Its our third birthday party on the 4th of July

Post and update coming soon x

Crafties trip to Wonder Wool Wales.

We started off at 8 am for the two hour drive to Bulith Wells in Wales where the event was held. It was extremely rainy all day but our mood lifted when we arrived at the venue to see all manner of lovely yarny things and accessories. 

 This wonderful shawl was at the easy knits stall. Hand made yarns and lovely patterns to show of the best of their wares. The two owners of the stall were warm and welcoming and had a really good amount of stock that was lovingly hand spun and dyed in a vast array of colours. Below is a snapshot of their best selling wool big boy which is made out of 70% blue faced wool, 20% alpaca and 10% Nylon which creates a lovely soft mix. 

 At the show there were many examples of the kinds of animals that go into making wool in its rawest form here are a couple of examples of sheep at the show which visitors could pet and admire.

 Spotted hiding in one of the stalls was a lovely knitted sheep keeping good care of the wendy wool.

 In the textile garden stall a large supply of ornate and plain buttons and other nick backs which are a particular favourite of our member Happy Elastic who just loves buttons!!

 Visitors were able to bring their pets one of which was my particular favourite a lovely scruffy doggy who was very cold (as were we).

 Below is a picture of a carding machine with some pink and purple wool on it ready to be spun.

 Below is a very fluffy angora rabbit who was extremely soft and friendly and liked to be tickled behind the ears!

 Here are his friends also angora rabbits

 This picture was taken at the Jenny Barnett stall where she had a washing line full of cute knitted and felted items, here a ballet dress and an old fashioned swim suit.

 We cam across a stall that specialised mainly in antique and vintage knitting supplies and had a lovely display of knitted cushions and a table runner with vintage woven baskets. 

 Here is a picture of a knitted throw that was knitted out of a lovely handspun wool.

 At the Krafty Koala stall she had some lovely examples of hand spun yarn that included a selection of Jubilee yarns. (pictured below)

 This lovely example of a crochet ripple blanket was found in the Cottage Yarns stall I just had to take a picture!

Charity hats for Pakistan

It's coming up to the 3rd anniversary of the beginning of our wonderful Cannock Crafties group, but up until now we hadn't embarked upon any knitting for charity.  A few weeks ago, friends of a few of our group members had some extremely sad news.

Around the same time p/hop put out an appeal for knitted hats. P/hop stands for 'pennies per hour of pleasure.' It is a knitting fundraising initiative to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières MSF (Doctors Without Borders.)  Designers donate beautiful patterns that are available to download from the p/hop site, then knitters 'pay' an amount to MSF based on how much they enjoyed knitting the pattern. It has been extremely successful and has raised almost £33,000 to date. 


The hats are needed for a neo-natal unit in an MSF hospital in Qetta, Pakistan to warm the heads of premature babies and malnourished children. It seemed the ideal way to do something in honour of our friends, to show our compassion for their sad losses in a practical and caring way.

 

Seventeen hats...

 

...made with love...

 

...are now winging their way to the MSF offices to begin their long journey.

Links:

• Find out more about p/hop 
• Click to view the p/hop patterns
• Donate to p/hop
• Visit the Médecins Sans Frontières website