal like a dream. I guess this is often the case with Big Events that take up many months of forward planning - it's not that it was an anti climax (it was the opposite of anything anti!!) but now I am out the other side the whole thing has ebbed into a slightly faded memory. A glorious, multi-coloured, inspirational memory mind you, and one that I shan't be forgetting anytime soon.

Back in 2012 when the whole notion of creating a yarn festival was still very much in the idea stage, a small group of us at our cafe knit and natter group began chatting about all the possibilities. We knew we wanted to showcase the very best exhibitors, but we also knew that we wanted Yarndale to be more than just a glorified retail event. We began to visualise demonstrations and skill sharing, and workshops using the talented local textile teachers that we knew. But more than anything, we wanted Yarndale to be a "celebration of creativity" with a focus on the fabulous yarn community that we are all a part of. This is something that I feel passionate about, and I've been determined from the very beginning to try and make this festival of ours chockablock full of joy, colour and lots and lots of happy yarny fun. 

One of the first things I knew for definite was that there should be some yarnbombing involved....how could we possibly hold a creative yarn festival without it?! We started by focusing on the the walk from the train station to the auction mart where Yarndale is held, creating a "yarn walk" for visitors who preferred to wander on foot rather than driving or taking the bus. In the first year I made quite a few decorations for the canal and park with help from a few lovely friends. I crocheted a family of ducks to swim by the canal, a flower garden blooming on a fence, and a whole tree hung with red crochet balls that looked like apples. You can read about it all (here). Sadly, these lovely makes proved irresistible and so much was stolen (including my beloved ducks). It saddened me at the time, but I refused to give up.

The second year we decided to concentrate on the lamp posts which were more robust than our other creations and harder to mess about with. The first year we had around 10 crochet lamp post "wraps" and although one was set fire to (it was acrylic yarn, so only melted a bit), the rest remained intact. So the second year I put a shout out to friends and followers on Facebook, and we managed to gather enough wraps to dress almost all the lamp posts that line the pedestrian pathway through the park.

They take around half a day to install - I use long cable ties to secure them at the top and bottom, then each crochet wrap is stitched up with a seam running down the back.....

..... and they look amazing!

We have twenty five in total and the effect of seeing them against the green of the park is really beautiful. Each year I carefully take down the wraps after the Yarndale weekend, wash and repair them, then store them away ready to be used again next year.

The now famous crochet bunting is always an absolute joy to be reunited with each year, and as soon as it goes up (usually on the Wednesday before Yarndale), there is an instant festival feeling in the air. I'm sure there is a bit of magic in those thousands of crochet triangles! They were made by followers of Attic24 for the first Yarndale in 2013, and we absolutely treasure them. They are so precious to me, providing a beautiful visual representation of our generous world wide yarn and crochet community. To me, they represent everything we hoped that Yarndale would be about - the fun, quirky, passionate, creative and joyful feelings that come from belonging to this yarn community of ours. You can read all about how the bunting was created (here)

This year when we strung up our crochet bunting, there was already a whole ceiling of fairy lights after a previous event took place in August. It added a beautiful twinkle to the large and rather drab room, and made a great backdrop to our pop up Yarndale shop.

One of my biggest commitments for Yarndale is co-ordinating the large scale Creative Community project each year. I love doing this, and although it is a lot of work for me throughout the summer months, the results are always incredible and so worth while. You can read about the creative displays from past years on my blog >>

2013 Bunting

2014 Mandalas

2015 Flowers for Memories (raising money for the Alzheimers Society)

2016 Woolly Sheep (raising money for our local children's hospice)

2017 Creative Hearts (raising money for mental health charity Mind)

As you probably remember, this year's creative project was all to do with butterflies, and oh-my-goodness, it has been sooooooooooooooo beautiful!!! I left it very late to launch the project in early August so we didn't have as many folk joining in with our project as we've had in previous years, but it was no less spectacular.

All in all we received just over 2,500 butterflies, from 354 ladies across the world.....

.....and each and every one of them was made with care, skill and a lot of love.

Throughout August and early September, I had the fantastic job of opening up the parcels and envelopes that were arriving from all over the world and adding more and more beautiful butterflies to the growing kaleidoscope. Although most of the butterflies flying in were crocheted, we were thrilled to receive all types of hand made creations, and I loved seeing the variety and skill in each one.

We had some knitted butterflies........

.....felted butterflies.......

...beautifully stitched butterflies......

....and some with the most delightful embellishments. 

They really were a joy to look at individually, but as a collection they reached a whole different level.

