Yarndale 2016

Planet Yarn very much enjoyed visiting Yarndale 2016.  This was the third Yarndale to be held in Skipton, North Yorkshire but it was the first one for us!  Mr S and myself managed to escape for a whole weekend in our caravan, without either kids or our lovely labrador!  The kids would have been bored to tears and although I'm certain Kira would have enjoyed it, dogs were strictly not allowed into the Auction Mart.

On Saturday morning we were up bright(ish) and not very early (having partaken of a few alcoholic beverages the night before) and wandered down to the venue, Skipton Auction Mart.  I'd deliberately chosen our caravan site because it was so close.  However my usual lack of sense of direction, even with the assistance of Google Maps, meant we ended up walking probably twice as far as we needed too.  Oops. 

As we got nearer I was rather confused by the steady trickle of people walking in the opposite direction to us.  It was only about 12, how had these people managed to 'do' Yarndale in two hours?  I was expecting a whole world of yarny goodness and we had two days to enjoy it!  Well I was going to enjoy it and Mr S was looking forward to pub grub and real ale, which Skipton was very able to provide.

We finally arrived and crumbs!  It was busy!  The entrance was beautifully yarn bombed with Lucy from Attic 24's mandalas swinging in the breeze above a yarny stream, pom pom lined pathways and the most beautiful yarn creations on the bollards, courtesy of 'The Thirsk Yarnbombers'.  There was what also appeared to be a woolly ice cream van...but it was actually a yarnbombed finger puppet van!  There were many people sitting around in the autumn sunshine eating their butties or inspecting their purchases.  I was delighted to see that pretty much every other person had something about their outfit that was hand made.  Gorgeous crochet bags and beautiful shawls were in abundance. 

Eventually we made it into the auction mart, and oh my goodness!  It'd looked busy outside but inside it was totally bonkers!  It was absolutely packed with people (mostly women I have to say) slowly making there way around all the stalls.  It was so busy it was actually hard to get into some of the stalls!  But the yarny goodness: it was everywhere!  The most striking thing at first was the sheer amount of stalls - so many people with businesses that revolved around knitting, crochet, spinning and everything else you can thing of to do with yarn.  Clearly I had found my people!  Mr S was a little taken aback.  He really didn't think so many people would be interested in yarn! 

If you can think of something to do with any aspect of knitting or crochet you would have been able to find it under the Skipton Mart roof that weekend.  Thousands of deliciously hand dyed natural fibre yarns, patterns by talented independent businesses, buttons, pins, hooks and needles.  From yarn bowls to spinning wheels, teeny needle and yarn earrings to large hand made blankets it was all there.  It was a little overwhelming.  I quickly realised that I was not going to 'bump into' my friend Petrina from Crochet For Health blog who was also there and I had better text here and find her!  She had, quite sensibly, taken refuge in one of the café areas.  We shared our mutual astonishment of how blinking busy it was, chatted about what we'd seen and what we wanted to see before we set off once more into the crowds of hookers and stitchers.  I have a photo of our momentous meeting at Yarndale but have yet to get her permission to use it here!  Hah! Ta dah!:

When we, eventually, made our way to the other side of the venue I noticed as people were coming in they were being given a small crochet heart.  I'd seen a lady standing with a box of them when we came in but didn't know why she was there.  The lady I talked to giving them out on this side told me they were a gift for every visitor, volunteers had made them.  She kindly let me take a photo of her box of hearts and I noticed some had little tags on, people had written little messages and some had instagram accounts.  She also let me pick on out for myself, I chose this one:

I managed to have a quick chat with Nicola on her Fleabubs with Lala stand which was incredibly popular.  She assured me she had enough gin to get through the weekend no matter how bonkers it might get.  By this point the crowds were rather overwhelming me, Mr S pointed out we could come back tomorrow and maybe we should go and get some lunch.  So of course I made him do the Yarn Walk with me, even though there were buses specially organised (and decorated with bunting and mandalas no less!). 

The yarn walk was lovely, lots of bunting and lamp post cosies :)  Mr S and I definitely enjoyed our pints of dark mild thanks to the fresh air.

Sunday was a much more relaxed atmosphere and I got to have a really good look at the stalls that had been too crowded the previous day.  The highlight of my day was being able to have a chat with Lucy of Attic24 in her knit and natter area.  I may have gushed a little...okay a lot, I was starstruck!  I'm pretty sure I managed to tell her she was fabulous in about twenty different ways...and she even posed for a photo with me!  I had the biggest grin on my face for days. 

I also got to have a good look at the exhibition hall, complete with the famous bunting made for the first Yarndale in 2014.  It really did look fantastic, it was good to see the Yarndale sheep too! 

There were other animals there, but these ones were the real deal, fluffy bunnies, cute alpacas and woolly sheep.  They looked quite at home in the mayhem of yarn addicts around them.

Hopefully next year Planet Yarn could be at Yarndale as a stall rather than as a visitor.  It all depends on getting through the application process.  I'm ridiculously excited at the prospect of actually being a part of Yarndale next year.  Fingers crossed.