The Australian Sheep and Wool Show 2016 - Part 1

My Mum and our stall while we were setting up!

Hello there! 

How are you going, good I hope! 

Today has been an interesting day, my mum and I have packed up a whole lot of my yarny wares and headed to Bendigo for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show, which starts tomorrow and goes for the weekend ( Friday15th July- Sunday 17th) .  This is the first time I've had a stall at a big wool event, I tried to cram as much yarn as I could into my car, but there were still things I had to leave behind due to lack of space.  I hope I have brought yarns people will like to see!  We spent the afternoon setting things up so we are all ready to go in the morning.  I have already spotted some gorgeous yarns that might have to come home with me, and that's just on my neighbours stall!

So this is where I'll be for the next 3 days, it's going to be a fun few days for a yarn lover like me! 

If you're coming to Bendigo for the Show come and say hello, we are in the Education and Technology marquee, behind the Festival of Lamb! 

If you can't make it to the show, here's a few pics of our stall, so you can still feel part of it!  

.......little packs of Nikkim cotton, and Star Making Kits......

.....lots of MoYa organic cotton in all the pretty colours.......

.........and here's some Misti Alpaca Hand Painted Chunky goodness! :) 

I'll try and post tomorrow about some of the things I see at the show! :) 

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Finders Keepers Market Melbourne 2015

 Hello! 

Last night on a whim Gary and I went to the Finders Keepers Market at the old Exhibition Buildings in Melbourne.  We got into the city early and had a couple of drinks at a pub across the road and did some people watching, which is always interesting. 

We were there for the opening of the doors, along with a huge lot of other people, I tried to take a few photos before it got too busy ( about 10 minutes later!!).  I love these type of markets, I am always blown away with the amount of creative people having a go at making stuff a career, very cool! 

It was a very high quality market and there were heaps of stalls, lots of little ones and some larger ones that were a bit more spread out.  The stalls looked fantastic, so much effort was put into their set ups, it was very impressive as a whole experience.  I didn't get to really see everything, there was just too much to take in and too many people.   But what I did see was lovely! 

....cute coffee caravan.....

.....I loved the artwork at Nowhere Creek......

....and look, lots of crochet goodness at Habitue Design! :) 

... the exhibition buildings are very spectacular, last time I was here was for the Chocolate Ball of 1991 I think,  quite different circumstances! :) 

...it filled up really quickly and there were people everywhere, I saw so many cute things that I could have bought, but Gary was with me and he is trying to be more of a minimalist at the moment, so I felt a bit guilty bringing more 'things' into the house! 

I did manage to buy these cute his and her pillow cases ( and a tea towel) from Nowhere Creek, very practical of me!  

I love them! :) 

It is Grand Final day here for the AFL, it was quite one sided in the first half, Hawthorn have been too good for the Eagles so far, but I hope they make a come back! 

We are off to a 40th tonight, should be a fun night if I can get rid of this Spring cold that has made my head feel like a balloon!  I'm sure a few champagnes will take care of that!  :) 

Have a great weekend! 

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A market and a ripple

1 + 2 This is my stall at the Somers Winter Market which was on last weekend.  It was such a lovely day, lots of people through who were really into yarny things, so I had plenty of lovely crafty peeps to talk to.  People are so encouraging and kind in their comments and support, I am really looking forward to the new season at Emu Plains Market, it starts in October so still some time to hook up some stock. :) 

3 + 4 This is a new blanket I started the other day, even though I have heaps of things to do at the moment it is always nice to start a new project!  It is a ribbed chevron pattern that I am calling 'Skinny Ripples', just standard rows of dc in a chevron pattern worked in the back loops for a nice texture effect.  I was going to use some different colours, but in the end I went with some old favourites.  It is hard to work against your personal colour sense don't you find?   I  think it is going to work out lovely, although it is smaller than I had anticipated with the chevrons making my chain row not seem so long!!  You live and learn I guess! :) 

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Thank you so much to everyone who has signed up for my Yarny Love Club so far, you guys rock! 

I am having fun making some cute things to add to the yarny goodness, I hope everyone likes them!  Still a few days to go till sign ups close, but I am so grateful for all the interest shown in this little club. :) 

Have great week everyone! 

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Weekly stills and a winner!

1 + 2  Last week I made some more Galilee Booties, getting ready for the start of the market season coming up soon! These are really fun to make and strangely satisfying as a completed project. 