Before I even launched the project, I knew exactly how I would display the butterflies. I had a fantasy about creating a visual collection inspired by the old fashioned Victorian natural history type displays.....you know the ones I mean, that you often see in museums? The butterflies are pinned in neat rows, with small hand written identification labels.

I thought it would be a great idea to take one yarny butterfly from every maker who joined in with this creative community project, pinning them to my board in the style of a Natural History collection. I would credit the name of the maker, and where in the UK/World they were from using small labels. A fab thought I'm sure you'll agree, but you've no idea how HARD it was to execute!!! Oh boy, I really did give myself quite a bit of stress with this! Luckily J stepped in to help me and between us we worked out a methodical way to pin and create labels for the butterflies without muddling up who was who.

I was sooooooooooooooooooo happy with how they turned out, and thrilled that everyone who took the time and trouble to send me a parcel was included (with the exception of a couple of very late arriving parcels).

Take a look................................

What do you think? Aren't they things of beauty?

 At Yarndale, we used old fashioned wooden artists easels to showcase the boards (we are lucky to know some kind and generous arty folk who helped us out with these).

The remaining butterflies were offered to Yarndale visitors in exchange for a donation to our chosen charity which this year was Pioneer Projects (a local charity offering creative arts sessions to help those living with dementia). There were over 2,000 butterflies to lay out, and I couldn't resist arranging them according to colour.....so very me I know, but don't they look beautiful?!

The Kaleidoscope of Butterflies turned out even better than I had imagined in my mind.....

.....and was very popular with our visitors.

I'm thrilled to tell you that we raised a stunning >>>>>>  

 🦋 £2339.94 🦋  for Pioneer Projects!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Such a huge success, and I would like to thank everyone who joined in with making butterflies, or who generously donated during Yarndale weekend. You can see more photos and find out more about the charity on their Facebook page.

We have some butterflies remaining, and these will be passed along to the lovely Sharon who is co-ordinating a hospital charity initiative. Crochet butterflies will be included in "comfort bags" for relatives of end-of-life patients >> more details here >> https://www.cottonpod.co.uk/blogs/news/butterflies-for-remembrance. 

You will probably remember my large mandala hoops from previous years as I've been making and adding to this collection since 2014.

They always look stunning swinging under the tree outside the front entrance to Yarndale, and I love the creative vibe they bring to the festival.

This year I began making a collection of slightly smaller (30cm) hoops - I had planned to make a dozen but ran out of time and only ended up with eight. Still, I was so happy to give them their own tree to dangle from........

.....and they looked amazing dancing away in the afternoon sunshine.

As ever when I do this sort of thing I always think "I need MORE!!" and plan to keep on adding additional hoops each year until I have a truly stunning and fulsome display. More is definitely more with where mandalas are concerned! 

While I was outside in the sunshine with my lovely friend Christine doing mandala things in the trees, inside the auction mart it was beginning to busy up.......

Exhibitors begin arriving at lunch time on the day before Yarndale opens to the public, and have an eight hour window to transform the empty pens into truly fabulous displays of yarny goodness. This year there were more than 200 exhibitors (211 to be precise) and they worked like the clappers to create what I think was our best ever festival. The standard was exceptionally high, and there was such a lot of variety too - oh so much to see, touch, squish, oooohh and aaaahh over! I love the quirkiness and diversity that Yarndale has become so well known for -  this isn't just a yarn show my friends, oh no. There is every single yarn related thing you can think of, and then some you have probably never even heard of. I love to see so many fabulous, unique, independent, artistic businesses come together to share their creativity and passion with an audience who truly appreciates it. Inspiration flies through the air, you can feel the whole building vibrate with it!

I have to appologise here now, as I was extremely lame with my camera this year. In fact, I saw very little of the festival as I was kept so very, very busy in my blanket-covered ring. The only picture on my camera was this..............

...........the lovely people of Injabulu at the very beginning of their set-up. It's so exciting to see and hear the whole set-up in progress, it's an absolute hive of activity and a lot of hard work goes into creating a visitor-worthy festival.

By 9pm the Yarndale team were sitting under the fairy-lit canopy eating fish and chips after a grueling twelve hour work day. It's an odd time when everything is poised and waiting for the doors to open the next day, a real feeling of accomplishment and excitement. 

Early on Saturday morning, I walk along the canal and through the park installing the last of my yarn signs. 

It's the gentle calm before the doors open, and I am already feeling the buzz as I know what is to come.

I take a moment to stand still and breathe in the morning air. I know the weekend is going to be an absolute whirlwind of excitement and activity and I won't get a chance to catch my breathe again until it's all over.

