Sunday 20 July 2008

The train to Bendigo

Had a great day, taking the train to Bendigo for the Australian Sheep and Wool Show, with friends, knitting and provisions. It will definitely be on my list for next year, though I've taken two days to catch up on my sleep.

My walking partner (we walk every Monday morning and our youngest sons are best friends) picked me up at 6am...a little early and wet for both of us, but making it into Southern Cross station with plenty of time to meet up with two more friends was worth it.



My friend is not a knitter, but had invited herself along for the train trip and the adventure, so I wasn't sure how she would go spending the day with avid fibre people. Well, I'm not entirely sure when it happened, some say somewhere around Kyneton, but spare needles and wool emerged (of course we had spares!), and by Bendigo, a good inch of garter stitch had been completed. So captured was she that 3 beautiful skeins were purchased, one for a scarf and two for a larger project. The trip home proved she was a natural, stocking stitch, rib, mastered and explanations of charts, yrn, understood.....she's a natural. I thing I've convinced her to come to the local SnB at Rosanna on Tuesday.



The show itself, was terrific, meeting up with all sorts of friends, checking up on my wool comb technique (will have another go soon), found out a bit more about cashmere and mohair (I love the passionate breeders who are always willing to talk and explain and generally be enthusiastic), animals galore, including this very beautiful Llama (who just knew he was beautiful!) and I did make a few purchases.

I picked up a large Tunisian Crochet hook from Lewis Harper, hand-dyed Silky wool and 1kg of 22 micron top from Virginia Farm Wool Works, hand-dyed merino top from my friend Charlie at Ixchel, some Gotland Lamb top to experiment with and some yarn from Glenora.


The Woolcraft was terrific, my favourite being the Water nymph who presided over the Fashion parades.


Never enough time, but I think next year I'll make it a photographic exhibition and get a few more pictures of animals, displays, and more!

3 comments:

Moorecat said...

Don't you mean: "My friend was not a knitter"?

Great fun this year; we'll have to work out a way to do it together next year...

Have you spun up your Gotland yet? Mine is spun and now waiting on finding time during the week to ply :)

MrsG said...

Hello! I just wanted to say hi since I heard so much about you yesterday. You see I know your new knitter!!! In fact she's my Sister in law and it just goes to show how small the world is because I was trying desperately to figure out how I could be at work AND in Rosanna Tuesday morning when she mentioned she'd been to Bendigo with you. Which I think is a little unfair since I like wool much more than she does!!! hehehe Still it looks like you guys had a great day. Hope to meet you at some point..maybe I'll call in sick on a tuesday!!
Cheers
Kathie

Anonymous said...

Had a great time with the avid knitters. Met up with the S&B group in Rosanna on Tues. Got 5cms
of a scarf started. See you next Tues.
Cheers
Walking Friend!!!