3 + 4 A couple of snaps from my stall at the Seaford Handmade Market on the weekend, a very cruisey market and a lovely day out. :)

5  I am thinking about making a blanket with this gorgeous fluffy mohair.    I am going to do a chevron striped blanket with different width stripes of colour, I think it will look good, and it will be lovely and soft! 

6  This is how I found the cats when I got home from the market yesterday, they know how to make themselves comfortable, I'm glad I can provide them with a crocheted bit of cosy for a sleep!!! 

How was your week? 

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And I have a winner in the 'Flowers Abound' ebook giveaway!  

Thanks you so much to every one who entered the giveaway, I am not the only one who likes a flowery granny square it seems :) 

So, without further ado, Congratulations Angela, your comment was the lucky winning number 7! 

If you could email me your email address that would be great. I will get a copy of the ebook sent to you ASAP  :) 

Thanks to Shelley for the great giveaway, 'Flowers Abound' can be found over here if you missed out in the giveaway.

That's it for the moment, I hope you have a great week, talk soon! 

Some things this week

1. Mum and I had another lovely day at Emu Plains Market last weekend, I had lots of dangling things in my stall this time,  I thought it looked pretty all flapping in the breeze. 

2. I made some crochet flower trim, I think I will try this in a finer thread next time as this one has turned out fairly chunky, I wonder if it will fall apart if I cut it into smaller lengths.

3. Pom-poms were being made the other night to decorate a creative swap I am taking part in over on Instagram.  I love how this variegated wool made them look all speckled, a little bit like fireworks.  I think I will make some big ones of these to decorate my shop :) 

4.....And here are my swap presents all wrapped and ready to send, I have felt a little bit of pressure to make my parcels look pretty as there is a very high standard of wrapping going on in this swap!! I don't want to be the one who disappoints her recipient!  

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My new wool studio is coming along nicely, the plaster walls are going up tomorrow I think, so I will do a post on the weekend and show you all the progress, it is exciting!  I have just placed an order for some new yarns for the shop in anticipation of all the extra space, I have over 50 colours of Cascade 220 Superwash coming next week and some lovely painted cottons too,  looking forward to setting everything up!  Next on the wishlist are some Noro yarns and some new Debbie Bliss too, hope the bank balance stretches that far! :) 

And I have finally conquered my newsletter fear, I wasn't happy with my first go at making my newsletter, so ditched it and redid the tutorials and had another go, and I think this one is a lot better, so will be sending it out soon!  :) 

What have you been up to this week? 

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At Emu Plains Market

Hello.  How is your week going so far?  Good I hope!

Before we get too far into the week, I thought I would share a few pics of my

 stall on the weekend at Emu Plains Market.  What a beautiful market!

My mum and I had a lovely day and met quite a lot of people who read this blog, ( something that I am still surprised about!) so thank you so much for stopping by, all your kind words, and for supporting my stall, it is really great to meet like minded crafty peeps who enjoy crochet and woolly things as much as I do!  

For those of you too far away to visit on the day, you can get an  idea of what my stall was like and have a little 'virtual' visit here! :) 

It was a successful market for me, I gave out lots of business cards for my wool shop and sold a bit of everything which was great.  Everyone was so nice and very supportive, crafty people are the best!! Thank you so much!!

......this is my excellent helper (my mum! :) ), it's always nice to have a bit of company at a market, and mum know lots of people around here so had a fun day chatting to friends too....

So this week with no big market deadline looming, I have to try and reclaim some order in my studio. It looks like a tornado has been through, I have wool everywhere and it is very disorganised.  I think I might spend some time tomorrow cleaning it up and making everything pretty again! 

Have a lovely creative day :)

Talk soon! 

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weekly stills....

1. It's freesia time in my garden, Yay!! I say bring it on! 

If there's a better smelling flower out there I'd love to know, freesia scent is divine! :)

2. A blurry shot of part of my stall on the weekend, (I remembered to take my good camera, but forgot to put the sim card in it!  Doh!  So this is from my phone that is showing it's age now.)

I had a lovely day and it was so nice to  meet more readers of this blog!  I'll be doing this market again in November, I am looking forward to it already.

3. Last week seemed to be dominated by granny square bunting!  

Happy to be making something else for awhile.

4 +5. Some hits of colour from my Spring garden, the roses are in bloom, and it looks like a good year for roses around here, and the bearded iris are full of flower spikes that are beginning to open.  I think this purple and white one is very hardy, I divided up a few big clumps last year and it seems they were all this colour, I now have shots of purple popping up all around my garden, lovely! 