 Inside my cosy area at the centre of the festival and all is well. I had a lot of fun hanging all my blankets out around the auctioneers ring, it was a brilliant way to see them all displayed together and remember the inspirations for each one.

I'm cross because I forgot to take a photo of my crochet banner which I hung on a gate leading into the ring. It looked really flippin' good too! I also didn't manage to take any photos of Christine's famous Yarndale Sock Line which looked amazing. I'm hoping she'll be sharing a blog post about this soon and you'll be able to see a little of how her Yarndale played out.

The above photo was taken on Friday evening once everything was set and ready, the calm before the storm!!. During the weekend, that ring was pretty much full of people all of the time, gosh it was so busy!! I barely got chance to think about eating or doing anything else other than chat with all the hundreds of visitors who had traveled from far and wide to see me.

I borrowed the above photo from my lovely friend Donna who was a volunteer at Yarndale - she has written a lovely account of the weekend with some beautiful photos if you want to hop over and see. Ahh, it was a pretty intense experience for me I have to say, a tidal wave of gratitude and friendship and the best type of happiness radiating out of everybody I spoke to. So many heart-felt stories of crochet journeys taken and even more in the planning, oh it did make me feel good! I adore how we can be so emotionally connected through our love of yarn and colour, and how great it feels to have that sense of "belonging". Crochet blankets are just such feel-good things on so many levels. Love love love my blankets times a gazillion, all the gratitude and all the heart squeezes.

As you probably know by now, I am very happy behind my little point-and-shoot camera and very rarely do I put my face out there into cyberspace. However, in the spirit of friendship and community I make an exception at Yarndale, stepping out of my comfort zone and allowing myself to be drawn into the business of being inside the photographs. Oh boy, this isn't at all easy for me as I do have a very wide shy-streak running through me, but I do my very best not to let that show. I had to share the above photo as it's a rare photo of me with my fab friend Christine, along with two very gorgeous ladies who had traveled all the way from Australia. 

And this one too - this sums up the FUN of Yarndale - again, another beautiful visitor all the way from Finland, who made me laugh and made me so happy with her enthusiasm and joy. And.....I've just realised that she is showing you my crochet banner as well, oh happy day! I so love how that turned out.

I'd like to say a massive big THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to come and say hello to me at Yarndale, most especially those who made considerable journeys to my little patch of Yorkshire. I hope you enjoyed an amazing weekend of yarn and creativity, and that you returned home feeling inspired and full of yarny good vibes. And to those of you who have followed the story from afar and haven't visited Yarndale, I thank you for reading and hope you've enjoyed a little peek behind the scenes.

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ps to be clear, I'd like to mention that Yarndale is a for-profit orgnisation and I am one of the five organisers. I am so proud of our festival and all that we've achieved since the beginning. We remain passionate about this community we belong to and all the fantastic yarny creativity that it brings to our rural market town. You can read more about Yarndale here xx

 

 

 

 

 

Crochet Butterflies

Following on from my last post, there has been a fair bit of colourful fluttering here in the Attic as I've been in the grips of a butterfly obsession. I often find that once I get started with a decorative idea (mandalas are a very good example) I am absolutely, completely one hundred and ten percent in with both feet. I spend many, many hours/days/weeks searching for inspiration online and working through my own design ideas and colour combinations until I can evict the obsession out of my system for a while. Butterflies are my current hooky passion and there is in fact a very good reason for this which I'll explain in a bit. 

I made the above half dozen butterflies using patterns and inspiration from two of my favourite books by Lesley Stanfield :

{100 Flowers to knit and crochet} and {75 birds, butterflies & beautiful beasties to knit and crochet}

I love these patterns because they are based on real butterfly species, so even though I found them to be a challenge the end results were really worth the brain effort. The small tortoisehell butterfly (2nd from the right in the above photo) was my first attempt at creating my own butterfly. It's a bit cobbled together as I didn't write anything down and the wings aren't entirely symmetrical. But I absolutely loved the creative process and it inspired me to keep going with my ideas and also to have a good look online to see what other crochet designers had come up with in the way of butterflies.

What I found is that unlike the patterns in Lesley's book, pretty much every crochet butterfly pattern I found online was a very stylised version of the real thing. Decorative butterfly shapes are easy to visualise I guess, and I found it fascinating to see how different designs used different methods to create the wing shapes.

I thought you might like to see some of my favourite designs.......

1. Bountiful Butterflies by Marken of The Hat and I. 

2. Butterflies for Remembrance by Sharon of Cottonpod.

3. Simple butterfly by Re-made by Sam

4. Butterflies by Planet Penny

The first two are single-layer butterflies which are worked in rounds.

