The stash grows ever bigger...

It's been a good weekend, although more expensive than I had intended!

Yesterday (Saturday), I headed down to Long Buckby for a Knit and Natter meeting organised by the Machine Knitter's Guild. I took along Claire as my chief navigator (yay for Google Maps) and we got there in good time, with no serious mishaps other than a missed left turn which came up on us rather quicker than expected, with a distinct lack of signage.

The meeting wasn't just machine knitting, far from it. I spent the morning learning about Tunisian crochet, which was interesting. I was working on a very small stitch count so I could make my swatch on a standard crochet hook - which was just as well as there were only so many proper crochet hooks available to borrow and Tunisian crochet proved to be very popular!

Jane was there, demonstrating sock knitting on a machine and she seem to be surrounded every time I looked in her direction. A lady was there teaching some sort of hand knitting technique... Couldn't say what exactly as I was engrossed with crochet while this was going on. A trader was there selling second hand books and Uppingham Yarns were there selling the stringy stuff...

Ahem.

I succumbed to the lure of some reasonably priced James C Brett aran wool mix.

In the afternoon there was a talk on surface embellishment from Fiona Morris, a knitwear designer (Ravelry link) and teacher of what I'd call textile art. What can I say other than wow! The lady knows her stuff and is very talented... An afternoon of listening to ideas and techniques to aspire to.

Some time later, I dropped Claire home and borrowed a water pistol since mine is still in transit. I presented it to Dave a short while later, who immediately filled it and stalked around the garden squirting water everywhere. When I asked what he was doing, he claimed he'd seen a hint of ginger fur next door and began a barage of saturation fire across our neighbour's garden.

Today, I headed off to Web of Wool with Christina. I wasn't intending to buy anything, honest! But this sock wool called to me.

Other wool also called to me, but I did manage a tiny amount of self restraint and put it back.

I picked up some crochet hooks as well, then headed home before I bought any of the other wonderful things surrounding me.