Captain Poprocks visits the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair 2015

Hello everyone! 

This is going to be a post high in photos but low on text, as I am quite tired after our excursion this morning to the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair! You can click on any of the photos to enlarge :) Apologies in advance for some odd angles; I was in the wheelchair today and manoeuvring around was quite difficult! 

The venue was lovely - the relatively new Sydney Exhibition Centre at Glebe Island. 

We tried out the knitting machine with the Machine Knitters Guild...

And saw some gorgeous embroidery at the Embroidery Guild...

And made some friends at the Doll Maker's Guild!

There were huge displays from the big sewing machine companies.

And we got to have a play with a free quilting machine.

I particularly wanted to see the 50 Years of Flower Power display put together by Prudence Mapstone. You can read all about the project on Prudence's project blog! I recognised quite a few names on the list of contributors, and was very excited to see one of Zooty Owl's Starflower Mandalas :) 

Next stop was the quilt exhibition. Wow. WOW! 

I really loved the signs around the exhibition asking us not to touch the quilts or eat/drink around them. They could have just put shouty signs up, but instead they were beautifully pieced, embroidered and quilted. This one was my favourite! 

Overall we had such a good time - in 3.5 hours we saw barely a third of what was on display! I absolutely recommend going to have a look if you're in Sydney this weekend :) 

Yarn Wonderland! - International Trade Fair for Handcrafts and Hobbies

Hello!

My week wasn't quite as exciting as Michelle's (she talked about her winning at the Royal Easter Show here) but still pretty good! 

Yesterday, I jumped into a train to Cologne (about 1 1/2 hours away from here) to go to the h & h. The h & h is the International Trade Fair for Handcrafts and Hobbies. According to the webpage it is "the central meeting place for the entire handcraft industry" and it most certainly was!

I went there with the lovely Sandra from TussiTempel (go check out her shop! She makes stunning beanies!!!). We only knew each other from Facebook before but boy, we had a splendid time! She is just as crazy as I am about soft, wonderful and colourful yarn! I can tell you ... there was a lot of squealing and giggling involved! Thank you Sandra for the wonderful time!!

There were over 400 exhibitors and I think we saw most of the yarn stalls. There were heaps of them and I got to know new yarn brands and little individual makers. I wish I could tell you about all  of them but then this post would get epically long... So just some insights!

Rosy Green Yarns. Oh my! I think I am in love! So soft and such great colours!! I have far too many projects on my hand right now but I am a 100 % sure I will order yarn from them sometime this year. All of their yarns are organic. Unfortunately I didn't take pics of their stall. I think I was drooling too much to remember...

I got to see (and touch) the new Stylecraft Special DK colors! Are you jealous?! I really like the new colors and they fit well into the range! Also I got to see their Alpaca Tweed Yarn. Wow! I see beanies coming in the future...! I got to talk to the ladies at the stall and showed them Michelle's award winning blanket. Wish I could have stayed longer (touching the yarn... they must have tought I was crazy...).

There is so much more to tell but for now I'll let you enjoy the pictures!!

Take care

Anne