The second two are double-layer butterflies which are worked as a flowery circle then folded in half.

The double layer method is very clever and super-easy for beginners to have a go at. Worked in three simple rounds of treble crochet stitches, they come together quickly with very little concentration required.

When the circle is folded in half it creates the four wings - clever eh?

This type of design produces quite large butterflies - the above one was made using Ricorumi and a 3.5mm hook, and the finished butterfly measures 8cm across.

These butterflies are very stylised, so a bit like a child's drawing of a butterfly rather than a direct observation of a real life critter.

Personally, I much prefer the slightly more realistic look of the single layer designs. I like the shapes of the wings in both of these {Pink butterfly} and {green butterfly} and the neatness of them appeals to me more than the sprawling double layer ones. I'd say that both of these designs are simple enough for beginners to have a go at, particularly as both patterns have some photos to help.

Following on from my play around with these patterns, I felt even more inspired to create my own. I wanted something smallish and neat that could either be pinned as a brooch or used for decorative projects (wreaths, bunting etc). I based my wing shape on the smaller butterflies that flit around the meadows and hilltops here, using two colours for a bit of added decorative potential.

I love designing, so so much! It gives me a real buzz to visualise something, then work it over and over and over again until all the tweaks and alterations end up producing something lovely to look at and simple to re-create.

Ta-dah!!! I'm pretty happy with my butterfly!

I used Ricorumi cotton yarn and a 4mm hook to make this one, and it measures around 5.5cm across.

If you think you might like to crochet up your own collection of butterflies, I've written up the pattern and created a full step-by-step photo tutorial too. They are a weeny bit fiddly because of the small size, but I've tried to make the pattern as simple as possible.

🦋ATTIC24 BUTTERFLY PATTERN🦋

Did you know that the collective noun for butterflies is a kaleidoscope? Isn't that just a lovely word for them? Ever since I found that out I have smiled to myself every time I've thought about it or written it.  

I mentioned at the start of this post that there was a reason behind my current butterfly mania, and I know some of you on social media have quite rightly guessed that they are connected to my work with *Yarndale. Every year I co-ordinate a large scale Creative Community project for the yarn festival that I help to organise in September. You may remember the Creative Hearts from last year which raised money for mental health charity Mind? 

This year we want to gather together a kaleidoscope of yarny butterflies in colourful celebration of our fantastic worldwide crochet community (oh, and knitters as well - there are butterfly knitting patterns out there). We will be supporting a small local charity called Pioneer Projects which uses the creative arts to help those living with dementia. All the info about the Yarndale Creative Community project (including the postal address) is over on the Yarndale website.

I hope that you might feel inspired to join in with the *Yarndale butterfly project - a couple of butterflies are quick and easy to make and pop in the post, and they will be so very much appreciated. I've also got an idea brewing for some butterfly bunting, so I think it's safe to say that I'm not giving up the butterfly making mania anytime soon. They are just far too tempting to step away from right now.

🦋YARNDALE BUTTERFLY PROJECT🦋

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*Yarndale is an annual yarn festival held in North Yorkshire, and I am one of the organisers. We are passionate about celebrating our creative yarn community and I'm proud of my involvement with Yarndale. In the interests of clarity, disclosure and honesty and all that, I do need to mention that Yarndale is a for-profit organisation, and you can find out more about it here.

x

ps aren't butterflies just amazingly beautiful creatures?!!!

pps I still can't get over the kaleidoscope word thing. Love that.

 

 

 

 

Summer Snippets {one}

☀ It's the start of the long six week summer break here, and just as I did last year I thought it'd be nice to share some little snippets of life as we pootle gently through our days. I woke up late this morning completely disorientated, not knowing what day of the week it was or what on earth I was supposed to be doing. It was a blissful feeling when my brain finally woke up and I realised I could take my time and nothing much was needed of me for a while. I adore this feeling so much! It's relief mixed with an overwhelming sense of calm. All is well, it's the summer holidays and we will be operating on a completely different schedule for the foreseeable. Yippeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!

☀ Summer holidays for me generally means a lot of juggling. As with most mums of school age children, I'm used to multi-tasking and mixing my parenting with work commitments, and this summer holds a fair amount of both for me. I'm cracking on with lots of Yarndale stuff, working on the content for the printed brochure as well as the big Creative Community project that I organise each year. I designed and made these little "treasure bowls" last week as a project for the Yarndale brochure - they are made from pure wool which means I can put them into the washing machine and felt them.......so much fun! I'll show you more in a separate post as I've got another felting project on the go right now too. 

