Wild and Windy at Woolfest and a vintage yarn haul

The heavens opened on us at Woolfest this year but try as it might it didn't stop it being a great show. Gavin had worked really hard prior to the show creating a 'structure' for our stand featuring Royal Route 'wallpaper' on one side of the stand and pretty vintage patterns on the others. It looked great and attracted lots of attention.

the royal route - photo copyright Gavin Crawford

me on the stand wearing Fair Isle twinset cardigan from A Stitch in Time 2

We 'divided' the stand into Coronation Knits and A Stitch in Time 2 at either side with the full Excelana range of 4 ply and DK along with single patterns in the middle.

copyright Gavin Crawford

 Coronation Knits went down a storm with the Princess Twinset 

Copyright Susan Crawford

seeming to be the most popular first knit out of the book followed by Crowning Glory.

Copyright Susan Crawford

The other most popular design on the stand was the lovely Frances who went home with an awful lot of people.

Copyright Susan Crawford

 I didn't get to look round the show a whole lot but I made sure I visited the stand of the amazing Eliza (who doesn't have a website) who collects all sorts of vintage bric a brac and who I can't resist buying from whenever I see her at a show. And on this occasion I was lucky enough to purchase three lots of yarn from her:

copyright Susan Crawford

copyright Susan Crawford

 The first is this lovely deep rose pink 3 ply shrink resist all wool 'Polynit' from Golden Eagle. I have used Golden Eagle patterns in both volumes 1 and 2 of A Stitch in Time but have never actually been lucky enough to find any actual 'Polynit' before. I need to do some more research but I believe that 'All Wool' was a bit of a catch all phrase that meant the wool could be of varying types and grades including recycled - once upon a time this was considered a negative rather than a positive selling point!

copyright Susan Crawford

The next yarn is Patons Beehive 2 ply Fingering with shrink resist Patonised finish which from the label design looks a little more recent than the Golden Eagle yarn but I'm not too sure as yet.

copyright Susan Crawford

And the final yarn is this lovely soft pink 3 ply wool from Lavenda with this fabulous logo on the label. The Lavenda and Patons yarns are both from around the 1950s I think, but I believe the Golden Eagle yarn is a little earlier but I have found evidence that Golden Eagle were still trading until early in the 1950s so I need to do some more digging!

copyright Susan Crawford

 What I am particularly thrilled about is the similarity between my Excelana Nile Green and the Patons Beehive yarn and my Excelana French Rose and the Lavenda 3 ply. Neither look out of place with the vintage yarns.

Our stand at Woolfest was next door to the lovely Arbon's who I work with on Excelana, and in a little down time at the end of the show we agreed that there will be FOUR new colours added to the Excelana range this winter! My job is now to work on getting exactly the right four colours to work with the existing palette and also extend the variety available. I already have three of the four colours pretty much decided but would love to know your thoughts on this whilst I agonise over the fourth colour.

The next stop on the Coronation Knits blog tour happens to be with the amazing Felix who 'quizzed' me on colour usage in the book. This interview should be going live tomorrow so do stop by and have a read - it might help with that important fourth colour choice!

Here's the tour list once more to save you scrolling back through my posts:

12th June 2012 - More Yarn Will Do The Trick - Jean Moss
16th June 2012 - JenACKnitwear  - Jen Arnall Culliford
18th June 2012 - The Icelandic Knitter - Helene Magnusson
20th June 2012 - Knitting Institute - Knitting Magazine
24th June 2012 - Ingrid Murnane Investigates - Ingrid Murnane
28th June 2012 - Domestic Soundscape -Felicity Ford
29th June 2012 - Sheep To Shawl - Donna Druchunas
2nd July 2012  - The Making Spot - Simply Knitting 
7th July 2012   - Fourth Edition - Karie

6th July 2012   - rock+purl - Ruth Garcia-Alcantud
10th July 2012 - By gum, by golly! - Tasha
14th July 2012 - tomofholland - Tom Van Deijnen
18th July 2012 - Woolly Wormhead - Woolly
22nd July 2012 - Crinoline Robot - Mim
25 July 2012     - Sexyknitter.com - Sarah Wilson

so for now,
I'm off to think about colours
Ruby xxx