Buy ALL the Things
Hi fellow yarnies. If you have been following me on Instagram you can't help but notice I have been posting some fabulous yarn porn. I was at my 1st ever yarn fair the Brei en Haakdagen in Rijswijk. It was AMAZING. I didn't know where to look, or start. They even had a house made of wool!
I was there with some lovely ladies from my Tuesday morning craft club. Road-trip haha. We decided to start at the start and work our way around in an orderly fashion, just looking... and then after we had seen every stand we would stop for lunch and then SHOP. I took sooo many fotos for reference, just in case i forgot to go back and buy it haha. We were nearing the end of the 1st round and my friends began grumbling about being hungry. My head swivels. 'No, you can't be hungry, we haven't finished. Remember the plan. Stick to the plan. And how can you think about food. Look ladies yarn.' hahaha It didn't work, we stopped for lunch. They have now threatened to put me on a leash for the next one :) We dove back in, took a look at the last few stalls and then in all honesty I went a little crazy. I had a budget, and a wish list, I was very good. I got to see all the lovely yarns I have heard about following different Podcasts and vlogs. Kate from A Playful Day and Carmen with her New Leaf Podcast being the worst enablers, EVER. I have now seen (and squished) yarns from Malabrigo (OMG), Madelinetosh, Hedgehog Fibres, Manos del Uruguay and so many more. I looked, I touched, I squished, I sniffed, I drooled.
And then I discovered Silk. WOW It feels like butter. It is so soft. I was busy snuggling the most delicious lacy silk yarn I have ever felt at the Wol Met Verve stall when I was called over to feel up something else a friend was looking at, but sorry, after that silk even 100% merino was feeling rough, haha. Nothing else stood a chance. There were a few stands specialising in hand dyed silk. One I absolutely fell in love with and will definitely be keeping an eye on was Debonnaire run by a lovely enthusiastic lady, apologising that she didn't speak Dutch. Hardly a problem for me except as usual I kept forgetting and replying to her in Dutch. You would think if anyone could converse in English it would be me right haha the trials of being multilingual. Her yarn was beautiful, and her show pieces were stunning and sooo soft, but being a crocheter I require more yarn than a knitter so would have needed multiple skeins and it would have cost me a pretty penny. Not that it wasn't worth it but I've never used silk, and am not super familiar with lace weight so I agreed with the little voice in my head to take a card and further down the line when I am more accomplished, treat myself. I did find another stand with 100% silk, in lace and fingering (or fingering and DK I still have to get that into my head) and they had a sale WOOHOO happy dance. So I stocked up from them, and they had fantastic colours. All hand-dyed. So beautiful. Atelier Wol en Zijde helped me out of a good chunk of my budget haha.
I popped back to the Recht & Averecht stand umpteen times, they had beautiful beautiful soft skeins of Malabrigo baby merino lace, in THE most amazing colours. I couldn't settle on one. In the end I did. I got the Paris Night colourway, and I can always get the amazing Fuchsia online from them, because it kept calling to me (but my budget had been blasted by then haha)
There were definitely some bargains to be found. Bart & Francis had a fantastic buy 2 get 1 free offer and coincidentally they had a colour that I had been looking for in the fibre I wanted, so why buy 1 when u can buy 2 and get 1 free. I picked up 3 skeins of a lovely purple 100% merino.
A few days before the yarn fair I had fallen in love with a shawl. Never have I seen one I like so much. It is pure gorgeousness. You can find it here on Ravelery. It's called Selkie, by Aoibheni. It is in pre-release for a discount price. You really should check it out. Obviously I wanted to find the perfect yarn, and where better than a yarn fair. So what do you think. Perfect right? :) Its 100% merino by Tre Liz. The short time I spent at her stand left an impression too. Super friendly and really enthusiastic. Really lovely.
Before you all ask, no I didn't just buy yarn. I bought other lovely goodies too. I picked up some amazing labels from De Haakfabriek and Wolcafe and I picked up some lovely star charms and a 'winter is coming' charm from Creatotaal, whatever sort of bead or charm you would like. They have it. Pretty amazing.
I have also taken up with Tunisian crochet (more on that another time) and i was short a few hook sizes so Sweet Apple Designs came to my rescue. I really think they were the only stand with a knit pro Tunisian hook for my cable in a 6mm. Everywhere else seemed to have an empty space where the 6mm should have been.
As you can see I had an amazing time and I have some lovely new yarns to try out when I find the time. I'll leave a few more photos here for you to drool over. And as for that budget of mine? Well ssshhhh.