☀ Luckily for us our allotment is only a couple of minutes walk from our back door so we are easily able to nip up most days and check on our small but precious crops. These are my minuscule, super-dwarf beans which I am so in love with - they are ever so cute! Despite their diminutive size they are starting to deliver us some delicious beans and I couldn't be happier. it's like having a row of really well behaved little children all performing over and above what is expected of them. Gold star award for the teensy bean plants, top of the class.

☀ The sweet peas aren't producing a whole lot of flowers to be honest, and look a bit on the spindly side. I have a feeling I forgot to pinch out the growing tips at the seedling stage, so the plants never bushed out like I expected them to. Ah well, I'm happy to be picking small posies each week which are scented to perfection, even if there isn't the abundance I was hoping for.

☀ Our small tenty green house is working out really well and keeping our plants nicely protected from the winds that whip across our sloping hillside plot. We've got cucumbers, tomatoes and chilies growing in here and I love seeing how well they are doing.

☀ This was yesterday's harvest, gathered with a great deal of happy enthusiasm by myself and Little B. We had to carry out a fair bit of adventurous hacking to get to the teensy raspberries through the riot of brambles in the overgrown soft fruit bed. It was rather painful and our haul was a little on the small side, but still, the excitement was unrelentingly high. I let Little B eat the raspberries with some greek yoghurt and honey and he said they were super-yummy. And check out my cucumbers, how good do they look?! So proud of my veggie babies.

☀ I'm working on the printed patterns for my new Summer Ripple blankets this week, which is quite hard going. Taking step-by-step photographs as I create the borders and writing up the patterns isn't nearly as enjoyable as the hooky itself which has been hugely pleasurable. But I'm making good progress and hope that everything will be ready to go by the end of this week. Maybe even Thursday.

And in other news, I know I am late to this particular party but I've just discovered frozen smoothie packs at the supermarket. Wow, they are brilliant! They nestle in the freezer between the massive selection of lollies and ice creams and the bags of ice cubes, so you have to kind of know to go and look there for them. There isn't a huge choice in Morrisons, but the above concoction was made from a Red Smoothie pack (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and mango), blended with a dollop of greek yoghurt and some milk. Yum yum yum, sooooooooo good. The Little People are ecstatic that I'm willingly offering to make these for them without thee need for begging or nagging on their part. 

We've had this multi purpose blender for almost a year now (it's a NutriPro 1200) and it's fantastic for general blitzing jobs in the kitchen (making breadcrumbs, chopping nuts, blitzing soup, making curry paste, hummus, dips etc) but I've never been bothered to make smoothies with it. However, it really is the bees knees when it comes to blending chunks of frozen stuff, I've been very impressed. 

☀ The curious mixture above came out of the Green Smoothie pack and consists of frozen kale, banana and mango. And in case you're wondering what that bitty sawdusty stuff is, well, that's lemongrass. Took me a while to actually read the packet and work out why everything was covered in sawdust. I divided the pack up into individual bags so that I can easily make up one smoothie at a time (that isn't all kale and no fruit)  - it gets mixed with apple juice and water to produce this.........

.....mmmmmmmmmm. It looks a bit overly health conscious, but actually tastes delicious. Little B couldn't be persuaded though, he took one slurp and said it made his tummy hurt and could he please stick to the pink one. Guess I'll be the one drinking the kale smoothies then.

☀ A photo of our Big Chair, just because I love it so. It's an oversized chair-and-a-half that we inherited from J's parents who were throwing it out and it fits an adult and willing small child quite nicely for film watching and snuggling. I change the blankets over regularly as they get a lot of wear and tear on this chair, and I'm really enjoying the bright pop of colour that the Sunny Granny Stripe is delivering right now. In case you were wondering about the cushion, that's the Water Lily cushion I made last year using Stylecraft Batik yarn (see here for yarn and pattern details). It's grown on me considerably since I first made it, and I do appreciate the more subtle colouring set against the exuberance of all my blankets.

☀ The Big Chair is where I sit when I can't sleep and come downstairs in the very early hours of the morning. I'm generally a good sound sleeper, but due (I suspect) to my hormones, I'm having some very disrupted nights just lately. I wake at 3am feeling as if someone lit a fire under me, and then find it almost impossible to get back to sleep again. I feel anxious and a little panicky, with a racing heartbeat and a mind that refuses to switch down a gear. I've learnt not to struggle with this any more, and instead of tossing and turning I get up quietly, come downstairs, make a cup of tea, sit quietly with the cat and read or crochet a little until the rest of the household wakes up. I was surprised when I got up yesterday morning to see that it was still dark at 4am. So I switched on my my fairy lights and lit some candles, and waited for the sun to wake up. It was so peaceful as I yawned my way through those darkened early hours of the day.

