Yarndale Adventures…

Last weekend I attended my very first Yarndale festival and what a weekend it was! This blog post is all about the weekend – it’s a very long blog post I know, but there was so much to write about and I hope you enjoy sharing my experiences… 🙂

Yarndale is in its sixth year and in previous years I have eagerly followed events on social media and read about it with huge interest. A whole weekend dedicated to yarn and woolly interests… sounds wonderful doesn’t it!? 🙂

The reason I haven’t been before is that Skipton in North Yorkshire, where the festival is held, is 300 miles from our south east corner on the coast. It’s a long drive but together with my husband and daughter (our boys stayed behind) we embarked on the long journey on Friday afternoon after having packed our van ready for camping…

Not only is it a long distance away but we also have to negotiate the M25 around London so our journey was very slow at times with heavy traffic…

We saw the sunset whilst driving on the motorway and when we arrived at our campsite Catgill Campsite at 22.30 it was dark (8 hours after we left home)…

We were tired and got straight into our beds for a cold nights sleep! We had duvets and blankets but it did feel cold… and the next morning the crispy grass covered in frost was a giveaway as to just how cold it had been…

But what a treat welcomed us on our first morning in Yorkshire… a beautiful sunrise and the most glorious views…

The campsite is 6 miles from Skipton Auction Mart where Yarndale is held and we had decided to bring our bikes and cycle… it was a challenging ride as the Yorkshire Dales are very hilly and it took us over an hour although my husband and daughter were mostly waiting for me as I had to push the bike and walk up many hills! 😉 But what a great sense of achievement it was when we arrived and we enjoyed stunning scenery on the way…

As we got nearer, the crocheted bunting flags were a sure sign that we were going the right way…

We arrived at Yarndale and were probably the only people to have cycled there as we were directed to the only two cycle stands right by the front entrance and these were both empty and free for us to use! 🙂

As we entered the building it all looked strangely familiar having seen so many photos from the festival before, but seeing it all for real was wonderful… that crocheted bunting with fairy lights intertwined is magical and it’s hard to do it justice on a photo…

Each year Yarndale has a community project to raise money for charity and this year people were asked to either crochet or knit a butterfly. What a beautiful display and people could take a butterfly home in exchange for a donation to a local charity – it’s a lovely idea…

There was also a fabulous display of poppies…

And then into the festival we went… the setting in a cattle auction mart is just perfect… and the festival itself is truly amazing – my daughter said “this must be heaven for you…” (she knows me well!) 🙂 There was aisle upon aisle of wonderful stall holders…

From beautiful yarns, displays, garments and blankets…

To some coastal inspired displays too…

There were workshops as well as rest areas for people to sit and eat, or sit and craft or simply sit and chat! There were some real sheep and even yarn Schnauzers! No dogs (except assistance dogs) are allowed in the Festival so our little schnauzer, Salty, stayed at home with my parents but it was nice to see a crocheted schnauzer on the Toft display and a felted schnauzer too… A stand we were drawn to (especially my animal loving daughter) was Big Wigs Angora They had four adorable angora rabbits there and I felt compelled to learn a little more about them…

…which in turn led me to making my first yarn purchase! A blend of 25% angora and 75% merino wool. The lovely lady taught me about the properties of angora and why its best blended with other yarns… do check out the website for more information.

And then I started bumping into people who I have up until now only had contact with online… that has to be what made the weekend so special. 🙂 Being on Instagram and Facebook as ‘Coastal Crochet’ and also through my blog, I am having regular contact with people online and exchanging thoughts, ideas and words most days. Many people who have crocheted my blanket from the Coastal Crochet CAL had also told me they were going to be at Yarndale. To be able to meet some of these people in the flesh for the first time was just fabulous (and a little overwhelming too) although even some of these encounters were short & sweet but not quite long enough…

I’m not a huge fan of the selfie but I did take this one with my partners in crime, my husband and daughter who came with me so enthusiastically all weekend!!

My daughter then turned photographer and took most of the photos of me with other lovely people…

We saw Ellen from Pollevie again – I attended a workshop with Ellen last month in Brighton (blog post coming soon!) and her display was just so colourful and wonderful- she designs and makes the most beautiful wraps and bags.

Meeting Sara the editor of Simply Crochet magazine was fabulous. Having designed for the magazine throughout 2018, I have had lots of email exchanges with Sara and to meet in person was just great…

We also met fellow designer Fran Morgan who was so lovely… I could have talked for so much longer!

There were some wonderful encounters – some brief, others a little longer, but all very special. I had heard through Instagram that many fellow Instagram creatives were meeting for lunch on the grass outside the main entrance so this is where we headed and I met lots of fellow bloggers and Instagram friends… including Rosina from zeensandroger as well as meeting new people such as Claudia from Crochet Luna who was extremely generous in giving people gifts she had brought from California… a mini skein of yarn (it matched my coat!) 🙂 There was a fun conversation about how to pronounce the Dutch yarn brand “Scheepjes”… and being half Dutch I was able to help!

