Craft & Quilt Fair Sydney 2013

Last weekend a friend and I went to the annual Craft & Quilt Fair in Sydney. As with previous years there were loads of talents and endless inspirations.

I was pretty restrained in terms of spending this year... really I was, only a small loot - SEE!

Instead, I did walk away with many ideas and not to mention a great fun day with a friend! This is also the first time I took a class and what great fun it was - don't know why I never did!

I did the carving and stamping workshop with Lisa Walton of Dyed and Gone to Heaven. It was an hour class, from concept to carving to stamping or rubbing with crayon in my case! I even managed not to stab myself with the carving tool! The hour went by way too quickly but that's the nature of events like this. I enjoyed it nonetheless, learned about the really cool tools (Ezy carve rubber block, different dyes and paints etc) available and played around with the different dyeing techniques. I will definitely be keeping an eye on Lisa's classes as lucky for me, she is also in Sydney!

It would be wrong of me not to mention the quilts on show. They were amazing! Many traditional pieces and some innovative ideas. We also attended one of the master classes called Adding Layers by Material Obsession. So refreshing to see these modern quilting ideas. I love the use of felt pieces for bursts of colours and texture.

So with all that inspirations, I came home and got crafting on the Sunday! I am just in the process of sorting through the photos as that's just a whole different post - hopefully this afternoon!

Until then, happy stitching!!

Merriwa Festival of the Fleeces

We just came back from Merriwa! And what a wonderful trip we had!

Last year when a friend told me about an annual event in country NSW called Festival of the Fleeces, I was instantly intrigued! The idea of having 100 heads of red socks wearing sheep walking down the main street of a country town just tickled me silly.

Merriwa is about 4 hours north west of Sydney and the event is being held over this June long weekend - perfect! Hubby planned his work schedule ahead of time and I took an extra day off work so we could drive up on the Friday. We stayed at the Sandy Hollow Tourist Park and what a great find! More on that after the photos of Merriwa...

Main street of Merriwa at around 9:30am, people are just preping for the day!

Sheep dog demonstration and I had an overwhelming urge to call out "BAA RAM EWE" but that would just be silly!

It would be sacrilege not to have scones with jam and cream at the CWA (Country Women Association) morning tea now.... and they didn't disappoint - YUMMY!

Met Angus the sheep with this owner who would later be leading the 100 heads of sheep parade -  he was such a great sport treating everyone on the street! And check out his red socks!

Unfortunately this is the only picture I have of the actual sheep parade cause silly me pushed the wrong button when I thought I was recording the possession but I turned it off instead - DOH! Anyway, I can just see them lining up behind the men in white coats (don't really know who they were - hopefully not butchers...)

Riding club

The band - got to have the band!

Small dog jumping competition - that's really funny but I didn't stand close enough to get good pictures!

Met Gail from Pleasant View Fibres, a family owned business in Mount Pleasant (near Singleton NSW). They have Angora goats and coloured merino/ bond sheep. They process their own fibres on their property and they sell saw fleeces, hand dyed fibres and hand spun yarns. Gail was really friendly and helpful, she even invited us to email her if I have any questions at all... so I think a trip to Singleton is going on the calendar soon!

So Sandy Hollow - I am so glad we got to stay there! The hosts David and Chun are very friendly and knowledgeable. The 1 bedder cottage we stayed in is spacious, clean and modern with all the necessary amenities. It has beautiful views of Mount Dangar, part of the Goulburn River National Park, even on misty foggy days! There are plenty of nature walks around too.

They have a paddock that housed 3 girl sheep who are fully grown and very cute...

... or so I thought until we met Troy, the baby lamb. He is just epic cute! Troy has been adopted by David and Chun because his mum died so he stays with his adopted family at their main house and has his own patio. They are hand feeding him until he is big enough to join the ladies in the paddock.

Well, I had never been this close to a baby lamb before and naturally I was completely smitten. We were allowed to pat him, to feed him and wait for it... to walk him! Yep, I had a happy "SQUEAL" moment!

When Troy saw his human run, he picked up his pace and boy he can run!

Well I can go on and on but the internet seems to be cutting in and out and I really have to do something about dinner so I will wrap up here: We are definitely doing this trip again!

Next time, we will factor in some time to visit Tocal Homestead where they have the Back to Back Wool Challenge! Gail from the Pleasant View Fibres mentioned above was one of the spinners!

I did do some crocheting over the weekend and started to draft a post about one of my favourite techniques on keeping track of the number of rows when working in the round. Hopefully I will get that post up later on this week.

Stitch with Love xx

New books!

ooh... look what the postman brought me this week! I told hubby that these were his Christmas presents to me :) genius!

Since my recent trip to New Zealand, I have developed a keen interest in the different types of sheep and fantasised at having a go at yarn dyeing. Like an obsession you can't shake off, I have been googling hand dyeing techniques and found this book called Hand Dyeing Yarn and Fleece.

Love the spiral binding!

I am fearful alright... possibly another addiction!

I also signed up for the Know Your Wool Craftsy mini class and got really fascinated by the fiber from various sources. I love the mini class so much that I purchased The Fleece & Fiber Sourcebook, cowrote by the class instructor Deborah Robson. This is a free class but I would have purchased it if it was a proper length class - I kinda wished it was when I finished watching the last lesson. 

There are over 1400 sheep breeds, 100 goat breeds and other cool animals we sourced fiber from! I have been pawing all over this book and had to be quite disciplined not to tag all the pages! I can see this book being a permanent resident on our coffee table...

How cute are these sheep!!