☀ Little B - so very, very happy to be on his summer break home from school. His happiness radiated out of him today as he loafed about listening to music, playing with his lego and watching insane cartoons on Netflix. He played outside too, kicking a ball around with his friends on the street and riding his bike up and down and up and down. The start of the summer holidays always feels so light and joyful, with endless days stretching ahead to be enjoyed and filled with good things. Oh, I'm hopeful for many Good Things. Always hopeful, that's me.

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Celebrating Yarndale 2017

It's just short of two weeks since Yarndale 2017 took place and I feel like I am finally emerging from the energy crash that typically floors me for a while afterwards. I sat and sifted through all my photographs yesterday, thinking about how truly amazing Yarndale is, and how proud I am to be involved with such a fabulous event. 

As I'm one of the five folks who make up the Yarndale team, my journey generally begins in January. It takes pretty much nine months of the year to create our two-day festival at the end of September, then another month or so afterwards to wrap it all up and put it to bed. Then we take a well earned break until the following January when we start all over again.

One of my favourite jobs is designing and making our mascott sheep which we photograph to use for our postcards and sometimes a little advertising in magazines. I work on this at the start of the year with my friend Carole who is another one of the Yarndale team - she and I both share a love of colour and have very creative souls (Carole is also an exhibitor, we both have quite busy creative lives outside of Yarndale).

As you can see from the above picture, the sheep we make are quite large, measuring around 90cm x 120cm. We draw the shape out on a piece of paper to give us an idea of the scale we are working to, then between us we make up the various body/head/leg pieces  over a couple months usually. Once all the yarny work is complete, we get a wooden shape cut out at our local builders merchant so that we have a solid template to stretch our woolly fabric around.

Over the years since Yarndale started in 2013, we've created a rather gorgeous and eclectic flock of woolly sheep which have become very well loved by our visitors. 

Our famous canvas sheep bags are hugely popular and usually sell out very quickly each year. We had some extra printed this year so if you would like to gift yourself a gorgeous Granny Sheep bag, we have a small number left in the Yarndale online shop.

Much of what I do to prepare for Yarndale is on the creative side, although I am responsible for the social media too. If you have been on the Yarndale Facebook page or Instagram then that's usually my voice you are reading. I also tend to get called on if any general writing is needed - magazine articles, interviews and press releases, plus the content for the brochure, that kind of thing.

But without a doubt, it's the creative projects which really get me excited each and every year. For me personally, I feel this is the essence of Yarndale - it's a celebration of yarn, creativity and community and nothing says it better than the colourful decorative elements we bring together for the festival. 

I started making these giant Mandala Hoops back in 2014, originally just for my own personal amusement before I quickly realised that they would make perfect decorations for Yarndale. I've managed to make a couple of new hoops each year to add to my collection, and have also LOVED that a few of you have made and sent your own mandala hoops to add to mine (I can't tell you how happy this has made me). If you want to read a little more about how I attach my mandalas to the hoops, you can find the blog post here.

This is my latest hoop, finished just a week before Yarndale. I used the pattern that I designed for Simply Crochet (more details in this blog post), and I loved how different it looked compared to the soft pastel colours of the original.

I had eleven hoops in total this year, which I strung up under the trees at the front of the Auction Mart - they really did look very eye catching. For next year, I'm planning on making a whole lot of smaller ones - I've already got a bunch of these 30cm metal rings and am so excited about trying out some new mandala designs. I was gifted some beautiful cotton yarn by the fabulous Dutch brand Yarn and Colors which will be perfect - the Must Have Minis are the most cutesome little 10g balls which come in 100 different colours (yes, one Hundred!), check them out at Wool Warehouse, and please do not blame me if you accidentally order yourself some.

Can you see in the above picture that it looks like a yarny river is flowing under my mandalas?? This fabulous creation was made last year by a group of local ladies, to celebrate the bi-centenary of the Leeds/Liverpool canal which runs through Skipton. It measures 15 metres long and is absolutely beautiful.....

....we were thrilled to have it on display at Yarndale again this year, and even more thrilled that it was joined by a remarkable knitted flower meadow........