The famous mandalas made by Lucy of Attic24 were out here too…

And then there was my blanket that I had with me in a bag. Some lovely people approached me and I was so happy to be able to show them my own blanket at Yarndale. This photo is with Gilly from @gilly_makes  on Instagram. She joined in with my crochet along and hosts craft mornings at which about 11 blankets are being made… it was so special to see her…

There were more people who had taken part in my crochet along who seemed happy to see my blanket which was so lovely…

We popped back into the festival for another look around and it was lovely to meet Lynne Rowe at her stall (who I’ve admired for a while) and see some of her fabulous designs…

As we left I managed to get some more photos of the outdoor displays in the sunshine…

Before cycling back to the campsite we walked the Yarndale ‘Yarn Walk’ which leads into the town and has yarnbombs galore…

We walked along the canal (my husband was happy to see the narrowboats)…

And then we popped into ‘Coopers Cafe’ which is where Lucy of Attic24 fame (and one of the amazing organisers of the whole Yarndale event) has her studio in a room above the café. She had opened her studio room for people to see during the weekend…

We had been lucky to see Lucy briefly at Yarndale earlier in the day and I had the opportunity for a quick chat… 🙂

She was just lovely and we talked about our blogs and how they are our first love before Instagram and Facebook… I have always felt that way about my blog too… Instagram is a great way to get in touch with fellow crafters and it draws big numbers through quick posts and ‘likes’, but it is my blog where I can really put my fuller content. Lucy’s Attic24 blog is so inspiring. Lucy’s studio room is also gorgeous and there was a visitors book to sign too.

On our cycle ride back to the campsite I stopped to take a photo of some sheep with the beautiful scenery in the background (my husband and daughter had cycled ahead) and the local farmer invited me into her field to meet her “pet” sheep…

She was so kind and enthusiastic in talking about her sheep and she took my phone to take some photos!

It was a lovely moment… the perfect end to a perfect day!

And here were our purchases…

The next day we were treated to another gorgeous sunrise… as you can see we had some new neighbours. I also spotted a tent nearby with crocheted bunting… a little clue that the three ladies camping there might be going to Yarndale… and yes they were! We had a lovely chat…

The campsite was near to Bolton Abbey so on the Sunday morning we popped there to have a quick look at the ruins…

And my daughter really wanted to go and see the friendly sheep which she had missed the day before… they really were adorable and she got to see them- yay!

In the excitement of the first day I hadn’t got round to reading through the Yarndale festival brochure properly and I realised that we had missed a few things. Luckily my daughter and I managed to pop back into the festival very briefly on the Sunday morning (my husband happily wandered around Skipton)… and I’m so pleased we did! I was feeling less overwhelmed and able to make some yarn purchases – how could I resist River Knits hand dyed wool from a floating dye studio…

And then we also bumped into lovely Heidi @virkkuumaniassa who had travelled all the way from Finland! We follow each other on Instagram and were really hoping to meet… (interestingly, when looking back at photos from the lunchtime meet up on Saturday, Heidi can be seen in some of my photos but I just hadn’t seen her there at the time!!)

That’s indicative of just how overwhelming the festival was at times… there are lots of people I was hoping to meet that I either didn’t see at all or it just didn’t feel right to approach them at the time I saw them… I suppose that’s the nature of a big event like this with so many people there.

And I also wanted to say farewell to fabulous Ellen @polle_vie who had travelled from The Netherlands!

Plus I had a final chance to say ‘hello’ to some other lovely people who approached me as they had taken part in my crochet along.

And finally we managed to see the mandala display which was co-ordinated by Lucy of Attic24. We missed this on our first day and it would have been such a shame not to see it…And there you have it… a weekend in a beautiful part of the world, a fabulous yarn festival and a chance to meet so many likeminded people. I highly recommend it. 🙂

Yes it can be tiring and overwhelming at times and although the entrance price is reasonable, the shopping opportunities can be expensive. There are some bargains and offers to be had but some of the yarn on sale is pricey and there’s so much choice and temptation that it’s probably best to go with a clear idea of what it is you might want to buy… I actually didn’t end up buying too much at all… just the Yarndale bag, some cards, the angora mix balls and some mini skeins from River Knits…

It’s so wonderful that there is as much focus on crochet as there is on knitting. I have often visited yarn shops or events where I feel crochet is given a back seat in favour of knitting, but not here! Both crafts are embraced and celebrated and if anything there seems to be more crochet than knitting, especially with the mandala displays and the yarn bombs!

It was lovely for me that I went with my hubby and daughter… I wouldn’t have wanted to go all that way on my own and at the times the festival felt a little overwhelming it was nice to have them with me… They seemed to enjoy it too (the atmosphere was really lovely) and my hubby treated himself to some wool socks and my daughter got some keyrings and also seemed very drawn to the stalls with felt displays.

It took us 7 hours to drive home…my parents had been with our boys and when I walked in after our long and delayed journey my Mum asked “was it worth it?”

The simple and straightforward answer was “yes”! 🙂

Were any of you there? I’d love to hear your thoughts about the weekend… Have any of you been in the past or are you hoping to go in the future? Or are there any other yarn festivals I need to be going too?

Thanks for reading… (it was a long blog post wasn’t it!) and Happy Crocheting Everyone! 🙂 🙂