Yarndale 2013; a Festival of Woolly Delights!

For those of you who don’t know, Yarndale festival is a weekend event held in the lovely Yorkshire Dales town of Skipton, and is dedicated to everything knitted, crocheted, spun, dyed and felted.

When my friend asked if I wanted to go, I found it near-impossible to say no! Anything that involves wool and is hosted in a town whose name originates from the Old English for ‘sheep town’ has me hooked. I mean, if ‘Sheep Town’ isn’t the perfect place to hold a yarn-based festival then no-where else in the world is ever going to be sufficient. Plus you got to follow this ‘Follow the Bunting’ sign – something that I thought only happened in my dreams!

Yarndale 2013 was held at Skipton Auction Mart – a huge building normally used for selling and trading cattle. I was expecting it to be a bit cow-y, but Yarndale was far from it. In fact, the atmosphere was perfect for the making-something-from-scratch theme that the festival has.

I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the stall-owners and demonstrators were fun, vibrant and very much passionate about their craft. I came away from the day with a very sore throat from all the chatting I’d done with everyone – who knew that spinning, lacemaking and felting were actually real-life things that real-life people did!

I even met a few alpacas and Angora rabbits. If they could speak I’m sure their stories would have been just as fascinating.

If you get the chance to attend Yarndale in the future then I 100% recommend that you go. Alongside the sore throat, I came away from the event with a fantastic woven picnic blanket (thriftily made from waste yarn over at Longwood Blankets!) and a knit-your-own ecologically-friendly dish cloth kit (from Catch-e-Monkey). I can’t wait to blog about these later on!

Did you go to Yarndale 2013? I’d love to hear about your experiences and purchases if you did. Now I’m just looking forward to Yarndale 2014; who knows, I may have a stall there myself one day!