I had an amazing time yesterday at the Knit and Stitch show in Dublin.  Unfortunately because of my fever I was only able to attend for the last of the four days but from a consumers point of view it was heaven!  Apparantly Thursday and Saturday were manic but Friday and Sunday had plenty of attendees although not so many that you couldn’t get around comfortably.  It was great to catch up with felting friends and give a hand out with a couple of demos at the Feltmakers Ireland stand, the rest of the day was spent relaxing and picking up some gorgeous goodies that are otherwise difficult to find in this rural part of the world. 

My mission for the day was to find and buy only unusual felting supplies and notions that I can experiment and have fun with over the next few months, I didn’t want to be arriving home in the evening saying ‘if only I had bought ….’ which is what happened last year when I left behind some amazing silk laps.   With that in mind first to go into my bag from Oliver Twists were two huge hand dyed silk laps,  hand dyed cotton gauze, cream gauze and an extremely expensive but gorgeous piece of hand dyed silk velvet.  Next I moved on to Art Van Go and bought some discharge paste and a few iridescent Markel paint sticks before picking up some beautiful soft Weneslydale roving from Warren of Craftspun in Naas.  Before a quick pit stop for coffee I stocked up on oodles of beads (some to go in the felting kits) and then had a brilliant discovery at the Woolfish stand, stunning resin pins that make great closures for cowls and wraps, no sewing, yipee!  Louise at Woolfish also had some stunning large hand turned wooden buttons, apparantly the ones that I bought were made from Laburnum and they also smell great.

I’m off now to prepare the first batch of Icelandic wool for sale and hopefully by the morning the rain will have stopped.  I NEED to take some pictures outside where the light is good (my farmhouse windows are very small) in order to get the wool and the kits up on Etsy.  This evening I am also giving a felting demo to some ladies in the ICA (Irish Countrywomens Association) so need to get myself together now and pack the truck before having some food and hitting the road!  ‘Till tomorrow …..