Knit & Knot

Another intense day today: time for the first edition of the Knit & Knot knitting fair in Tilburg! The first knitting fair especially targeted at the south of The Netherlands. Of course I had to go!

The trip took me a bit over 1.5 hours, and I met Spaceinvaders on my way there. For her it was really close, only one train station away! We arrived around noon, and wow, it was busy. The nicest stands were just not reachable, because so many people were standing around them. We looked around a bit and I met a fellow knitter who I didn’t know yet, for whom I had brought a skein of Posh yarn from my destash. Always a challenge to find someone when you don’t know what they look like! But we managed to find each other, and she was happy with the yarn!

We joined the knitting table then, to eat something, and to meet some fellow knitters and group members of the Dutch Karma Group. So nice to see them again, or meet them for the first time! There was enough room there, you could talk to each other and even hear what other people were saying despite the noisy environment!  The light in the hall was not great, though. There were warm-toned ceiling lamps (almost orange) and yellow lamps in the stand that really messed with your colour perception – not an unimportant part of buying yarn or fibre… Note to self: buy a small white lamp on batteries to bring to future knitting fairs.

When things calmed down a bit, we made another round. There were nice shops there! They sold yarn, fibre for spinning and for felting, tools, books… and carders! Lowlands Legacy was there with their Classic Carders, which I have been eyeing for a while now. Now I had the chance to see them in person and even try them out a little! They card really smoothly, and I’m even more determined now to get one someday.

At the stand of Draak & Schaap I saw a very pretty fibre braid, but Spaceinvaders was a bit quicker than I and snatched it up. Bummer! I might order that colourway later – it was gorgeous shades of pink, purple, blue and green merino/silk. Yum!

I did buy yarn at Spinspul, but not for me. It’s bold blue with very striking silver bling in it!

Wol met Verve also had very nice yarns again. Sylvia is a great dyer and she dyes full, vibrant colours. I was severely tempted by a few of them. One was tints of purple and more, and another was a variegated rainbow (not as clown barfy as it sounds). But I didn’t buy either, mainly because I still have quite some yarn at home, and I have not knitted a lot lately. I notice that yarn and fibre needs to be quite special now to tempt me to buy it.

The things I didn’t buy did stay in my head a bit, so when I came home I decided to get them out by freely painting their impression. The fibre braid turned into a bird (all of its own) – which is kind of funny, because in Dutch we say “de vogel is gevlogen” (the bird has flown away) if someone escapes captivity.

It was a fun day and I think the organization did quite well for a first edition!