.....wow!!!!!!!!!!! Isn't that just beautiful?? Inspired by nature and wildlife, the meadow was made from over 250 individual pieces of  knitting, crochet, appliqué and sewing. It was created by the same local knitting group who created the canal, with participants ranging in age from 4 to 94. This is such a fantastic example of how wonderful our community is when it comes together to celebrate the joy of creating with yarn.  

The details in some of the pieces were so inspiring.....just look at that little felted snail leaving it's silvery trail behind it !!

We were also really chuffed to see the return of the famous Thirsk Yarnbombers to Yarndale after their creations were enjoyed so much by all our visitors last year.

They installed some fabulous knitting and crochet over the wooden bollards..... 

....which celebrated all things "Yorkshire".....

....and certainly brought about a lot of smiles during Yarndale weekend.

And so we come to the Creative Community project which I organise every year - it's my biggest undertaking for Yarndale, and something which I absolutely love doing. I would like to express my deep gratitude to everyone who joined in with this year's Creative Hearts project, it was just soooooo beautiful to see all the hearts come together and was such a powerful representation of how talented, passionate and friendly the crochet and knitting community is. It was a real creative celebration, and it means a huge amount to me to be able to do something like this - I couldn't be more proud of our global crochet community.

All in all, we received around 520 hearts for our display - I'm afraid I lost track of the final count as quite a few parcels arrived right at the last minute, but do you know, they came from 21 countries around the world, isn't that something? 

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I've taken photographs of every single individual heart, and I'll be starting work next week on creating some beautiful displays on Pinterest. In the meantime, here are a few images showing some of my favourites......

We decided this year to keep the Creative Hearts display intact and not to sell the hearts at Yarndale. We had our lovely friend Sheila (creator of the Flowers for Memories display two years ago) looking after the hearts during the weekend, and I'm thrilled to announce that through kind and generous donations from our visitors, we managed to raise.............

❤£1227.46❤ for the mental Health charity Mind.

Thank you so very much to everyone who contributed, it means a lot to us to support this worthwhile charity. The hearts are now tucked up safely at Yarndale HQ for a little while, and in the New Year we will start working with our local Mind representatives to see if we can display them or offer them for sale to raise even more money. I'll certainly keep you updated on the ongoing story.

From hearts to circles, well one very big, gigantic circle actually. I couldn't chat about our creative crochet community without sharing this incredible piece of work with you. We were thrilled to be able to have this beautiful 14 foot giant mandala on display at Yarndale this year, it really is the most breathtaking piece of crochet I think I've ever seen. It was created by a lady called Hester (@tessafterall on Instagram) as a result of the 365 #zenmandalaproject - the challenge was to crochet one round of a mandala every day for a whole year, which Hester successfully did throughout 2016. 

I found this image on Google (I'm so sorry I haven't been able to find the source so don't know who this lovely Yarndale visitor is, or who took the photo). I wanted to show you the scale of Hester's awesome Mandala, it just blows my mind looking at it and thinking about all the multiple thousands of stitches and hooky hours that are sitting right there. Hester was super-lovely and very humble with regards to her mandala awesomeness - it was really wonderful to welcome her to Yarndale and for our visitors to be able to chat with her.

Oh, there is always so much happening at Yarndale, way too much to mention really, and this year more than ever before we really did have some fabulous things going on. The above photo just captures the spirit of Yarndale perfectly, I love it! We had a return visit from Skipton's Giant Swaledales - these are huge walking puppets created from papier mache, wire and fabric, with a human inside acting out the voice of the sheep...baaaaaaaaaaa!! You can see this sheep is trying out a blanket - this was in the new social area of the festival where among other things (including the fabulous Yarn Doctors) we had a bit of a blanket making session going on, it was fab!

 Blankets for the Homeless  (or BFTH for short) collects knit or crochet 6" squares which are stitched together by a team of volunteers to make colourful blankets for people in need of a little warmth and comfort. Jayne Roper, founder of BFTH, came to Yarndale this year to host a blanket making drop-in where visitors could pull up a chair and join in with knitting/hooking a 6 inch square. It was a fabulous success, and so lovely to think that a little time spent crocheting or knitting with others can help make a difference. 

And so we come to my own little patch of Yarndale where I spend pretty much all my time during the weekend. Yarndale is a hugely busy festival (we had a record 8,500 visitors this year and just short of 200 exhibitors) and during the course of the two days it is very full on. We usually notice a tiny little lull towards the end of each afternoon but other than that there is barely time to eat or go take a pee throughout the day, it really is that busy. But I do enjoy it so much, it's overwhelming and emotional and joyful and happy and intense, and oh, just incredibly wonderful. It makes me feel so grateful, so inspired, so full of admiration for the enthusiastic Yarn Tribe we belong to. I get to meet so many gorgeous people from all over the world who travel to experience Yarndale and perhaps a little bit to see me too. This year, more than in other years, we did notice an increase in our foreign visitors - when I say from "all over the world" I really do mean it! I met lots of really lovely ladies (and gents) from Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Israel.....yes, honestly! 