I am hoping for a few other colours to flower soon too.

6. I am noticing little piles of yarn ends all around my house.  I hadn't really noticed how messy I am when I am working, but I do tend to spread through out the whole house if these yarny droppings are anything to go by! :) ( I started looking around for more and found 8 more little piles at strategic places throughout the house! Must be a bit tidier!!)

7. Making little bottle vase covers at the moment, more to come on these later. :)

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So, I feel like I have been neglecting this little blog over the last few weeks, I haven't spent much time on the computer, and when I have been on it I have just been dropping in quickly and buzzing off again, no time to interact properly.  Hopefully life will slow down a bit and I will be able to get a few posts up on here this week, that is the plan anyway!

A few of the blogs I like to check in on every now and again are stopping blogging, it is a shame as these are lovely  places to visit on the internet, but I do understand how they feel! Sometimes I feel like there is nothing more to say on here, and that Little Woollie has run it's course and is getting quite predictable and a bit boring.  Maybe it is time for a break, there don't seem to be enough hours in the day for all the stuff I'd like to do anyway!   

Do you lovely readers have any tips for getting out of a rut and reinvigorating yourselves?

If you blog, how do you keep up your interest and come up with things to blog about?

Do you think editorial calendars work, does it make 

you a more disciplined blogger (as in frequency)? 

I could use a few new ideas :)

weekly stills....

1. A new tapestry crochet washer I have started with the Cascade Ultra Pima, I am planning quite a few of these for Christmas pressies.

2+3+4. It is a very flowery time of year around here and I love it! My hyacinths are doing really well, and I am able to pick some to bring inside and still have lots out in the garden.  All these colourful beauties came from my garden.  Such a simple pleasure to pick a bunch of flowers for yourself, but one I look forward to all year!

5+6. These are a couple of shots of my stall at the NannaCool market on Saturday, I forgot to put my camera in, so these were taken on my phone, so they are a bit blurry, but I think you can get the idea.   We had a lovely day, it was great to chat to some crafty peeps and I was greatly encouraged by all the positive feedback for my stall set up and crochet stuff, everyone was so nice!  It was also lovely to meet some of the people who read this blog!  Hello everyone :)! Thanks for stopping by and having a chat, I still find it a bit strange to meet people in real life that read this, often it feels like I am just writing a little crafty diary to myself and I forget that real people in my community actually read it! Blogging is  kind of weird like that, it is produced in isolation but actually reaches across the world!  How fantastic!

7+8. Last week a lot of little crochet took place, I spent a fair amount of time on the couch surrounded by balls of wool and crochet flowers, I did manage to nearly fill my tin with flowers so I was happy with that! Also managed to sell a few at the market so it was all for a good cause.

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How was your week? 

What have you got planned for this one?  

I hope it is full of good stuff for you all! 

I have got some new yummy yarn in my shop to show you tomorrow, just got to take pictures and upload it.  And I think it is time for a giveaway this week, I have fallen behind in my monthly giveaways so time to catch up!

Talk soon! 

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To market, to market

Hello! 

Many thanks for all the lovely comments on my last post, it seems many people have been touched by the kindness of their communities too, which is fantastic!

This week I am hoping  to get back in the swing of crafty things as I have signed up for a stall at a new market (to me), to be held in early September, so I had better get cracking! 

The market is called Nanna Cool and is fairly local to me, being held in Chelsea about 40minutes from here.  So if you are anywhere near Chelsea or the Mornington Peninsula on September 6th come and say hello! 

Anyway, I have been making these dangly flowers to take to the market, I think they will add a nice colour hit to my stall, and they are fun to make!

I am using my flower pattern from here to make these, and having fun mixing colours from the lovely selection of Cascade Ultra Pima I got in my shop last week.  So many choices !! 

I have written a list of things I'd like to make for this market, plus there are lots of half made things around my work room that need finishing, so I hope I have enough stuff to make the stall look good.

I am thinking of making it a bit of a pop-up wool shop too, I am going to bring along some bright beautiful yarns to inspire everyone to get out their hooks and needles.  It is always nice to be able to feel the yarns before you buy, one of the drawbacks of having an online shop.

It is very dull here today, so sorry for the dark photos, I have few more flowers to finish off ( I am trying to make one for every branch on my tree) and then I will try and take some better photos to show off my flower tree properly! It should look good. 

What are you up to today?  Got any crafty action happening?

Talk soon! 

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