St Abbs Wool Festival

Last weekend, I had the lovely opportunity to go the the Wool Festival in St. Abbs. The event is run by Louise of Woolfish. I got a ride with my pal Mica, of YarnPony fame, and helped set up the stall (translate: got to fondle lovely yarns!)

There were some other really interesting stalls there too, and of course really lovely people.

Jennie Howe’s hand spun yarns were lovely, and the stand she put together was pretty enticing.

There were some extraordinary hand-knots by Morag Patterson, who runs a lovely knit-to-order bespoke service.

Some lovely geurnseys were on display, courtesy of Mavis Clark.

I really enjoyed meeting with Jon and Claire of Natural Born Dyers (what a great name!). Jon demonstrated to me their “Spurtzler” spindles, which were pretty interesting, and supposedly simple!

I’m excited to see them again in a few weeks at Edinburgh Yarn Festival, where perhaps I’ll be brave enough to buy a Spurtzler of my own!

I was however brave enough to buy some fleece. I’d just seen some images recently of the Manx Loaghtan breed (Oh! the horns!) and couldn’t resist buying some of the fleece to try on my new drop spindle.

Before leaving, I had to pop around the town really quickly, just to see how lovely this seaside Borders town was. What do you think?!

And of course, upon returning home I just had to break the fleece out and give the drop spindle a go. More on that later!