So I get to chat and chat and chat! And of course listen and encourage and celebrate and laugh - it's a full on social whirl. It makes me realise that all these words that I sit and tap away at my laptop each week, all these thoughts and feelings and ideas and images that I share do indeed reach out and touch people far and wide. During Yarndale weekend, I get the real life version of my blog comments in three dimensional full colour, it's as if the whole thing quite literally springs to life in front of my very eyes. It's very humbling, and a rather marvelous experience for someone like me who leads a pretty quiet, quirky life.

I am beyond grateful that I am not on my own in this little patch of Yarndale - that very first year in 2013 when I was on my own was almost too much for me to handle by myself. These days I call in the troops! I just love having the Wool Warehouse team with me at Yarndale, they are the loveliest, friendliest bunch and work so hard during the weekend.

Thank you to every single one of you who took the time to come and say hello, I can't tell you how much I appreciated it and enjoyed meeting you all. And thank you also to everyone who was inspired by my blankets and took the decision to start out on a new colourful hooky journey. ThAnK YoU, so much, it makes me happy right down to my toes.

Of course, it wasn't just blankets and yarn and excitable people that filled my little auction ring, no, no! There were socks too, lots and lots and lots of socks! Just look at them all!! This is Christine's famous "Yarndale Sockline" which was so successful this year that we ran out of space to hang them. 

This was the third year that Christine organised the sockline for Yarndale, and it is just such a lovely feel-good thing. Knitters were invited to make a pair of socks which will be gifted to those in need of a little bit of woolly comfort and love.

Chrsitine says "...in our world where the media likes to focus on what's going wrong, we need to remember that some things are going right. I like to think that when I tell you that the pair of socks that you knitted has gone to, say, a homeless hostel or a children's hospice, you will smile, your heart will smile and that moment of connection will send love and positivity out into a world that needs all the love it can get." Isn't that just something special?

If you would like to know more about this year's sockline including the Grand Total of Socks Recieved, hop over to Christine's blog for a read.

For me, Yarndale weekend is so many things. It is the culmination of almost a year of planning, creating and working. It is a celebration, a gathering of like-minded souls, a joyful, yarn filled festival full of talent, passion, excitement, friendship, creativity and inspiration. It is a time when we all feel that we Belong to something absolutely, crazy-wonderful.

I took the above picture at 9.30am on Saturday morning, in that surreal window of time when everything is poised and ready to go, and we are just waiting for the doors to open. It's like the lull before the whirlwind! Our exhibitors work so hard to transform their bare concrete and metal pens into beautiful, enticing little showcases and shopfronts, they really do us proud. Sadly, I don't get much of a chance to look around - that's one thing I would love to change about my own Yarndale experience.

I did manage to have a quick squizzy early on Sunday morning, and so had a few photos on my camera, if you'd like to see what caught my eye?

There is such a huge range of beautiful things to see, squish, stroke and admire. Yarndale is very, very much more than simply a yarn show. 

There are some fabulous little Yarndale 2017 videos made by a few of our visitors over on YouTube, so if you couldn't visit and would like to get a feel for what this year was like, do go and have a look.....they are wonderful to watch...

♥ Sian's video

♥ Carie's video

♥ Cathrinskey's video

I also wanted to share the above images which I came across on Instagram - I think they are absolutely wonderful. Lisa is a textile artist and her eye for detail (and photography) is incredible. She described her experience of Yarndale as "a game of 2 halves...the natural neutrals and the bright Zappy colours"

 

So that's Yarndale over for another year - the fifth festival and what a success it was. Last week we received the news that Yarndale came 1st in the "Best Knitting Event" category of the British Knitting and Crochet Awards 2017, for the second year running. We are so proud of what we've created, and the feel-good that it brings to our visitors, exhibitors, and of course the lovely little rural market town in which we live. 

Thank you ever so much for reading, I hope I haven't been too long winded and that you've enjoyed a little bit of a peek behind the scenes. 

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ps I'll keep you updated on the Creatve Hearts - I'm hoping to have all the image galleries ready to publish next week.

pps in the interest of full disclosure and transparency, I need to mention that Yarndale is a for-profit organisation and I am one of the five organisers. You can read more about the festival over on the website www.yarndale.co.uk