Pom Pom Magazine has been running for five years this year and to celebrate they created PomFest - a three day yarny festival with talks and a pop up market. I didn't have a huge amount of free time over the weekend but I managed to go late in the afternoon on Saturday. I missed the talks but if there's another PomFest I would love to listen in!
The Pom Pom team were manning the door and giving out tickets. It was nice to put faces to the voices I hear on their podcast. They kindly gave us two tickets for the price of one as I'm a student and it was late in the day. Great start! If you haven't listened to the Pom Pom podcast aka the Pomcast you can listen to it on their website (here). They are really cheery and well worth a listen.
Mum had a quick loop of the vendors with me before heading for the cafe. She's not a knitter and unfortunately twisted her ankle on the way. A cup of tea and a tasty cupcake definitely helped. Its great taking her to events like this to show the innovation of the designers and indie dyers. She was very impressed with all the knit up samples and said she wished they were for sale as well. I have a feeling I'm going to have a few requests for Christmas this year including this gorgeous cardigan from the latest Pom Pom magazine:
And this one:
Yarn purchases! I'm trying to make everything I buy a bit more mindful so with that in mind (haha!) I think my stash enhancement was pretty controlled. I did however do a lot of window shopping of the other vendors for future yarn ideas.
I have had my eye on all of the Coop Knits books and this one appealed to me most on the day. It was nice to talk to the author behind the books although I was too shy to ask her to sign it. Shyness was a running theme on Saturday.
I'll do a full review of the book once I've had a proper read of it. Look at all the colourwork on the front cover!
I couldn't walk past the highly colourful Easy Knits stall without having a look. It was a riot of colours. Its at this point I wish I had taken photos of the actual Pomfest and the vendors. Learning point for my next yarn festival visit! The Easy Knits guys had a little sausage dog called Sweep (because his ears sweep along the ground I'm guessing). He almost received more attention than the yarn on the stall. Almost. I picked up this mini skein pack with the aim to buy more in the future. Their range of different yarns was impressive and I would definitely like to buy more of it.
I have been eyeing up the Tanis Fiber Arts pattern for multi-coloured cardigan called Lifesavers (link here). The main colour is a dove grey with regular stripes of different colours. Flicking through other knitters versions the cardigan is a blank canvas to try lots of different variations. Either rainbow or a spectrum of a particular colour or even monochrome. There are endless combinations. These minis are a great start.
With my next purchase, I have to start with the bag that came with them. A normal brown paper bag but the handles were wool!
This is 100% organic wool from the company Garthenor. I'm not entirely sure what makes some wool organic and not all wool? Will need to research that at some point. The wool was nice and crunchy but not scratchy and I cast it on as soon as I got home. (Can anyone say 'too many WIPs?')
This is destined to be a hiking hat one day! Again I wish I had photographed the stall as it was so well put together. The lady running the stall was so so friendly and we had a great chat about different sheep breeds particularly the ones native to Wales where Garthenor is based. If you would like to try Garthenor yarn but want to feel it first, they are sponsoring the after party for the Great London Yarn Crawl 2017. More on the Crawl in a later post but tickets are nearly sold out so get yours ASAP.
And last but most certainly not least was a skein of yarn from Stranded Dyeworks aka Amy from the Stranded Podcast. Again another podcast thats well worth a listen and can be found on YouTube. Look for Amy Edwards Green and the podcast should appear. I have been listening to Amy's podcast for quite a while now and she is exactly the same person in real life as on her podcast - friendly, bubbly and full of energy!
This is a 4 ply yarn with 75% merino and 25% nylon so ideal for socks, shawls, jumpers or anything really. I would love a jumper out of this.
This is a lot of photos but I had to take a few different angles to capture the many facets of this yarn. I'll be interested to see what it looks like once its wound into a cake.
And thats all of it! I briefly spoke to Amy from Stranded Dyeworks as well although I was too shy to ask for a photo with her. Maybe next time! Will definitely be working on my courage to talk to podcasters especially as they're always lovely when you do :)
Links for the shops mentioned:
Coop Knits - www.coopknits.co.uk
Easy Knits - www.easyknits.co.uk
Garthenor - https://garthenor.com/
Stranded Dyeworks - www.etsy.com/uk/shop/StrandedDyeworks
Have a great week everyone!
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