My first time exhibiting at a yarn show – what an experience!
In the various jobs I’ve had over the years I’ve had plenty of practice both organising exhibitions and being an exhibitor too, and I was mighty glad of that last weekend…
Kraftykoala and I left in good time on the Friday. However the M6 was not kind to us to begin with; a 90 minute journey took 4 hours… but on the upside I finished my Liesl at last (fabulous pattern, I just don’t have much time for knitting!) I’m knitting it in the Artesano Aran from my shop; well it was a great price 
After getting on the M5 we found that wasn’t in a much better mood and the remaining 2 hour journey took almost another 4 so we arrived at Coldharbour Mill at about half seven in the evening, the light was fading, we hadn’t found our B&B and we had a van to unpack and a stand to set up.
Kraftykoala is a dab hand at this now and had her side of our shared space sorted with ease and efficiency.
I was soon reduced to staring uselessly at the mountain of yarn and 2 small and groaning tables I’d brought with me… Well by half nine we couldn’t see much and the lovely organisers (John Arbon & co) were closing for the night so we headed off to our B&B to contemplate and plait Krafty’s roving.
In the morning we could see what a beautiful place we’d chosen to stay:
The room was freshly and thoughtfully decorated and the bathroom stunning! Veronica and Bill at the Barleycorn House B&B had waited up for us the night before and were up early providing tea and toast, cereals, juice, fruit and yoghurt, and making bacon sandwiches to take to the show with us – we neither of us wanted the full cooked breakfast.
The Laal Bear team (also staying with us) had the full cooked breakfast though!
Back at the show, we were very lucky to be joined by two angels in the form of Julie & Rachel who took charge of shoe-horning all my yarn and goodies onto the stand and generally taking care of us. (that’s Rachel trying to stay out of the shot below…)
This continued all weekend as they plyed us with food and water, sweet-talked our customers and looked after the stall whilst we took time out to drool over all the other beautiful stalls – ooh and the alpacas! I have a real soft spot for these characters AND I got to cuddle one!!
Saturday night was a real treat with all 6 of us (and Meg the dog) from our knitting group snuggled in our B&B lounge with wine and dvd’s, having enjoyed a chippy tea in a pretty Devon village; we sang and knitted the evening away in a very contented manner. There is a YouTube video of us singing but I’m not linking that here…!
Fibrefest was a great show all in all and we came home exhausted and happy and with less yarn than we went with – a successful weekend!
(although my camera wasn’t too happy about the lack of daylight and I’m going to upgrade it very soon so that my piccies can be even better).
