British Wool Show 2016

This afternoon I thought I would just share my favourite things from the British Wool Show 2016 which took place on Friday and Saturday. Over recent years Needlecase has had a stand at the show so it was a different experience to be there as a visitor this year!! Although the show is aimed at raising the profile of British wool and wool products, and these were definitely on show, there were other interesting items there, which didn’t quite fit into this description. I had 3 clear highlights of my visit to this show.

I really liked the Turnacre stand which as well as hand spun yarn from their own flock, had yarn produced from fleece from other small British breeders and/or keepers of Ryelands and Coloured Ryelands. Julie was actually spinning yarn on the stand, and this embroidery (which she told me had won 2nd prize in an Embroiderers’ Guild competition), really spoke to me.

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Another highlight was seeing the Stamford Bridge Tapestry being stitched  and the work produced so far on display. This project is described as the ‘missing link’ in the story of 1066 and is intended to fill the gap of the existing Bayeux and Fulford tapestries. I love to see needlework being used as artwork and this project really caught my interest. The ladies who were doing the work were great to chat to and I was able to have a really good nosey around at what they had done, how they had done it, and what they were going to do.

And the third highlight was the stand being run by the Knitting and Crochet Guild. They had a copy of the book Stitches in Time by Sue Bradley, which features knitwear designs that draw on different historical periods for their inspiration, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, Byzantium, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the 18th century, the Victorian era and the 1920s, 30s and 40s. The book had a lot of information about the history of fashion with loads of illustrations but the best bit was that the author has donated all her samples produced whilst coming up with the knitwear designs to the guild and they had them all in a big bag!! I had a brilliant time rummaging through all these samples, admiring, examining, working out what type of yarn had been used, it was a real pleasure and I made a bit of a mess of their display table (don’t think they minded too much)

Because I’d been to Woolfest not long ago and we are still sorting out stock from the shop, I was on a limited budget for buying more yarn but I did manage to make a few small purchases.

I also took a few more photos of interesting things!!

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