The second Edinburgh Yarn Festival is almost upon us. In part one I wrote a little bit about the first EYF and I touched upon some of the vendors I am really looking forward to seeing. I think it is time to write about what I'll be up to and then look out for part 3 in which I'll give you some tips on how to best navigate the festival!
I'll be teaching two classes, both fully booked: how to use beads in knitted projects (there are several methods that'll give you different results) and a continental knitting class. I've taught both classes before and they are so much fun to teach. The beading class usually has a lot of tiny beads rolling around and the continental class usually has people side-eyeing me as they try to make their hands do funny things.
I'll be appearing in the Podcast Lounge with Louise Scollay at 11am, Sunday morning. We'll be talking about the first day of EYF as well as catching up with all my news and I'll try my best to make The Scollay spill a few beans too. If you listened to Knit British episode 18, you know you can expect a lot of banter - but also some more thoughtful reflections.
I'll be at the Ca-BAA-ret on Saturday night - there will be door prizes galore, Felix Ford is performing and she'll host a woolly pub quiz together with Ysolda. I'm one of the defending pub quiz champions from Unwind Brighton, so bring it on!
And I think I might also be doing a signing session at some point (I need to find the email). Once the programme goes live, I'll have all the details for you and will be able to confirm things fully.
I'll be bringing my Byatt shawl and don't forget that if you wear a Byatt shawl to the Old Maiden Aunt stall, you get 10% off your purchase. Also, if you show up in a Byatt and you manage to grab a photo of yourself and me at EYF, you get a staggering 50% off my next Authors & Artists pattern. I'll also be bringing the Proserpine shawl pattern which is going into general release in the days leading up to EYF.
Phew.
I have been knitting a cardigan to wear at EYF. It's a bit of a cheat as it's actually not my own pattern, but I wanted to learn about different construction methods and didn't have time to grade an entire cardigan and launch it at EYF. So, I'm two rows of buttonband-knitting away from having finished Andi Satterlund's Hetty. It has been a super-quick knit and once I grasped the construction method, I was pretty much just away doing my own thing. I'm amazed that I've used just under 700 yards of worsted weight yarn to knit myself a cardigan. I'm not a petite lady.
(I'm tempted to start another EYF project, but that would just be madness! Right?)
Since I wrote my first post, several more vendors have been added. I simply won't have enough time to really go in depth with stall-browsing, so I have spent time making a (very short) list of new-to-me vendors I really want to see. I'm excited about Black Bat Rare Sheep Wool, SiideGarte, Whistlebare Yarns, and Susan Sharpe Ceramics. Obviously I'll have a good look at all the other stalls too and I cannot wait to see so many of my friends (I have a lot of hugs to hand out).
Will I see you at EYF? As these things can be a blur of faces, make sure to say who you are because I am rotten with names & faces (I remember knitwear though!). Many apologies - it's totally me and not you.
Counting down the days now..