Back from Unravel

This post is a bit odd and more dyslexic than normal, I wanted to say the stuff in my head, but its not making a huge amount of sense as it comes out on the page.
Hopefully you will understand what I am trying to say :-)

I love Unravel, its the first show of the year after the long dark winter.
Its held at Farnham Maltings, the building is beautiful and it always has a lovely atmosphere
The show was fantastic, very, very busy both day's, normally Sunday afternoon is quiet and we have the chance to walk around and chat to all the other stall holders, but not this year.
The show was exhausting, I think I'm still trying to recover.

We sold lots and lots of wool, met lots and lots of lovely customer's, some new and some we already know.
Its always lovely to put names to faces and be able to catch up with all the news face to face.
Our evenings were spent with our lovely woolly friends.
We only ever get the chance to see them at show's, so time spent together is precious.

I also met a lot of people who told me how happy and well we both looked, guess the stress of last year was more obvious than I thought.
And several lovely ladies came and told me that they had read the blog for years and how glad they were that our life had changed so dramatically.
Its lovely to know that I have so many blog reader's :-)

I don't have any photo's, I did take a couple of very blurry ones on my phone, but have forgotten my iphone connector so can't post them here.

The journey home was quite a poignant one as last years journey home from Unravel included a detour to Lynton to sign contracts for our new studio and home.
A year ago our life was a nightmare and Devon was a dream that I didn't dare to believe possible.
I tried not to let myself get excited, just in case it didn't happen.
This year we were driving back home to our dream life that we now live every day, its not easy, but its heaven :-)

Lorna Doone

My only hobby outside work is reading.

I have to read every night before I go to sleep and first thing in the morning when I wake up, but only when I'm not bullied into get up.

My favourite's are the classic's, especially victorian novels, non-fiction history  (pre 20th century) and of course Tolkien, who wrote the Silmarillion my most favourite book of all :-)

I also like fairy tales and childrens stories

So when we moved to Exmoor I knew all about Lorna Doone, even though I hadn't read it.
What I hadn't realised was that the book was set in my local area.
I loved every page of it, from the dramatic love story to the descriptions of places I had come to know and love.
The tree lined secret river valley's, the windswept high moor's and one of my favourites the majestic Valley of Rocks and its resident witch - Mother Meldrum.
So when someone suggested I made a Lorna Doone coat I decided that Lorna was far more likely to wear a shawl so I designed her one.

I also decided that I needed an extra special yarn for Lorna, so we commissioned the Lorna Doone wool to be spun, its 40% Exmoor Horn, which is the local Exmoor breed./30% Wensleydale/30% Zwartbles
This photo was taken at Alta Lyn, of the Exmoor Horns that live in the field behind our office

And here it is...
All of the photo's below are taken a few minutes away from my front door, next to the East Lyn river at Lynmouth.

The pattern, kit and wool are all in today's NDS update.
You will be able to find them HERE at 7 pm tonight.
I'll also be publishing the pattern HERE on Ravelry

Still

We've or rather I have been silent for a few day's, don't worry we haven't disapeared we are still here, but we are still up to our necks in wool preparing for Unravel next weekend.

As you might have already realised Maisy Mae my number 2 dyer (and daughter) was away on holiday for 2 weeks, stupidly when she asked for time off we said, that's fine have a lovely time, we'll see you when you get back.

HOW STUPID WERE WE???

She'd sorted out all the clubs, but as the wool hadn't been dyed they couldn't be packed.

We are nearly 200 club member's, so as you can imagine managing the clubs themselves are almost a full time job.

So not only did I have 10 days to dye 80 kgs of wool  for the show, I also had 15 kgs to dye to finish off February's clubs.

I managed to do all the dyeing in 9 day's.

Towards the end I was so exhausted that when I went home all I could do was crash and sleep.

A couple of day's I went home in tears as I was so tired I didn't know what to do with myself.

I finished the dyeing on Thursday last week and it has taken me 3 day's to recover.

This is what the dyeroom looked like on the last day. The photo shows 32 kgs of wet wool.

Once the wool was dyed it needed to be dried and wound.

Our spare bedroom/study is almost packed to the ceiling and some where in the massive pile is Phil with a set of wool winder's winding skeins for England or rather Unravel.

Today is the first day back at work for Daisy and we are trying to work in an office full of wet wool, luckily its the last lot, we have our oil radiator on full and several drying racks.

The office feels like its a million degree's and I really think we are cooking our brains, trying to label, sort out kits and patterns.

Its all very blurry and confused, there is lots of tea making and giggling going on, I really hope we aren't making too many mistakes.......

Sheep boy's and crochet cake jumpers

I'm very, very tried and soggy.
We have 10 days to tie, mordant, dye, wash, dry, wind and label 80 kgs of wool to get it ready for Unravel in 10 days.
Daisy is away on holiday, so Phil and I are working almost 24 hrs a day.

My brain is exahusted, but I wanted to share a few photo's with you.

My cake jumper, I had nearly finished the body, I tried it on and it made me look like a barrel, so I frogged it and am now doing side increases to give it a more floaty shape. The trouble is because its aran its quite solid and now looks like a bell tent.
I'm hopeing it will drop when washed, but I like it lots more than the original.

One kg of chunky BFL slub that I managed to felt, I was test dyeing it to maybe add it to our range. But the wool doesn't take the colour very well, so i had to keep over dyeing it - result felted wool.
It is useable and I have crocheted a test square, it will be my next mindless project, but we won't be adding it to the range.
I ended up using a 9mm hook, so this really will make me look like a barrel.

And the sheep boys who live in the field behind the office.
They are Exmoor Horn (our local breed) and I think the prettiest sheep of all.
When I said good morning to them they all came running over, obviously thought I was going to feed them.

Incidently in my head all sheep are boy's and they are all called Barry - obviously thats not true, but I like to think some of them are called Barry.